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John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

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Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#291
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well purchasing an NFT doesn't really reallocate any resources that would have gone to those things, so I don't think it's a huge issue. They are just transferring money from one person to another, essentially.

> They are just transferring money from one person to another, essentially. That's what "reallocating resources" usually means.

I said they are not reallocating resources which would have gone towards those things. Unless the person buying the NFT has a greater chance of spending it on the poor than the person selling it, nothing has really changed as far as our spending on health, housing etc. goes.

All money does is decide how we allocate physical resources and labour. If it is just sitting in a bank, or being moved from one person to another, nothing is being taken away from the poor.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#292
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the natural extension of luxury branding where just having LV would raise the price from $100 to $1,000. So may as well strip away all vestiges of reality and just allow the bullshit signaling part to be sold by itself. Perhaps with people focusing on that, we can get more quality products IRL. I went to an eye exam where the optometrist was wearing arcteryx gear during my exam. Perhaps she was going to jet off…

> optometrist was wearing arcteryx gear during my exam Arcteryx pieces feel great on, the same way avocados taste great in your mouth. And just like you'd likely be misleading people by using an avocado as an example of the average fruit, you are misleading people by using Arcteryx to stand in for technical outdoorwear. Hell, that holds even if your optometrist was wearing a fucking rain shell in the office. Compare:…

I hear you, I’m a big fan. But arcteryx isn’t just something that feels good. It’s good technical gear that feels good.

The more optometrists who wear it because it feels good, the sooner it sucks being technical because optometrists don’t care if it fails because they aren’t 200 miles from another version.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#293
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People doubting that a thing is actually art at all seems to be a fairly consistent marker of something being good art. It's fresh, it's pushing boundaries, it's making people think and wonder, it's generating snark and discussion. If readymades are art, if a blank canvas is art, then art is just a scam! Not sure if it will stand the test of time though (I mean technically in terms of the artifacts persisting, and co…

> People doubting that a thing is actually art at all seems to be a fairly consistent marker of something being good art. Survivorship bias. The successes are highly visible, and we never hear of the failures. > If readymades are art, if a blank canvas is art, then art is just a scam! Ceci n'est pas une pipe. All art is a kind of deception.

The success is part of the art. A highschool kid scribbling "this is not a pipe" next to a pipe in his notebook is not the same as an accomplished artist convincing a gallery to feature it in an exhibition.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#295
post #293
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People doubting that a thing is actually art at all seems to be a fairly consistent marker of something being good art. Survivorship bias. The successes are highly visible, and we never hear of the failures. > If readymades are art, if a blank canvas is art, then art is just a scam! Ceci n'est pas une pipe. All art is a kind of deception.

The success is part of the art. A highschool kid scribbling "this is not a pipe" next to a pipe in his notebook is not the same as an accomplished artist convincing a gallery to feature it in an exhibition.

> The success is part of the art

Not necessarily. Creators who toil in obscurity during life but receive posthumous recognition do happen.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#296
post #104

The original conceptual framework for NFT-like instruments is Nick Szabo's "Secure Property Titles with Owner Authority": https://nakamotoinstitute.org/secure-property-titles/ At the very end he says: > Largely unaddressed above is the problem of divergence between actual conditions and directory rights. [...] When divergence becomes too great, a solution to address the unreality of the title registry is needed. Almo…

This NFT is not "The Brooklyn Bridge", this NFT is "Remember when John Cleese sold the Brooklyn Bridge NFT". Do you think nobody wants the bragging rights of owning that? I certainly do, but not for $50k, which it already has.

This isn't really convincing. If NFTs are only valuable when celebrities sell them as part of a fad, then they have absolutely failed to meet the "correspondence to ground" point.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#297

There are children going hungry at school, people with trivial to fix but prohibitively expensive medical issues, and silicon valley millionaires are spending more than many will make in a year by purchasing bullshit. Shit's on fire, yo.

Rich people have always spent lots of money on bullshit. That's nothing new.

Similar effects of a Veblen good

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Leaving aside the carbon emissions - let's assume everyone finally switches to Proof of Stake) I don't know how you get to defend something when you're sidestepping the biggest problem with NFTs. I'm fine with stupid and pointless things as long as your stupid and pointless things don't wreck the environment. If someone decides to poison the local water supply because it's an "art project" they still poisoned the…

Well - Proof of Stake NFTs are already here: https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/ So all I'm doing is hoping everyone uses these instead.

Are we assuming that no energy will be used to acquire coins in order to stake?

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#299
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm fine with stupid and pointless things as long as your stupid and pointless things don't wreck the environment. I hang up decorative lights around Christmas time. Is that not okay with you, or do you not find it pointless?

If your Christmas lights used the same amount of electricity as the whole town? Maybe. Thankfully we have an amazing new technology called Light Emitting Diodes so we don't have to worry about that theoretical problem.

LEDs still use electricity. Are you in charge of setting the limit on how much use is acceptable?

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose one can “brag” about most anything. Seems to me, though, that a brag about “owning” an arbitrary sequence of bytes is pretty damn empty. Overcome a challenge that presses your personal limitations? Worthy of a brag: you took up the task, persevered, and conquered. Open your wallet to purchase something? I just don’t see that there’s any legitimate boasting to be had there: any damn fool with the same money…

> Open your wallet to purchase something? I just don’t see that there’s any legitimate boasting to be had there: any damn fool with the same money could do it. The item isn’t the brag. The purchase is. People don’t buy Rolxes because because it doesn’t anything radically different than a $50 watch. They buy it because it tells people they have money. That’s what art is. That’s what NFT is.

> That’s what NFT is.

Yeah, but who gives a shit whether it's centralized or not?

If some intrepid reporter figured out that NFT has a backdoor that means it is being controlled as a-- god forbid-- centralized service, what bad thing happens to the dipshit who paid a million dollars for Rick and Morty digital art?

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