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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

seths.blog

221–230 of 786 posts

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#221

NFTs make perfect sense for representing a claim on things that can be used, like event tickets or in-game virtual goods. But as certificates layered on top of collectibles... I'm not so sure. With something like CryptoKitties, you can do something with the tokens (play a virtual pet game). But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since an…

> But with something like CryptoPunks you're essentially paying for digital beanie babies, which are worse than real ones since anyone can display and enjoy the image you paid for.

It seems like the obvious counterpoint is that perhaps all of these “collectible” scarce physical things which are bought and sold for huge amounts of money (art, coins, relics, etc.) are in fact being used simply as a way to identify a unique “token” that is good for generating hype among a group of people and exchanging value among that group because it has a story attached to it and isn’t easily counterfeitable. It’s pretty obvious that a decent reproduction of most of these things would deliver the raw surface aesthetic experience to the vast majority of interested people and would cost much less. For many famous paintings it’s easy to understand why someone would want a reproduction in their house for decoration. It’s less obvious to me why someone would want a reproduction of an old coin with a minting flaw, but perhaps that’s just me.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#222
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called "Demand Response" and it's an important part of grid management. For example a factory will agree to decrease consumption when asked in exchange for lower rates. Too much power is usually handled in the generation side by incentivize producers to scale back generation or even paying to have them take a plant offline. For a bitcoin mining operation, I suspect it would not be profitable to have all that…

Another way to change this : Could crypto not make useful calculations instead of useless calculations? Like protein folding for example?

Like Folding@home? No crypto needed.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#223

I’m curious as to how NFTs will compare to a sales contract from a legal point of view. E.g. if say an artist sells the rights to a digital artwork via both an NFT and via a normal sales contract. Both buyers claim ownership to the artwork and end up in court. Who wins? And what implications will a legal presedence have for the vaule of NFTs one way or the other?

If the artist sells the same exclusive right to two people, he's committing fraud and could do that without NFTs.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#224
post #42

NFTs aren’t much different than merchandise artists and musicians sell. Tshirts, buttons, plastic figurines, stickers, etc. The environmental critique rings hollow. Our economy revolves around this unnecessary consumerism. Why single out NFTs? Seems like sour grapes to me.

> The environmental critique rings hollow. Our economy revolves around this unnecessary consumerism It is only proof of work which needs to be more wasteful the more efficient things become. If it turns out t-shirts are polluting massively, and someone finds out that by replacing one chemical with another they pollute much less, then people will do that. If a more efficient machine comes out for making a t-shirt, t-s…

Wasting electricity may share a good feature with wasting water or wasting internet bandwidth. It's troublesome in the short term but it leads to increased capacity being made to meet demand which benefits everyone in the longer term.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#225

Short term view NFTs look like a scam or a joke. Long term view we will need digital ownership especially when it comes to content or individual data/items. When the augmented reality spectacle takes over and everyone is looking through AR glasses, rather than through a small device but through their own eyes, digital collectibles will have more value. Shared spaces with others will have collectibles that only exist…

Why are we introducing scarcity to digital goods? That's not a good thing and shouldn't be praised! We rail against companies selling cosmetic additions to games. It doesn't add value. We already have "ownership". The legal framework of copyrights, purchase or goods, and licenses. NFTs are barcodes. People are selling cryptographic barcodes.

I fully agree. I hadn't heard of these NFTs before, but sounds like a dystopia to me, a perversion of the underpinnings of the digital world.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#226
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is called "Demand Response" and it's an important part of grid management. For example a factory will agree to decrease consumption when asked in exchange for lower rates. Too much power is usually handled in the generation side by incentivize producers to scale back generation or even paying to have them take a plant offline. For a bitcoin mining operation, I suspect it would not be profitable to have all that…

Another way to change this : Could crypto not make useful calculations instead of useless calculations? Like protein folding for example?

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/20879/why-cant-w...

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#227

I’m curious as to how NFTs will compare to a sales contract from a legal point of view. E.g. if say an artist sells the rights to a digital artwork via both an NFT and via a normal sales contract. Both buyers claim ownership to the artwork and end up in court. Who wins? And what implications will a legal presedence have for the vaule of NFTs one way or the other?

Why would owning the NFT give you any rights over the goods? If I've understood correctly, you just own a token. It has no inherent value by itself anf you basically own a link to something.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#228
Key quote for me:

> The trap, then, is that creators can get hooked on creating these. Buyers with a sunk cost get hooked on making the prices go up, unable to walk away. And so creators and buyers are then hooked in a cycle, with all of us up paying the lifetime of costs associated with an unregulated system that consumes vast amounts of precious energy for no other purpose than to create some scarce digital tokens.

Tangentially, this resembled me of troubled financial markets (minus energy expenditure). Companies are hooked on making their stock go up, even if it requires distorting reality to hide fundamental problems. Like creators who become more about NFTs and their value than art, companies become more concerned with inflating valuations than actual business. Stock buyers are hooked on making stocks go up, not selling even if fundamental indicators are suffering to the point where viability of the business should be in question. Banks are hooked on making stocks go up… A vicious circle all around.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#229

Short term view NFTs look like a scam or a joke. Long term view we will need digital ownership especially when it comes to content or individual data/items. When the augmented reality spectacle takes over and everyone is looking through AR glasses, rather than through a small device but through their own eyes, digital collectibles will have more value. Shared spaces with others will have collectibles that only exist…

Why are we introducing scarcity to digital goods? That's not a good thing and shouldn't be praised! We rail against companies selling cosmetic additions to games. It doesn't add value. We already have "ownership". The legal framework of copyrights, purchase or goods, and licenses. NFTs are barcodes. People are selling cryptographic barcodes.

Here's my Mr. Brightside view of it, there is a Black Mirror-esque side as well as some humans build towards utopias and some build toward dystopias. I look at the quality of life and good side of things where I can.

I agree with most of what you are saying but that is based on the current era. Created scarcity and exclusives are annoying but there are pros and cons. Putting value to something will create markets and digital markets you can take your stuff with you.

When we get to more augmented spaces it will change the world dramatically. There will have to be some sort of digital ownership that is transferrable preferably a standard outside walled platforms. For instance artists or entertainment events that are unique are collectible.

Uniqueness creates value, value creation makes markets, this would create massive amounts of jobs and quality of life/livelihood if done right. Already it is spawning some amazing art and assets. It is in a pump/bubble but new things always come out hot, rework, then in the end the best parts do live on and the initial bubble might have even been undervalued, like the internet, or mobile. The augmented space will have all sorts of network effects like that.

It is in the very early stages, like a sketch of a storyboard early on in pre-production, everything early on in a way sucks, but we do know that over time the world will be more augmented and in that space digital ownership and uniqueness will be a thing.

The market is there now for collectibles and stores of value and it will only grow.

Take for instance you participate in a launch AR game for a launch event that takes place in your own environment with others locally or virtually, where you are in maybe a Stranger Things Upside Down world and you have to kill Demogorgons. The winner gets to keep the Demogorgon from that event. That item has value, you can buy a regular copy of one, but the original may be worth value over time. Do that same thing with any Star Wars, Marvel or other property, you start to see people will want those.

Or let's say you go to a concert and an event gets a recording from a musician that you get to keep and show others who are sharing your augmented space but you own it. You own the unique view or access, but others can get copies of other parts.

Or you watch a piece of digital art be created and the piece is sold and traded.

Like right now if I got to buy some sort of collectible from the first Half-life that was unique and part of it was my house or a yard can be turned into a level like datacore or stalkyard and I could have friends play it with a unique character added in from the Half-life launch it would be pretty awesome. There can be copies, but to have the one specified by the creator has some value and some uniqueness that creates that value.

Collectors love this type of stuff. Think of it like comicbooks, baseball cards, movie poster one sheets and unique characters. The fact that a collectible has value makes it more fun in a way but also creates value that can employ people and make a digital market. Markets like this will help keep people happy and doing things. The more people in the digital market the more jobs and resources out there. There is value in creating a marketplace that people can participate in that doesn't require physical assets/resources or even location. It could be used to help inequality and create economic markets. Economics can solve lots of problems but also require resources, if the resource problem is solved then it can be very beneficial.

These were just game/entertainment examples but you get the idea.

The coming eras of augmented reality and shared spaces on that will probably refine this idea more and more.

The far end of this is like some of the tech in Blade Runner 2049, unique landscapes, augmented bots that are friends/assistants that learn, companions like virtual pets, and other valuables that gain unique knowledge that cannot be replicated because it learned from your experience/event, but that is way in the future.

Re: NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap

#230

Short term view NFTs look like a scam or a joke. Long term view we will need digital ownership especially when it comes to content or individual data/items. When the augmented reality spectacle takes over and everyone is looking through AR glasses, rather than through a small device but through their own eyes, digital collectibles will have more value. Shared spaces with others will have collectibles that only exist…

Why are we introducing scarcity to digital goods? That's not a good thing and shouldn't be praised! We rail against companies selling cosmetic additions to games. It doesn't add value. We already have "ownership". The legal framework of copyrights, purchase or goods, and licenses. NFTs are barcodes. People are selling cryptographic barcodes.

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