I, Pencil: The Movie

I wasn't sure where to post this, but this seemed like the best spot because this is a very informative and educational animated video which really gets your brain thinking. It's only 6 and a half minutes long so it wont take up much your time. There are a lot of different lessons to get out of this video, so I wont express my opinion just yet. I'll let you guys watch it first and see what lessons you can pull from it.

Hi CO, thanks for posting -

At first I thought the vid might by a sequel to I, Pet Goat ...
Nonetheless, an interesting clip, displaying the intricacies of globalization. Since I have not yet looked too much into this Foundation for Economic Education... It does come across championing the phenomenon of globalization.

- It displays the enormous expenditure of resources in order to produce the simple products we consume in a globalized economy...

I guess my question (and I do believe I know the answer) is: Is this really the best way of running a civilization?

reply to post by PadawanGandalf

- It displays the enormous expenditure of resources in order to produce the simple products we consume in a globalized economy...

Well everything we produce requires some expenditure of resources. I think you're overlooking the more important point in the video. They could have shown a similar process of a pencil which is only manufactured in one country, but all the resources are never going to be in exactly one spot, we need to cooperate and organize our activity over large areas; people mine for metal ores in one place, other people harvest wood in another place, the workers harvesting and mining those resources are fed and fueled by people in another place, and so on and on forth.

If you want to consider "globalization" as the simple exporting and importing of goods, then globalization has been going on for hundreds of years. Of course in terms of business, globalization is essentially just the exporting and importing of goods. When you understand it like that there is no negative connotation to the word. The point is, we can achieve amazing things when we stop focusing on our differences, and we work together as intelligent human beings for a common goal. And more importantly, there are some things which can only be done when we work together.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


Well, sure... I'll admit that I write with a bias when considering the mechanisms of the g-word... I tend to focus on the perversions of something that is supposed to be natural.
I'm just trying to figure out the bias involved in making the clip.

One theme I'll take as a positive is the depiction of spontaneous order (you might associate with that ). The path of least resistance is the path taken. I believe (and hope) that the current global economic model is coming to a breaking point, and coupled with promising technologies and a new "consciousness" (at lack of a better word) , economic structures might come into a more harmonious state of dynamic equilibrium between the local and global.

As a citizen of a resource rich, capital poor country, I hate seeing our collective resources extracted, shipped off to China, to be processed into flimsy products, to be shipped back, used and broken to end up on the landfill. That is not efficient - well, very efficient would the human species's ultimate goal be to destroy the planet.

reply to post by PadawanGandalf

As a citizen of a resource rich, capital poor country, I hate seeing our collective resources extracted, shipped off to China, to be processed into flimsy products, to be shipped back, used and broken to end up on the landfill. That is not efficient - well, very efficient would the human species's ultimate goal be to destroy the planet.

I can see exactly what you are getting at, and you're right, many of the systems we have in place right now are highly inefficient and very wasteful. However I don't really think that's an issue the video was trying to address. Some times it is more efficient to create a pencil using resources manufactured from all over the world. It really just depends on the product. The point of the clip really has nothing to do with the environmental aspects of our activity, but what we can achieve when we organize our activity towards common goals.

A pencil is just one of the most simple examples... it looks simple but in fact it's a very complex object which nobody can create by themselves. This world is full of amazing things of vast complexity because we learn to direct our creativity towards common goals and we put our energy into achieving those complex goals. Something no other animal on Earth can do, and the result is often beautiful and elegant. Whether it's us working together on a global scale or a local scale, the core lesson is the same.

We are all connected, and we all have something essential to add. That's what I got.

Cool video, thank!

I like this, an instrument by which one can prove their achievements in learning is a noble instrument indeed... (not) sadly, the graphite writing utensil is becoming outdated. I miss doing multiplication tables in pencil in order to understand the intricacies of numbers, makes mcLauren and Taylor series summing towards infinity a synch.... also, the narrator's noise gate is kind of spotty... surely the authors could forsake the few extra mins of DAW work required to 'smooth out' those rough edges of noise around the narrator's parts... still kewl tho


Also, how do I delete posts? I'm new here... T_T

Watching youtube eats up my internet quickly, but I watched it anyways. That was really amazing. For me that is. The world is way too complex for anyone to fully grasp. It's like trying to think about how big the universe is. There is so much that goes in to little things. Humans are pretty #ing retarded, but pretty #ing amazing at the same time. Great video. Thanks for sharing.

The video claims that the pencil is the end result of the voluntary cooperation of millions of people. This couldn't be further from the truth. The people who are down in the mines pulling the metals out are not doing so voluntarily (at least, not if they're sane). They're doing it because they can't survive without participating in the wage-slavery system. The only way they can attain the resources necessary for their own survival is to procure the required medium of exchange--currency. If people were truly free to do as they please, to follow their hearts, would anyone choose to spend their life in a hole in the ground? I think not.

But other than the attempt to present the whole pencil-making process as a wonder of libertarian voluntary association, I thought it was a good video. S&F.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


This seems like propaganda for collectivism (a one world)...

It leaves out the most important thing.

It is not about "co-operation" ...

It is about being YOURSELF, and when you are yourself, what you provide for the world is coming from who you truly ARE, so your heart is in it. There is more passion.

It is not being forced to work a 9 to 5 job in a factory because you couldn't get another job. It is people that actually WANT to be there, doing their work with much effort, joy, and passion.

The real problem is not greed, the problem is that we are trained to go after the "popular" jobs such as "doctor" , "teacher", "actor", so we don't see the fun side of the simple jobs...