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A short thread on dematerialising the economy. In the late 1980s, I lugged a camera that looked like this on every trip. We don't need to talk about the fact that the flash and film had to be carried separately, and each photo had to be developed with nasty chemicals. Look at it! 
I just tore down an old smart-phone for fun. Well, it got caught in the mechanism of the sofa-bed and snapped in half, so why not. My kids were fascinated. This is the camera.
Most of the time it takes better photos than my 1980s SLR - certainly in a more convenient format - I can send them to my mum from a mountain hut at 3000m. I'm guessing it weighs 1/1000th as much as the SLR. The flash is the size of a small lentil.
Now, I know that some will claim that the benefits of moving from ghastly heavy SLR cameras to mobile phones were entirely absorbed by rebound effects by some inexorable law of nature. That's bollox. I don't own 1000 camera-phones in place of my SLR.
And I know that @MazzucatoM would claim that this incredible miniaturisation of cameras is a triumph of central planning & state investment. More bollox. It's a result of modest government R&D, well-regulated markets, and millions of hours of work by folk in for-profit companies.
And yes, the mobile phone needs to be charged, and that requires power to be generated, and its life needs to be extended, and its components need to be recycled or reused. But the same innovation that reduced the camera size by 1000 is now working on exactly those challenges.
And yes, I know about Coltan and cobalt, the human rights abuses among miners in the DRC. They horrifying me and must be robustly addressed - as must abuses in the garment, sex trade or any other industry. BTW most people highlighting them have no prior concern for human rights.
So, in summary I, I don't have to lug a kilo of camera hardware with me on holiday, creating a lake of polluting chemicals at every snap. Billions of people can make and share memories as never before in history. Oh, I nearly forgot! We can all take videos! And share them.
And all this for an environmental footprint which is a minuscule fraction of what it would have been 35 years ago. And what amazes me is that instead of being hopeful, some people will choose to interpret this sort of progress as a harbinger of doom. Kids, don't be like them!
Two postscripts: 1) All measures of inflation are bollox. They don't account for the vast improvement in products/service. 2) All measures of inequality are bollox. They don't account for the fact that rich and poor enjoy the same digital services, which deliver increasing value.
