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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

#321

Post by echelon »

Talanes wrote: post #317
echelon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who can make a 50's era baseball card? Who can make an NFT? NFTs are Beanie Babies, but instead of a limited edition toy, you get a barcode. Anyone can make them for anything, so there's no scarcity. They're pogs you can't play with. And just like pogs, when Pizza Hut and Lunchables started making pogs, it was over. Pizza Hut and Lunchables NFTs are coming. I'm going to go sell an NFT of Jack Dorsey's fist Twitter po…

> Who can make a 50's era baseball card? Any decently print operation? The MLB would come after them if they tried to sell them, of course, but it's not like pictures on cardstock is a tougher technology to recreate than NFT. Both are only worth something because of their provenance, ease of manufacturing is irrelevant.

You're not going to be able to sell a forged baseball card at Christie's. You can't prove its provenance, and it wouldn't hold up under scrutiny.

NFTs aren't scarce. Anyone can make them for anything. I can sell you the couch I'm sitting on as an NFT.

If I own a Picasso, I could burn it, have my tigers urinate on it, or make sure no other human ever sees it again. I can do whatever I want. What exactly can I do with Jack Dorsey's first tweet? Get him to delete it? Change it into an ad?

There's no legal framework behind NFTs. Ownership is meaningless. If you bought my couch as an NFT, good luck coming to get it.

Also, when the cryptography behind NFTs is broken (and it will be!), what happens to the ownership? If the chain switches algorithms, not everyone will update their keys. After breaking the old scheme, ownership will instantly be impossible to prove.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#322

Post by cs702 »

skybrian wrote: post #78

If you're looking for a discount, you could get this one instead: https://opensea.io/assets/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c2484200...

The name of the artist is "gcp-nyc", which is evidently a reference to George C. Parker, the only con artist who has successfully "sold" the Brooklyn Bridge to date: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Parker

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#323

Post by solveit »

wernercd wrote: post #307
Invictus0 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real change can only happen if the poor (people earning less than $1M per year) unite against the rich. Instead, the poor are hopelessly divided and fight pointless culture battles, like the main/master debate.

> poor (less than 1m) the top 10% globally is 30k... which is low income for Americans. Americans bitching about the 1% is laughable.

Ironically, America basically shows how the 1% can maintain control of the global hegemony for decades without any effective resistance. The fact that this system of oppression is fractally recursive adds to the irony.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#324

Post by solveit »

chrisco255 wrote: post #308
davesque wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, like automobiles and cell phones before they were good or cheap.

Like ludicrously expensive mechanical watches after they got good, cheap, and obsolete (in that order).

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#325

Post by Igelau »

freeone3000 wrote: post #312
Igelau wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't buy a jpeg, you buy the unique item that John Cleese sold. A NFT is not an item. > Same for movie props. You can buy a nice lightsaber below $200. The ones that were used in the movies... a bit more. Those are things. There is no correlation. NFT is selling you a pointer. It's a hash that on one software platform says "that thing over there". When Bob buys a NFT, he isn't buying a lightsaber that he can d…

Right, but in this case, you're buying a number provably owned by John Cleese, as part of a performance piece where he sold a token representing the Brooklyn Bridge, as a commentary on the entire concept of selling numbers. It's meta, it's brilliant, it's popular, (it's absolutely going to devalue the other Brooklyn Bridge NFT I own because mine was minted first but this one's more popular), it's ART.

That's a good point, and I think you're right for this one instance. It's an exceptional case and the artistic statement literally can't be made without NFT. He's telling a joke and the fact that someone will buy the NFT is itself the punchline.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#326

Post by solveit »

krupan wrote: post #302
kvz wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum is switching over to proof of stake this year which will pretty much solve the environmental issue

You seem to assume that very little energy will be spent to acquire coins for staking. If there is real interest in ether and stiff competition to stake (and there better be for proof of stake to work), I'm afraid that won't be the case.

At that point that's just energy spent on acquiring money though.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#327

Post by Igelau »

Talanes wrote: post #313
Igelau wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't buy a jpeg, you buy the unique item that John Cleese sold. A NFT is not an item. > Same for movie props. You can buy a nice lightsaber below $200. The ones that were used in the movies... a bit more. Those are things. There is no correlation. NFT is selling you a pointer. It's a hash that on one software platform says "that thing over there". When Bob buys a NFT, he isn't buying a lightsaber that he can d…

If Bob buys a movie prop lightsaber for $10,000 and a fully quality replica costs $200, then Bob has only bought $200 worth of something he can display, loan out, or hold. The remainder of the price is made up of the intangible connection to the film and artists.

I see what you're saying that the authenticity and the connection have some value. That value is intrinsic to the object itself though. NFT is asking us to pretend that that "intangible connection" can be parceled out for speculators as collectible magic numbers while the real lightsaber hopefully sits in Lucasfilm's warehouse.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#328

Post by klyrs »

drcode wrote: post #261
dleslie wrote: post #244

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.

NFTs are a mechanism for transferring money from rich people to artists who are not rich. Isn't this something you should support, given your stated beliefs?

Are they? I'm not familiar with John Cleese's finances, but his well-established fame is probably driving prices up

Not to mention that Jack guy who NFT'd his first tweet. Pretty sure he isn't hurting for cash

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#329

Post by str33t_punk »

jamiek88 wrote: post #252
dleslie wrote: post #244

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.

> Shit's on fire, yo. Let them eat cake. Can anyone else hear the guillotines being sharpened? Seriously though this obscene inequality can only lead one place, and we were lucky that they were morons on January 6th and not organized properly. Ironically the revolution will be stoked by those first up against the wall in the name of engagement . It won’t be televised but it will be on Instagram.

jesus calm down

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#330

Post by sellyme »

barry-cotter wrote: post #216
pmlnr wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think nobody wants the bragging rights of owning that? It would be nice to believe that eventually we evolve beyond bragging about being an idiot. > I certainly do ...

> Maybe NFTs will not endure, which is a risk for anyone playing a pioneering role in a new genre. That is why the price was not $200 million or more. In any case, this is a world in which Marcel Duchamp’s urinal sculpture still is exhibited in major museums, regarded by many critics as a masterpiece of the 20th century, and it sold at auction for $1.6 million in 2002. Canvases painted a single color, and other forms…

> Canvases painted a single color, and other forms of abstract and conceptual art, remain a major part of recent art history and can sell for tens of millions.

I don't think anyone's under the impression that people paying lots of money for extremely stupid things is a recent phenomenon. I deride those buying single-colour canvasses for 8 figure price tags just the same as I deride anyone buying into the litany of crypto pyramid schemes.

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