131–140 of 278 posts
I have this really thin digital watch in my pocket that lasts multiple days and is more accurate than any mechanical watch. Also it does loads of other stuff. But it doesn't cost $1.8 million so it's not great for money laundering purposes.
Most explanations for widespread behaviors are mundane, not malicious.
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They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead an…
For sure, charities would be a much better use of the money involved... but on the other hand couldn't you say the same about art in general? I think what makes it different is the conspicuousness of these watches when they become a way to advertise wealth and status. But I like that artists/engineers can make a living by putting their time into producing such marvellous things. The world is richer for them.
I would say that mass-produced art should be pretty cheap, and these are mass-produced.
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For sure, charities would be a much better use of the money involved... but on the other hand couldn't you say the same about art in general? I think what makes it different is the conspicuousness of these watches when they become a way to advertise wealth and status. But I like that artists/engineers can make a living by putting their time into producing such marvellous things. The world is richer for them.
> on the other hand couldn't you say the same about art in general? I would say that mass-produced art should be pretty cheap, and these are mass-produced.
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as I always say about watches, they are socially accepted forms of men's jewelry. after advent of smartphones they are hardly about time anyways. its mostly style & flex. That too in a in-group because most people including many jewelers cant tell difference between and original and a replica for some common mid-high end watches like rolex submariner. I am actually fine with these 'vanity jewels' for high end buyers…
> watches, they are socially accepted forms of men's jewelry. after advent of smartphones they are hardly about time anyways. its mostly style & flex. As a daily wear of a “dumb watch“ I somewhat agree with this statement. Having a watch that matches my shoes and belt certainly makes an outfit look both more professional and well coordinated (RE jewelry/style). However, I find that when I don’t wear my watch and just…
I have had a minor hack for WFH for last 2 year. Just to feel a bit of formalism I rotate through my watches every day of the week. also its a good vanity decision at the start of the day.
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> Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time ... and that's my cue to pimp one of the most practical watch of all time - Casio Oceanus, the 100 series. * Analog watch face. * Quartz, radio auto-sync, solar-powered. * Sapphire glass, titanium body and bracelet. Waterproof. * Clean design. Under $500. https://www.google.com/search?q=OCW-S100-1AJF&tbm=isch
Practical watches are ones where it's clear at a glance which way up it goes and what the time is; they have numbers on them, preferably in a digital readout like 00:40. Watches without numbers are fashion watches. Watches with analogue faces are relics from when technology only let you decypher the time from rotating pointers. Rotating pointers where the numbers they point at have been removed are form over function…
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"The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite" This is precisely wrong. The rich do indeed owe society. They owe their wealth to the workers working for them. To the education system that educated their workers and made them productive, the roads that brought them to work and the health system that keeps them at work. This is obvious from the number of millionaires produced by healthy, educated, stable societies…
Ostensibly wealth is a settled debt.
William Gibson wrote a piece for Wired back in the day about his obsession with mechanical watches.[1] He puts it thus: ``` Mechanical watches are so brilliantly unnecessary. Any Swatch or Casio keeps better time, and high-end contemporary Swiss watches are priced like small cars. But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; t…
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The solution of giving away your money over buying something is some broken logic. Plenty of corrupt charity officials line their pockets and live it up on donations. The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite, hence the money. It represents an unpaid debt so you can’t turn around and ask for it back.
I can believe that some rich individuals are uniquely gifted in some way that makes them deserving of being richer than most of other people. I also think that the magnitude of this phenomenon is not proportional to how much richer they are, in practice. I share the sentiment that most of the wealth of billionaires is attributable to their workers, luck, and favorable environmental circumstances. Some marginal amount…
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Watches are about movement/storage of wealth and tax evasion. Like art, very high timepiece value is its ability to move money. They're Old Money Cryptocurrency. Bring $50,000 in cash on a plane to another country and you're a drug dealer/criminal, or at the very least, the tax inspectors want to talk to you. Bring a $50,000 watch on holiday or a business trip, and nobody blinks an eye. Your average customs/border/se…
So a watch serves as a proof of work, and a distributed ledger of watchsmiths can verify a watch for you, anonymously, for a small fee.