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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

#391

Post by roywiggins »

andybak wrote: post #192
roywiggins wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be as many NFTs for the same thing as anyone feels like producing. We could all mint a different Mona Lisa NFT.

Well yes. But anyone can make a reproduction of a Warhol print. But there is a chain of custody that adds value. I'd like to reiterate that I think the value in a Warhol print is also stupid. It's less stupid than NFTs but the point I'm trying to make (apparently unsuccesfully) is that these differences are matters of degree rather than type. We humans have a multitude of ways to invent value that is built on sand.

Can they? A proper reproduction would involve replicating Warhol's screen-printing process exactly. Probably easier than painting a replica Picasso, but... still pretty involved.

Minting an NFT is trivial, you can do it with the press of a button, at scale. You could mint an NFT for every single item in the Library of Congress with a for-loop, if you could pay the transaction fees.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#392

Post by dexterdog »

moistly wrote: post #357
dexterdog wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there is nothing unique about it.

Nor anything unique about a Rolex. Can’t see how a purchased watch qualifies for bragging. It takes no skill, no dedication, no smarts, no gumption to open one’s wallet to purchase a watch. The person who built the watch might have something to brag about.

A Rolex is an actual thing with a function and an intrinsic value. It can be copied, but only at a significant cost.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#393

Post by andybak »

roywiggins wrote: post #391
andybak wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes. But anyone can make a reproduction of a Warhol print. But there is a chain of custody that adds value. I'd like to reiterate that I think the value in a Warhol print is also stupid. It's less stupid than NFTs but the point I'm trying to make (apparently unsuccesfully) is that these differences are matters of degree rather than type. We humans have a multitude of ways to invent value that is built on sand.

Can they? A proper reproduction would involve replicating Warhol's screen-printing process exactly. Probably easier than painting a replica Picasso, but... still pretty involved. Minting an NFT is trivial, you can do it with the press of a button, at scale. You could mint an NFT for every single item in the Library of Congress with a for-loop, if you could pay the transaction fees.

OK but I doubt that Warhol's fame rests on his exceptional screen printing skills.

I get your point but I'm sure we could swap out another example that illustrates the point a little better.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#394

Post by quesera »

basch wrote: post #386
quesera wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical art is different. (hang with me here, but..) "Investing" in a Picasso is an investment in a long-term store of cultural value that you speculate will appreciate more quickly than the S&P. Probably because you bet that the 1% will see outsized gains compared to the 99%. Maybe you also like the art and want to be the only person in the world who can display it. Also it can be very useful as a tax dodge. "Inves…

Patronage is the worst counterpoint (if you meant it as one.) Buying an NFT from an artist you like is direct support.

"Patronage" is a word with a few different connotations.

I meant it in the simplest way, which simply means "support".

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#395

Post by throwaway53453 »

solveit wrote: post #323
wernercd wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Precisely because Americans lead comfortable lives.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#396

Post by predictmktegirl »

koonsolo wrote: post #111
schoen wrote: 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.

It's like you get to pay to be part of a joke with John Cleese. I think it's worth something too.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#397

Post by themeiguoren »

wrs wrote: post #27

Given there’s a $50k bid for this, I can’t decide if the joke backfired, or succeeded brilliantly. It’s a no-lose proposition for Cleese, I guess!

It hasn’t hit the reserve price, so I imagine that was set to something ludicrous and he never intends for this performance to actually be sold.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#398

Post by krupan »

solveit wrote: post #345
krupan wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that won't harm the environment, but bitcoin proof of work will?

It will harm the environment, but no less than the rest of our economy. There are two problems being conflated here. In basically all of society, people harm the environment in order to acquire resources. In proof of work, you go one step further and proceed to destroy the resources you just acquired. This is because destroying resources via reversing hashes is a costly signal that cannot be faked and is hence not su…

In both proof of work and proof of stake people are doing work (using energy) in order to obtain money.

In proof of work you work to obtain mining equipment and electricity and then use that to perform the work of securing the network (nothing is “destroyed”). You are then paid for doing that work. The more work you do relative to other miners, the more you will get paid.

In proof of stake you work to obtain eth (for example) which then grants you the privilege to run validators. The more you stake, the more validating you can do. You are paid money for successfully validating, and charged money for failing to validate. You will need to do more work to replenish money spent on unsuccessful validation. Ultimately, the more work you do relative to other stakers, the more you will get paid.

It’s going to be a little more difficult than it is for proof of work to measure how much total energy is used by proof of stake, but it still should be doable. Maybe it will be less than the energy used by proof of work, but maybe not.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#399

Post by Talanes »

echelon wrote: post #371
Talanes wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand your point. I can print trading cards for my cat. You can make NFTs for your couch. No one wants to buy either. But if the MLB or John Cleese are selling, the equation changes.

We're in the "determined moms are buying all the Beanie Babies in stock" phase. Next you have the copycats, people selling shovels, and uber drivers investing in it. Then comes the eternal stagnation. These are worth jack shit except to the temporary evangelicals buying the craze. They aren't rare, you have to explain it ("I wonder if anyone knows I own the NFT of this song"), and the crypto will be broken before the…

Okay, but moon certificates seem even MORE equivalent to baseball cards. I don't think you understand my objection, I completely agree that NFTS are inherently worthless: I just don't think that's an exceedingly unique property. They're baseball cards or beanie babies with a smaller storage footprint.

Re: John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT

#400

Post by Talanes »

Jetrel wrote: post #367
Talanes wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this NFT was specifically valued for the interaction of the sale of this NFT. Just like buying Dorsey's Tweet is. It's just pure commoditized interaction without a base good under it. I do agree that it's completely ridiculous, but I feel that way about the stock market.

The main (and dangerous) difference with the NFT stuff is that society doesn't agree any of this stuff is valuable. It's a bit like what happens when a conquering power comes in and existing land titles become meaningless. A good example of this was real estate moguls in prewar Japan, many of whom had spent centuries gradually accumulating land tenancy over tons of other people - but as soon as WW2 happened, one of t…

I'd assume part of the artistic statement being made here ties exactly to your point about land. It's ultimately just ALL certificates that are unconnected to possession of the physical space. The difference between owning the NFT and owning the bridge is a matter of scale; of how many people buy into the worth of your scrap of digital paper.
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