71–80 of 173 posts
Imagine making this same point about books: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_pe...
And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. [Ecclesiasties 12v12]Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s about cultural values. We don’t respect grunt work. We only respect art. Our society’s values do not align with our society’s needs. I’d like to see more praise and recognition of plumbers, builders, and, well, people that keep the wheels of society moving. Instead, everyone must go to college and be some artist or otherwise high society. Trade schools are looked down on. And it’s hurting us. As a game developer…
Fuck praise and recognition, you want more of this type of thing to be done? Pay them. Pay them more.
This is doubly true of careers in academia.
Conversely, it’s quite smart to be a plumber or builder in Seattle today monetarily.
We play down the role of cultural values in the choices people make.
Very good builders might not exist today because of the lack of social incentive to get them into the right place. They'll work towards making yet another crud app.
That is where universal basic income comes in place so everyone can work on the fun stuff they want to work on.
> This is a whole another blog post, so I'll paint with broad strokes for now. My city, Seattle, is crumbling. We don't have the energy to maintain the roads, and our bridges are literally falling apart. We can't even maintain what our grandparents built, let alone make any grand new projects. What in the world does this have to do with people creating art? Maybe the crumbling infrastructure is emblematic of poor lea…
> This is a whole another blog post, so I'll paint with broad strokes for now. My city, Seattle, is crumbling. We don't have the energy to maintain the roads, and our bridges are literally falling apart. We can't even maintain what our grandparents built, let alone make any grand new projects. What in the world does this have to do with people creating art? Maybe the crumbling infrastructure is emblematic of poor lea…
We certainly are allowed. And others are allowed to disagree with us, even harshly. Too often criticism is painted as being "shouted down". What we are not "allowed" to do is be sarcastic/snarky about it, which is, theoretically, good. That way lies political shitposting.
Let's say for the sake of argument that there is too much art out there, that we need less people writing novels and more people fixing potholes and whatnot - fine. How does the author propose deciding _who_ gets to make art? Even if you have an oracle who can assign some sort of quality number to an art project before it's made...how are people supposed to get better at it? It's going to take thousands of cruddy Uni…
I feel like the author makes it fairly clear: those with enough privilege. If the cost of living goes to zero, we'll have near-infinite art. If the cost of living goes to maximum we all starve to death.
At very least, I was very much in love with a free-living artist who inspired me greatly in my 20s. I moved to San Francisco to hangout with her and her amazingly cool and smart friends - living on couches and doing art. I felt like a sell-out that I couldn't make it in that world and got a "real job". I found out later that she had several million dollars to her name in her early 20s. I somehow had missed the implication of her text "stopping by my dads house in the Marina, be there in a minute".
When you find out that most free-living artists have financial backing - well, the rose-tinted glasses come off quick.
That said, props to any actually desperate-artists out there. I tend to think it's a bit of a mythic trope, but I'm sure some do exist.
I feel like his point is that we've put creators, of all forms of media, on such a high pedestal that we're neglecting the mundane things that keep life running smoothly. I guess it's a job/career version of "social media is making us all lonelier." Everyone wants to be a creator like everyone wants to be an influencer... Okay, sure, but why are we doing that? I feel like it's something more fundamental that's gone o…
Most artists work crushing hours in sweatshop conditions, or are constantly gigging on the razor's edge of subsistence, with what little value they produce going to expenses or middlemen. Then the internet decides everything they create should be free whether they like it or not. We value the companies that distribute art and put celebrities on a high pedestal, but that's a different thing than putting creators and artists themselves on a pedestal.
The reason no one is fixing potholes or bridges or whatever is the taxpayer doesn't want to pay for it. If the pothole isn't right in front of their driveway, or the bridge isn't on their commute, or their kid isn't going to that particular school, then people consider any taxes spent on it to be theft. We no longer have a society, we have millions of individuals that happen to share a landmass in common but little else.
If we take this line of thinking to the extreme we should all be eating soylent brand gruel and eating a couple vitamins and all our excess output should go into finding the cure to any and all diseases.
Odd to focus on games when Seattle is propped up by a tech industry with people being overpaid by hundreds of thousands to make useless apps and websites. Indie game devs are usually making things at home during their downtime. As far as I know, there’s no volunteer hobbyist bridge repair club, so they’re not really taking away from anything. Meanwhile you have companies that have an easily replaceable service like S…
That said, part of the reason you don’t see them is because of licensing and certifications. And people don’t want to be responsible for peoples lives for free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like an interesting theory. Who will be the ones that do the productive work that pays for UBI?
The robots. The concept of UBI is precipitated on the idea that the gains from technological innovation have been unequally distributed since the founding of the country. It has just been getting to the point where it is very evident to many people now. In fact Thomas Paine wrote: "To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as…