{"id":55890,"date":"2020-12-06T08:05:37","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T13:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55890"},"modified":"2020-12-06T08:05:37","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T13:05:37","slug":"on-fabric-aka-fossil-energy-is-indistinguishable-from-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55890","title":{"rendered":"On Fabric (aka Fossil Energy is Indistinguishable from\u00a0Magic)"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/un-denial.com\/2020\/11\/19\/on-fabric-aka-fossil-energy-is-indistinguishable-from-magic\/\">On Fabric (aka Fossil Energy is Indistinguishable from\u00a0Magic)<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>I recently purchased a 6 piece queen sheet set for my bed and marveled at how something so useful, and so difficult to make myself, could be so inexpensive, costing only $30, or about 2 hours of my labor at minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p>I did a little digging and found this video on how fabric was made before fossil energy:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qPOyH63eZeY?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-ratio=\"0.5630952380952381\" data-width=\"840\" data-height=\"473\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>And this video on how fabric is made today with fossil energy:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zuyGKTBmU1w?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-ratio=\"0.5630952380952381\" data-width=\"840\" data-height=\"473\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>A podcast I monitor serendipitously had an episode today on the history of fabric making.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.econtalk.org\/virginia-postrel-on-textiles-and-the-fabric-of-civilization\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.econtalk.org\/virginia-postrel-on-textiles-and-the-fabric-of-civilization\/<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default\"><p>Author and journalist\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/vpostrel.com\/\">Virginia Postrel<\/a>\u00a0talks about her book\u00a0<em>The Fabric of Civilization and How Textiles Made the World<\/em>\u00a0with EconTalk host\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/library\/About.html#roberts\">Russ Roberts<\/a>. Postrel tells the fascinating story behind the clothes we wear and everything that goes into producing them throughout history. The history of textiles, Postrel argues, is a good way of understanding the history of the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For those who prefer video:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Rq5Z_OlH_J4?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;fs=1&amp;hl=en&amp;autohide=2&amp;wmode=transparent\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-ratio=\"0.5630952380952381\" data-width=\"840\" data-height=\"473\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Postrel described the process required to make fabric products:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>get fiber\n<ul>\n<li>grow plants or breed sheep<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>harvest plants or sheer sheep<\/li>\n<li>clean fiber<\/li>\n<li>transport fiber to spinner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>spin fiber into thread\n<ul>\n<li>align fibers<\/li>\n<li>stretch and twist<\/li>\n<li>transport thread to weaver<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>weave fiber into fabric\n<ul>\n<li>set up warp threads<\/li>\n<li>pass weft thread through alternate warp threads<\/li>\n<li>cut and hem edges<\/li>\n<li>transport fabric to manufacturer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>manufacture final product\n<ul>\n<li>dye fabric<\/li>\n<li>cut fabric<\/li>\n<li>sew fabric<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>transport product to consumer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Postrel also provided some interesting data:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A single pair of jeans requires 10 Km of thread.\n<ul>\n<li>The fastest pre-fossil energy manual spinners in the world could produce 100m of thread per hour taking 13 x 8 hour days to produce enough thread for one pair of jeans.<\/li>\n<li>A modern fossil energy spinning plant can produce 10 Km of thread in a few seconds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<div id=\"jp-post-flair\" class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\">\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\">\n<div class=\"sd-content\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Fabric (aka Fossil Energy is Indistinguishable from\u00a0Magic) I recently purchased a 6 piece queen sheet set for my bed and marveled at how something so useful, and so difficult to make myself, could be so inexpensive, costing only $30, or about 2 hours of my labor at minimum wage. I did a little digging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30677,30678,328,30676],"class_list":["post-55890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-fabric","tag-fabric-production","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-undenial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55891,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55890\/revisions\/55891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}