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An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

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Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#101
post #95
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that changing the financial system will change nothing and there is no point in changing it, yes. Part of the world tried other systems and failed miserably, thus we should focus on education and other social factors instead of trying to fix something that isn't broken (what is broken is the current regulation, not the system itself). Ad communism: That's not true. Have you read anything from the communist…

have you read marx? he didn't have any actual conception of a communist society. and anyway, that's a bit like trying to understand capitalism by only reading adam smith, which would be incoherent. and it sounds like you're really describing the 20th century model of essentially replacing boards of directors with government officials and calling that communism. and that's the most basic and universal criticism of 20t…

> he didn't have any actual conception of a communist society

This is my point, actually. There is no one who would forbid a group of people to appoint a few members of their community to be "police"; there is no one who would forbid a group of people to create a court. And there is nothing saying that would make it a state. Communism is about self-governed societies, not anarchy in the destructive "I can do whatever because there is no police" sense.

Even actual anarchy wouldn't be like that because if you hurt enough people, they will hurt you, and that's why you don't even do it. Later in development, they'd pay someone in advance to hurt you if you hurt them. The same thing would happen in communism, just there wouldn't be money changing hands and the organizational specifics would be different.

Saying that any form of leadership would make a stateless society not stateless is nonsense. My family is not a state and yet we have a leader. My apartment building is not a state and yet we have a leader. Etc. There will always be a leader (or a group of leaders), the difference lies in who owns what and how are the leaders appointed (e.g. on basis of what) and what rights they have. Without any leaders, the society would collapse.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#102
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more lo…

The difference is the number of people a product or a project will likely help times the ‘utility’ each person receive. > Once you start down the road of being dictotoe of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program. I do…

You've put my thoughts about this very succinctly. Completely agree.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#104
post #20

I wonder if legally the buyer can retract the buy? Although I'm sure it's worth more with that. Funny how Banksy, who was anti commercial things before as a street artist, now is obviously very torn being selling out and not. He is still selling out with this sale, but couldn't stop himself from trolling the buyer. I feel like I'd feel in a similar way - hard not to sell when so much money is in play.

The auction house has said that if an object is sold and is damaged before it leaves them, they will cancel the sale. They also followed this by saying something like "but this shredding will probably make it more valuable now!"

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#106
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It stopped half way, to me it is more 'art' than before.

Yeah whoever bought that has probably made a profit already, its a lot more interesting now.

whoever bought it also payed the same exact price as Banksy’s all-time auction record set 10 years ago, down to the pound.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#107
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more lo…

> Once you start down the road of being dictator > of spending on expensive things that aren't solving > starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, > the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry > effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on > the budget of the Apollo program. Feels super weird to me that in its full context the point of this sentence wasn't "We should stop letting people…

> Feels super weird to me that in its full context the point of this sentence wasn't "We should stop letting people starve to death instead of sending people into space".

I think the point was that you can apply that logic to anything... However if you really wana talk about spending on space programs vs spending directy on starving people, consider where we would be technologically, scientifically etc as a society if we always chose to spend money on the needs of others (of which there is an endless supply) directly rather than invest it in lofty ideas - It's pure speculation, but I image the difference would be direct spending would only ever briefly solve short term problems, but ultimately civilisation as a whole would be in a worse place.

In other words, we can take knowledge with us into the future, not food. and in this context, banksy is politically charged knowledge striving for change - which is bought and sold by rich people for better or worse.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#108
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more lo…

The difference is the number of people a product or a project will likely help times the ‘utility’ each person receive. > Once you start down the road of being dictotoe of spending on expensive things that aren't solving starvation, all kinds of things like space exploration, the development of the internet, etc all become "sorry effects". Guess how many villages could be fed on the budget of the Apollo program. I do…

That money doesn't just vanish though. It's a wealth transfer from Adam to Bernice. Adam's bank balance drops from £100m to £99m, Bernice's goes from £100m to £101m.

If that transfer didn't happen, then both bank balances would remain at £100m. Nothing is lost or gained, it's irrelevant (Although in Banksy's case the original first sale often involves a transfer of wealth from Adam and Bernice to a random person)

There's nothing inherently good or bad about rich people playing money games with each others assets, it's not the same as Adam paying £10m to destroy a town and gain £20m in profit from exploiting the resources, or indeed divert tens of thousands of high-skilled effort per month into something like the Apollo program.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#109
Thanksfully the original Banksy Girl with a balloon is still on some street in Amsterdam, visible to everyone. This frame was just an elaborate prank, as usual, to invalidate the "art market" scheme. From time to time forked Banksys are put on the commercial market. This was wonderful.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#110
post #59

I'm honestly struck by how _cheap_ this piece was sold for. Banksy is a household name unlike most contemporary artists. Pieces by Jeff Koons have sold for 50 million but Banksy struggles to cross the 1 million mark? I'm surprised that there are no tech millionaires or Wall Street Titans buying up the pieces.

> Banksy

British

> Jeff Koons

American

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