3 ms·

The meaningless exercise, by-and-large correctly identified by people who are not involved in NFT excusemaking, was the desperate clutch at the thing on the fir

The meaningless exercise, by-and-large correctly identified by people who are not involved in NFT excusemaking, was the desperate clutch at the thing on the first blockchain. It is the attempt at relevance for a deeply compromised thing itself, not its content. So yeah. People might be talking past one another, and it's not the fault of folks who Just Don't Understand Crypto, Man that it's the case. But at any rate, it isn't the "NFT culture," no matter how odious it is (and it is!), that I have a problem with. It is the thing itself and the desperate excusemaking so attached. It's "emotionally charged" because it is a scam whose externalities burn the planet on which we live. That should carry emotional charge. It is good to be revolted by nasty and selfish things.

systemvoltage 5y ago
What are your thoughts on Baseball cards that sell for absurd prices? Or real life painting auctions that sit in a warehouse acting as a unique object. It’s all very absurd. Theoretically, I think NFTs are similar to real life unique items (there are many threads on HN going back and forth) with a caveat - NFTs can’t contain actual data of the JPEGs, but only a URL of the server serving it. That seems like a huge gaping hole in NFTs. Fundamentally though, atoms or bits, pick your unique-arrangement medium. Try to sell it to people that are willing to pay for it. Edit: I can’t comment anymore (limits) so I’m answering here. You switched the argument now. We were discussing uniqueness in the world of atoms vs bits. But now you’re arguing about energy usage. We can discuss that but it’s no longer the central argument.
- eropple 5y ago
  > What are your thoughts on Baseball cards that sell for absurd prices? I wouldn't buy them. But they're things that actually exist, and nobody needed to burn more energy than a refrigerator uses in a month so that they could record its existence in one of a dozen rivalrous venues--or to do so again to hand it to somebody else. The absurdity here isn't just the tulip mania. Which is absurd. It's the vicious abuse of a shared planet to attempt to plant one's own batch and get out of Dodge before the whole thing collapses.
  - alanlammiman 5y ago
    well, but if you buy an artwork at auction and then fly it to your home, then fly it to a museum to show it, etc. you are also consuming a lot of energy. A lot more than an NFT. Real-world things & experience generally require a lot more energy than virtual ones. In the big scheme of things, if people start buying less real world stuff and more virtual stuff that's good for the environment, even if for now the system is inefficient. So take your pick - is your argument against NFTs based on the environment or physicality?
    - eropple 5y ago
      This isn't that complicated. They are foolish because they are do-nothings. They are evil because they are consumption for the sake of consumption at a scale that's hard to fathom. "People could buy less virtual stuff!" People could also just buy less stuff, and not pay grifters money for nothing.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  Collector items exist, and while a certain amount of resources have to be burned to preserve them, on the whole, they seem to me like a positive effect on the environment. Say there is an old Bugatti that rich people trade for tens of millions of dollars. That is basically a token, and the cost to society is the original manufacturing cost plus the upkeep. The inflated market price is a good thing, because it represents the potential consumption that rich people are not consuming and is therefore available for the rest of society. On the other hand, if someone spends the same amount on a brand new yacht, then they are putting all that value into environmental impact, either directly or indirectly. And they're taking it away from all the poor and hungry, even if the yacht builders benefit and it "trickles down". It's exactly the same logic as the famous Eisenhower speech about national defense taking away from the needy. One simply needs to make the mental transition to considering all wealth the property of society. Most people seem to have it all backwards, where abstract tokens and bank accounts are a waste, and consumption is "creating jobs" which is good. Crypto, as far as I can tell, neutralizes things through requiring undue consumption to create the tokens, so it seems to me like a massive step backwards.

systemvoltage 5y ago

What are your thoughts on Baseball cards that sell for absurd prices? Or real life painting auctions that sit in a warehouse acting as a unique object. It’s all very absurd. Theoretically, I think NFTs are similar to real life unique items (there are many threads on HN going back and forth) with a caveat - NFTs can’t contain actual data of the JPEGs, but only a URL of the server serving it. That seems like a huge gaping hole in NFTs. Fundamentally though, atoms or bits, pick your unique-arrangement medium. Try to sell it to people that are willing to pay for it. Edit: I can’t comment anymore (limits) so I’m answering here. You switched the argument now. We were discussing uniqueness in the world of atoms vs bits. But now you’re arguing about energy usage. We can discuss that but it’s no longer the central argument.

eropple 5y ago
> What are your thoughts on Baseball cards that sell for absurd prices? I wouldn't buy them. But they're things that actually exist, and nobody needed to burn more energy than a refrigerator uses in a month so that they could record its existence in one of a dozen rivalrous venues--or to do so again to hand it to somebody else. The absurdity here isn't just the tulip mania. Which is absurd. It's the vicious abuse of a shared planet to attempt to plant one's own batch and get out of Dodge before the whole thing collapses.
- alanlammiman 5y ago
  well, but if you buy an artwork at auction and then fly it to your home, then fly it to a museum to show it, etc. you are also consuming a lot of energy. A lot more than an NFT. Real-world things & experience generally require a lot more energy than virtual ones. In the big scheme of things, if people start buying less real world stuff and more virtual stuff that's good for the environment, even if for now the system is inefficient. So take your pick - is your argument against NFTs based on the environment or physicality?
  - eropple 5y ago
    This isn't that complicated. They are foolish because they are do-nothings. They are evil because they are consumption for the sake of consumption at a scale that's hard to fathom. "People could buy less virtual stuff!" People could also just buy less stuff, and not pay grifters money for nothing.
perl4ever 5y ago
Collector items exist, and while a certain amount of resources have to be burned to preserve them, on the whole, they seem to me like a positive effect on the environment. Say there is an old Bugatti that rich people trade for tens of millions of dollars. That is basically a token, and the cost to society is the original manufacturing cost plus the upkeep. The inflated market price is a good thing, because it represents the potential consumption that rich people are not consuming and is therefore available for the rest of society. On the other hand, if someone spends the same amount on a brand new yacht, then they are putting all that value into environmental impact, either directly or indirectly. And they're taking it away from all the poor and hungry, even if the yacht builders benefit and it "trickles down". It's exactly the same logic as the famous Eisenhower speech about national defense taking away from the needy. One simply needs to make the mental transition to considering all wealth the property of society. Most people seem to have it all backwards, where abstract tokens and bank accounts are a waste, and consumption is "creating jobs" which is good. Crypto, as far as I can tell, neutralizes things through requiring undue consumption to create the tokens, so it seems to me like a massive step backwards.