4 ms·

However that ink on flimsy cardboard is still somewhat unique. The NFT only associates a wallet address with a hash of whatever digital document. It's similar,

However that ink on flimsy cardboard is still somewhat unique. The NFT only associates a wallet address with a hash of whatever digital document. It's similar, but not quite. It has value in human imagination, sure, one can convince oneself that's the case. But the token is merely a hash of something that can be obtained very easily in full original quality on the Internet. The flimsy cardboard is not. At least not in the same sense (you could scan it and put a jpg of it online for example). Also the card will stay in this world for a long time if protected from weather and light, I assume, where as the NFT needs to be constantly kept alive by "mining". I agree it's similar, but it's also different. And interesting. At least to me. :) Also value is relative, of course. I mean: One man's collectible is another woman's trash. It probably needs a certain shared set of beliefs/illusions to agree that something like that has value.

twox2 6y ago
There's a good chance that "mining" will out live some pieces of cardboard. Even if the blockchain du jour becomes a thing o the past, it might live on in some device in an emulator thanks to Moore's Law.
- iamben 6y ago
  But sadly the URL the NFT points to will probably be long gone.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  You do realize that you're comparing a medium that routinely stores information for 350 years versus a field where something saved 10 years ago invariably demands considerable resources to access?
tshaddox 6y ago
I think we might disagree on the extent to which the collectible sports card is valuable because of its unique physical materials, and the extent to which it’s valuable because of “human imagination.” I think the latter is responsible for the overwhelming share of the value of a sports card, and the former is only a historical coincidence that creating rare and difficult to counterfeit items was only practical by fabricating physical items.
- aaroninsf 6y ago
  I have been looking for a useful formulation, or metaphor, for why the NFT premise feels so [preposterously] wrong to many including myself. Here is one idea, for how we intuit value: As a fraction, in which non-fungibility (~= "authenticity") is the denominator; nominal value (whatever that is, a function of context etc.) is the numerator. In the sports card example, a physical object with a provenance has intrinsic guarantees of uniqueness. Low uniqueness means high intuited value. In the NFT case, a hash has non-intrinsic guarantees. They are provable; they are not perceptible. Uncertain uniqueness means low intuited value. It's not that it's not provably unique; it's that if we don't perceive it, no one cares. Perceptible and provable for us monkeys is a serious and real difference. That's the general idea. The edges are full of corners, for sure, e.g. a counterfeit or reproduction can be exacting enough to create a new game for us to play (I am reminded of the rabbit hole of reproduction collectible watches...)... the quest of authenticity has a fractal quality in the case of mass-produced but limited goods (what edition number? What pressing? The one with the misaligned cyan?)... ...but in the 80% case, I think it's simply, we monkeys like objects; ideas remain a hard sell. My own belief is this is so deeply baked into the relationship between our world modeling that it will not be overcome through culture. A lemma might be, non-fungibility is less important than materiality. Authenticity for fungible goods, like gold, is persistent, in part because they are fungible. It's their material (perceptible provability) that reassures us. I believe this is rooted in intuitions about the scale and durability of consensus on value containers, which appears until recently to have been in the long view winner-take-all, in the case of things without pragmatic use-value.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    I think your intuition sounds pretty reasonable and probably matches most people’s intuition including my own. But I think it’s mistaken. Even for physical objects like paintings or sports cards, the matter of provenance is extraordinarily difficult to ascertain. Counterfeiters are really good at what they do, and determining authenticity of very valuable items is presumably impossible for all but a few experts, to the extent that what you’re buying can really be thought of as a physical object along with some easily-verifiable (often through digital means!) claim of authenticity from a trusted group. In cases like this it’s pretty silly to place such emphasis on the provenance of the physical object itself!

twox2 6y ago

There's a good chance that "mining" will out live some pieces of cardboard. Even if the blockchain du jour becomes a thing o the past, it might live on in some device in an emulator thanks to Moore's Law.

iamben 6y ago
But sadly the URL the NFT points to will probably be long gone.
SiempreViernes 6y ago
You do realize that you're comparing a medium that routinely stores information for 350 years versus a field where something saved 10 years ago invariably demands considerable resources to access?

tshaddox 6y ago

I think we might disagree on the extent to which the collectible sports card is valuable because of its unique physical materials, and the extent to which it’s valuable because of “human imagination.” I think the latter is responsible for the overwhelming share of the value of a sports card, and the former is only a historical coincidence that creating rare and difficult to counterfeit items was only practical by fabricating physical items.

aaroninsf 6y ago
I have been looking for a useful formulation, or metaphor, for why the NFT premise feels so [preposterously] wrong to many including myself. Here is one idea, for how we intuit value: As a fraction, in which non-fungibility (~= "authenticity") is the denominator; nominal value (whatever that is, a function of context etc.) is the numerator. In the sports card example, a physical object with a provenance has intrinsic guarantees of uniqueness. Low uniqueness means high intuited value. In the NFT case, a hash has non-intrinsic guarantees. They are provable; they are not perceptible. Uncertain uniqueness means low intuited value. It's not that it's not provably unique; it's that if we don't perceive it, no one cares. Perceptible and provable for us monkeys is a serious and real difference. That's the general idea. The edges are full of corners, for sure, e.g. a counterfeit or reproduction can be exacting enough to create a new game for us to play (I am reminded of the rabbit hole of reproduction collectible watches...)... the quest of authenticity has a fractal quality in the case of mass-produced but limited goods (what edition number? What pressing? The one with the misaligned cyan?)... ...but in the 80% case, I think it's simply, we monkeys like objects; ideas remain a hard sell. My own belief is this is so deeply baked into the relationship between our world modeling that it will not be overcome through culture. A lemma might be, non-fungibility is less important than materiality. Authenticity for fungible goods, like gold, is persistent, in part because they are fungible. It's their material (perceptible provability) that reassures us. I believe this is rooted in intuitions about the scale and durability of consensus on value containers, which appears until recently to have been in the long view winner-take-all, in the case of things without pragmatic use-value.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  I think your intuition sounds pretty reasonable and probably matches most people’s intuition including my own. But I think it’s mistaken. Even for physical objects like paintings or sports cards, the matter of provenance is extraordinarily difficult to ascertain. Counterfeiters are really good at what they do, and determining authenticity of very valuable items is presumably impossible for all but a few experts, to the extent that what you’re buying can really be thought of as a physical object along with some easily-verifiable (often through digital means!) claim of authenticity from a trusted group. In cases like this it’s pretty silly to place such emphasis on the provenance of the physical object itself!