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The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

johnhiggs.com

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Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#111

Post by ProjectArcturis »

phonescreen_man wrote: post #98
coldtea wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does that mean? I mean really mean? What does anything "really" mean? We are all going to die anyway. Keeping it in a less grand perspective, it means they made some people think and discuss the incident, debate the role of money and how we treat it, and made a fine punk gesture in the process... It might even spoke to some people that money is not some God we should workship, and that being irreverant and hav…

The KLF may of thought money had something to do with god or at least some version of god, given their deep interest and knowledge of the occult. All hail Eros

Eris, not Eros.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#112

Post by wpietri »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #71
msla wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. I hate this argument, because it's worse than vacuous: It makes out that art is about as meaningful as a gunshot in a crowded room. Is that art? It'll damn well get a reaction, especially from the person who was just shot. Shouldn't we demand more from art? Like actual meaning and maybe, just maybe, a positive impa…

Would you be happier if they'd used the money for startup seed funding with a view to eventually cashing out after IPO? I suspect a lot of people are offended that in a supposedly free capitalist culture they had - and presumably still have - the freedom to subvert the usual rules. In capitalism artists are either supposed to be poor and struggling, or fragile gilded celebrities cocooned in enviable opulence. Both op…

For sure. A16Z alone has wasted far, far more money than this. As has Donald Trump. Or Sergey and Larry. But that's the "correct" kind of wasting money.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#113

Post by msla »

wpietri wrote: post #106
msla wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. I hate this argument, because it's worse than vacuous: It makes out that art is about as meaningful as a gunshot in a crowded room. Is that art? It'll damn well get a reaction, especially from the person who was just shot. Shouldn't we demand more from art? Like actual meaning and maybe, just maybe, a positive impa…

You aren't quite getting how money works. The lifesaving potential of Great Britain was exactly the same before and after they burnt the money. Same number of hospitals and doctors. Same amount of food and housing. Etc, etc. The money supply of Great Britain was recently 3,598,911 million pounds down from around 3,700,000 million pounds, [1] a difference 100,000 times as great as what the KLF did. Are you 100,000x as…

> The lifesaving potential of Great Britain was exactly the same before and after they burnt the money.

Yes, but the money was out of the hands of someone who could have used it to leverage that potential for themselves.

And don't just limit it to the UK, with its NHS: The KLF could have donated it overseas.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#114

Post by msla »

ricardobeat wrote: post #83
msla wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. I hate this argument, because it's worse than vacuous: It makes out that art is about as meaningful as a gunshot in a crowded room. Is that art? It'll damn well get a reaction, especially from the person who was just shot. Shouldn't we demand more from art? Like actual meaning and maybe, just maybe, a positive impa…

You seem to have missed most of this debate. Is the rapper who bought a $200M mansion also akin to murdering 200 people? What about the other hundreds of thousands of rich wasting their millions? Why are these guys the target of your anger now, and not the one driving a Bentley you just passed around the corner?

I said you can't handwave this away by pointing at other people.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#115

Post by msla »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #71
msla wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That single statement was so powerful it's still causing emotional arguments about it 20 years later. I hate this argument, because it's worse than vacuous: It makes out that art is about as meaningful as a gunshot in a crowded room. Is that art? It'll damn well get a reaction, especially from the person who was just shot. Shouldn't we demand more from art? Like actual meaning and maybe, just maybe, a positive impa…

Would you be happier if they'd used the money for startup seed funding with a view to eventually cashing out after IPO? I suspect a lot of people are offended that in a supposedly free capitalist culture they had - and presumably still have - the freedom to subvert the usual rules. In capitalism artists are either supposed to be poor and struggling, or fragile gilded celebrities cocooned in enviable opulence. Both op…

Desperately trying to justify their actions by saying "other people do things too" is not an argument.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#116

Post by matheusmoreira »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #104
matheusmoreira wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. The whole point of money is to buy things. Banks create new money backed by debt which is what creates real value. The new money is destroyed when people work and pay off the debt. This "act" has created nothing of the sort. You could argue that they theoretically increased the value of everyone else's money but the actual amount is so infinitesimal it would just add insult to injury. The vast majority of the m…

I don't agree with your description of money creation as a primary means of creating value. Surely value is created by human endeavour and currency is just a convenient means of tracking that? If there was a bank that just continually created new money and gave debt to everyone, then do you believe that they are creating value and presumably a society could exist purely from the value created by these numbers?

I don't agree with it either but it is the model employed by banks today. Money is literally backed by nothing but debt.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#117

Post by Baeocystin »

flohofwoe wrote: post #76
Baeocystin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the kind words. My anger at their actions comes from how coddled from reality they had to be to make such a choice. The levers of monetary supply and demand, of course, 'make' and 'destroy' much larger sums on a daily basis. But those aren't liquid values under control of a single person, either. Money that is, is much more salient, and more valuable. And they just pissed it away.

Would it have been better if they spent the money on "coke and hookers" like it was expected from "proper" rock stars?

Just speaking my personal opinion- it's still a a waste, but at least the money would have been put back in to circulation. Better than burning it, at least.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#118

Post by wpietri »

msla wrote: post #113
wpietri wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't quite getting how money works. The lifesaving potential of Great Britain was exactly the same before and after they burnt the money. Same number of hospitals and doctors. Same amount of food and housing. Etc, etc. The money supply of Great Britain was recently 3,598,911 million pounds down from around 3,700,000 million pounds, [1] a difference 100,000 times as great as what the KLF did. Are you 100,000x as…

> The lifesaving potential of Great Britain was exactly the same before and after they burnt the money. Yes, but the money was out of the hands of someone who could have used it to leverage that potential for themselves. And don't just limit it to the UK, with its NHS: The KLF could have donated it overseas.

Huh. Yes, I get your point. But I don't get the sense you're hearing mine.

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#119

Post by tee_0 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #5

It's not so much that they 'couldn't say why' as that they don't care to repeat themselves. The KLF have explained themselves at great length in their own publications, which I heartily recommend: http://klf.de/home/publication/manual-number-one-easy-way/

Wow you really are a fool

Re: The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned £1M

#120

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #116
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with your description of money creation as a primary means of creating value. Surely value is created by human endeavour and currency is just a convenient means of tracking that? If there was a bank that just continually created new money and gave debt to everyone, then do you believe that they are creating value and presumably a society could exist purely from the value created by these numbers?

I don't agree with it either but it is the model employed by banks today. Money is literally backed by nothing but debt.

You misunderstand me. Money is indeed created by banks creating debt, but money is not the same thing as value. It's used as a convenient way to exchange value, but if you were stuck on a island with no-one else, you wouldn't find money to be of any use.
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