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The Tinkerbell Griftopia

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#71

Post by nefitty »

iskander wrote: post #64
phillipcarter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto and the only realistic alternative to a web3 future is one where everything is a property of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, &c It'd be awfully nice if said decentralization was offering more valuable things than just naked ponzi schemes. I'm on team "we're in an ad bubble and it's disgusting that these major companies created a surveillance state" but…

I think it's easy to miss the content at the core of the movement given how thoroughly it's wrapped in gold rush and scamming. But the more time I spend around the space the more it seems that there is a legitimately transformative force which attracts the gold rush in the first place. And the ethos of people working on e.g. research DAOs, decentralized publishing, crypto art, &c feels right compared to the web2 worl…

It's the classic MBA meets genius nerd situation.

"Hey everyone, look at this weird tech thing my brother has been obsessively building for the past year! You can have one for $5!"

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#72

Post by iskander »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #56
iskander wrote: post #44

I think what Stephen misses in his campaign against crypto is that the old ideals have already been coopted and smothered with the corporatization of the web and splintering of what was a decentralized ecosystem into a megacorp walled gardens. I know there's a tiny community of non-crypto decentralized web advocates and I hope they win. But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto and the only re…

> But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto The more I watch this space, the more I realize that many of these projects are just an excuse to flip novel tokens for a quick profit. We reached the point where there are enough blockchains and crypto tokens for almost every conceivable purpose. At this point, many of the new entrants feel like they’re just arbitrarily bolting new coins and new tok…

I think you have to participate a bit in the non-speculative side to get a feel for the culture and social movement that's brewing there. New entrants aren't the ones to watch since they're probably jumping in to make money, look to the increasing interest in DAOs as social coordination mechanisms, they will keep evolving to empower groups of individuals to have outsized impacts.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#73

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

casi18 wrote: post #60
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People need to be paid to do the work, so they can eat and pay rent. Yes, this is the part about reshaping society I was talking about. Artists do contribute value to the world and need a way to be supported, but the way we support them should not be to burn the gift of post-scarcity. > We dont actually live in a post scarcity star trek world. When it comes to information we really, really do. I have every single g…

> I have every single game ever made for every console generation from 1978 through 2002. This cost me next to nothing I think you are confusing the cost of production of these things, and the cost to you personally. There is a cost (material) and scarcity(human time) involved in making things. I think we have got away as a society with not paying artists and musicians and demanding their content be free and "post-sc…

> I think you are confusing the cost of production of these things, and the cost to you personally.

No, I'm not. The fact that artists need to be paid for their work so they can continue to exist within world of scarcity economics is orthogonal to the fact that information can be copied and disseminated for an effective zero-cost.

Let me put it this way: if, instead of minting and purchasing an NFT, the potential buyer just gave the artist money, what has changed? Everyone can still copy the art for free, the owner can still say they paid for it and prove it in any number of existing methods. Absolutely nothing about adding a cryptographically secure certificate of ownership to that is valuable as far as I can see.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#74

Post by iskander »

notpachet wrote: post #55
iskander wrote: post #44

I think what Stephen misses in his campaign against crypto is that the old ideals have already been coopted and smothered with the corporatization of the web and splintering of what was a decentralized ecosystem into a megacorp walled gardens. I know there's a tiny community of non-crypto decentralized web advocates and I hope they win. But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto and the only re…

As one of those non-crypto decentralized advocates, I am not super optimistic. I think the best case would be that we manage to build a bunch of generic decentralized infrastructure while all the easy money is being thrown around at the bottom of the Ponzi pyramid, and then that infrastructure manages to survive and continue to provide value even after the cryptocurrency house of cards collapses.

> then that infrastructure manages to survive and continue to provide value even after the cryptocurrency house of cards collapses.

That's my optimistic forecast for what happens after the current speculative bubble pops. We'll be left with e.g. universal sign-on via crypto wallet that's not owned by any corporation and can be used for cryptographic signature / voting / &c. We'll also have increasingly robust decentralized infrastructure like zero-knowledge rollup L2s on top of Ethereum to make increasing complex decentralized applications. The money making stuff is about as vacuous as everyone seems to think but the substance it's attached to is a movement away from walled gardens and towards increasingly empowered individuals.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#75

Post by demygale »

From the article: "But truly that is the message of the Andersen folktale, that power begets the capacity to inspire delusion in the masses."

Does the "Andersen folktale" refer to Tinkerbell? Has nothing to do with the merit of the article or his argument, but Tinkerbell was a character invented by J.M. Barrie for Peter Pan and not a folktale at all.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#76

Post by zepto »

AlexandrB wrote: post #67
zepto wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing weird about it. Crypto / web3 is about financializing everything . I.e, making everything about money. The goal is to create a gamified world in which all human interactions are controlled via financial incentives. The contrast is not communism, but rather the current gift economy model of open source, where people offer what they want out of intrinsic motivation rather than the desire to accumulate coins in…

This is the really icky part of crypto. It would be deeply ironic if crypto, which was supposedly created in opposition to traditional banking institutions, was able to open the door for those institutions to financialize every nook and cranny of our lives.

I don’t see what’s ironic about it. Those existing banking institutions may not prevail, but that’s irrelevant. The financial engineers behind crypto are not some different breed of human than those who work at Goldman Sachs. Their goal is nothing but financializing all interactions on the web. That is literally what web3 means.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#77

Post by casi18 »

gowld wrote: post #25
casi18 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to be paid to do the work, so they can eat and pay rent. We dont actually live in a post scarcity star trek world. So we find a way that people can be paid yet the information and content can remain free to everyone. It seems like lots of people like this. For some reason some people really really hate that other people are willing to pay to make content freely available to them. The people buying NFTs ar…

NFTs aren't funding art in any substantial. They are funding some people playing the NFT/status game. People making art are supported by Patreon, commissions, etc.

As I mentioned to others, remember the saying "90% of everything is shit" and make some time for the 10% maybe being legitimate, maybe having something worthwhile that is attracting all the attention.

Most people I know making art are funded by Arts Councils and government programs. Then there is the private markets, which look similar to the NFT speculation games (go watch a sotherbys auction some time, its eye opening) but with no royalties going to the artists. NFTs at a minimum have that 1 up on auction houses.

Then there is larger grants from foundations and charities, which would fund a project without expectation of ownership on any items. Philanthropists.

Then there is the smaller graphic/illustration commission artists who use paypal and patreon, interestingly they also seem to be the ones kicking up the most fuss about nfts, im not sure why though.

And it is just plainly wrong that artists arent using NFTs, and that it is just people playing status games. Its been quite widely accepted and adopted, particularly amongst those who already deal with selling their works so dont have that hesitation and fear of asking to be paid. Sure there is abuse and scams, those are the 90% of shit. most pop music is produced by organisations making bland acceptable rhythms with a pretty teen face dancing around to make a company a bunch of money, kinda sounds scammy too. But that doesnt mean theres also good stuff going on. Its up to you if you want to engage with it, but flat out denying it is happening wont make you an expert either.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#78

Post by NikolaeVarius »

seibelj wrote: post #70
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason there is any value at all in owning the Mona Lisa is that it is a physical object that cannot be perfectly duplicated. Even then, only status-wankers would care to. NFTs aren't the Mona Lisa, they're a Certificate of Ownership for a digital Mona Lisa that entitles the owner to nothing. Everyone and their mother can already have an indistinguishable duplicate of digital Mona Lisa for free.

You admit that art can be high value - and everyone who believes art can be worth millions is a "status-wanker" apparently - so therefore NFTs can be high value. Or is it only physical art that can have worth, but digital images cannot? This is what drives everyone crazy - the art market itself is irrational. NFTs are the same thing, but digitized and hyper efficient.

I can Ctrl-C Ctrl-V bits that will resolve to the exact same MD5. I cant do that with the physical Mona Lisa.

I agree the art world is stupid, but using that as a justification for NFTs is also, exactly if not more stupid

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#79

Post by jimbob45 »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #54
jimbob45 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn't you just have a SQL DB where you store the ownership of these assets though? There's no reason to use an NFT - it's overkill.

What, and trust the central planners at Sotheby's to not steal my apes and slimers? They'll sell off half the pixels to the government because of my back taxes.

Is that different from how crypto operates though? Cryptocurrency exchanges already have to report to the IRS/government and they'll still come after you if you have unpaid taxes.

If NFTs get big enough, there's no reason to believe that the NFT exchanges wouldn't have to register with the government/IRS.

Re: The Tinkerbell Griftopia

#80

Post by lowbloodsugar »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #56
iskander wrote: post #44

I think what Stephen misses in his campaign against crypto is that the old ideals have already been coopted and smothered with the corporatization of the web and splintering of what was a decentralized ecosystem into a megacorp walled gardens. I know there's a tiny community of non-crypto decentralized web advocates and I hope they win. But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto and the only re…

> But, the main force for a return to decentralization is in crypto The more I watch this space, the more I realize that many of these projects are just an excuse to flip novel tokens for a quick profit. We reached the point where there are enough blockchains and crypto tokens for almost every conceivable purpose. At this point, many of the new entrants feel like they’re just arbitrarily bolting new coins and new tok…

Any of them could easily deploy enough compute to own any blockchain.
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