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They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, mad
by polio 4y ago
They're beautiful and impressive, but I find the amount of money that flows into "high horology" to be an sum with an egregious opportunity cost to society, made even worse by the fact that all that complexity goes towards a movement that is worse at keeping time than a rudimentary quartz. If people want Tamagotchis, they can get a Tamagotchi. I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead and find simpler luxuries.
- what-imright 4y agoThe solution of giving away your money over buying something is some broken logic. Plenty of corrupt charity officials line their pockets and live it up on donations. The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite, hence the money. It represents an unpaid debt so you can’t turn around and ask for it back.
- Sporktacular 4y ago"The rich don’t owe society, exactly the opposite" This is precisely wrong. The rich do indeed owe society. They owe their wealth to the workers working for them. To the education system that educated their workers and made them productive, the roads that brought them to work and the health system that keeps them at work. This is obvious from the number of millionaires produced by healthy, educated, stable societies vs others. Other countries produce fewer and then only natural resource millionaires in the favour of the ruling elites. But they can't do so without labour and the resources owned by those societies. The rich owe almost everything not produced by their own hands. And comparing the figures of corruption in those countries to that of charities generally is so absurd it's laughable.
- mulmen 4y agoOstensibly wealth is a settled debt.
- Sporktacular 4y agoOstensibly. 'Owe' is more than accounting parlance.
- mulmen 4y agoIs it? This is social accounting. It all translates.
- Sporktacular 4y agoYeah. Just as wealth is more than accounting parlance.
- dotancohen 4y ago> They owe their wealth to the workers working for > them. To the education system that educated their > workers and made them productive, the roads that > brought them to work and the health system that > keeps them at work. Assuming that they've paid their taxes, they've paid their debt.
- kqr 4y agoAssuming further that the taxes accurately measure the benefit that comes from the interaction of luck, privilege and society. Assuming even further that taxes effectively redistribute wealth to workers, educators, and nurturers. These are together three assumptions, none of which I think are true.
- closeparen 4y agoTaxes are the price we pay for society. Quite! Well, a price never fully captures the value to the buyer of what they're acquiring. Otherwise they'd be worse off for making the exchange. We cooperate because we both gain more than we lose from said cooperation. That's a great and beautiful thing.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Sporktacular 4y agoThis is a lazy libertarian talking point. When someone accepts come award saying he owes his success to his family/mentor/agent, it's not an IOU for some cash value. But even if it was, how would you quantify whether a tax rate captures the full, less-tangible value of what a society provides? If through lobbying or creative accounting, a billionaire is able to reduce his yearly taxable income to $100 then he's met your definition of fully paid-up, when obviously he 'owes' (in the ethical, non-accounting sense) a lot more. Because society provides more than just economic opportunity, taxes are just one of the things we're required to pay back. We're expected to follow the law or sometimes fight for it (giving up some of our absolute freedoms), to be helpful or follow hundreds of other social conventions. If you insist on reducing all that to a tax rate, then it's so low that it points to a welfare state for the rich.
- closeparen 4y agoIndeed, the rich owe society for all these things. The amount they owe is called the price. And the time for which they owe it is from the moment of services rendered until the invoice is paid. Some of them, indeed, weasel out of paying the agreed-upon prices for their inputs. A certain former President comes to mind. But once paid, the debts are clear.
- raisedbyninjas 4y agoDon't go to the dentist. Some of them live lavishly pushing unneeded and overpriced care.
- micromacrofoot 4y agoThe rich wouldn't exist without society. They owe far more than the average person. Simply maintaining and storing wealth requires rather complex societal structures; before modern society wealth was only a product of power, because without power any schlub with a dagger would come for you. Today's wealthy need a small entourage of security and bookkeepers, but that's a far cry from a whole-ass army.
- BirAdam 4y agoOh no. US billionaires do, indeed, have a military. It is the largest, most powerful, most well equipped military in human history. It is the US armed forces. They also have police departments across the country. This is a very large subsidy to these billionaires, as are: mass transit, food stamps, WIC, etc. Without these government services (which the billionaires put in place through politicians whom they purchased), the billionaires would have to provide the services or be killed by angry mobs.
- mulmen 4y agoThe US military is a jobs program that elevates hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. It’s the most effective socialist program in human history. It’s unassailable in domestic politics.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pstuart 4y agoThis fact cannot be emphasized enough. The pity of it is that the jobs are not oriented towards public works.
- mulmen 4y agoIt’s arguable but generally I agree. The New Deal worked for the US. National service policies in general seem to work well globally. Defense seems to be a non-issue but domestic service is debatable. It’s disgusting but this is our reality. It’s the ultimate condemnation of “conservative” values. As a millennial I would have joined the National Guard if there was a guarantee of no service in foreign wars. I think a peaceful national service organization that guaranteed some kind of modest lifetime pension and higher education would resolve a lot of debates. But, for most US military vets that’s already true of their service.
- polio 4y agoIt's why I mention "effective" charities. Corruption and inefficiency among charities is yet another issue that we can solve.
- polio 4y agoI can believe that some rich individuals are uniquely gifted in some way that makes them deserving of being richer than most of other people. I also think that the magnitude of this phenomenon is not proportional to how much richer they are, in practice. I share the sentiment that most of the wealth of billionaires is attributable to their workers, luck, and favorable environmental circumstances. Some marginal amount is due to the industriousness and ingenuity of the person in question.
- Sporktacular 4y agoGenerally agree. But if they're gifted then, then like any lottery winner, it's hard to see them as more deserving of wealth than any other.
- what-imright 4y ago[dead]
- Sporktacular 4y agoFor sure, charities would be a much better use of the money involved... but on the other hand couldn't you say the same about art in general? I think what makes it different is the conspicuousness of these watches when they become a way to advertise wealth and status. But I like that artists/engineers can make a living by putting their time into producing such marvellous things. The world is richer for them.
- winReInstall 4y agoEh, these are cnc milled and and robot handled just like any other industrial good. Sure the quality expectations are high, but the production process is nothing unique..
- quickthrower2 4y agoSwiss watchmakers innovated CNC machinery though.
- Sporktacular 4y agoI'm guessing the part production is automated but low yield and the mechanisms/watches hand-assembled. For a run of 150 it makes no sense making a custom assembly device. Why does the production process have to be unique for the result to be art? It's like saying Picasso wasn't making art because he used paint, brushes and canvass like everyone else.
- Dylan16807 4y ago> on the other hand couldn't you say the same about art in general? I would say that mass-produced art should be pretty cheap, and these are mass-produced.
- Sporktacular 4y agoThese ones are not.
- 4y ago
- iancmceachern 4y agoSame with "ultra" and "hyper" cars
- kennywinker 4y agoThose cars are way worse. It’s not just flashing money around, it’s actively making your wealth other people’s problem. From the noise they make, the extra gas they burn, to having to drive careful around them because you’re going to get sued into oblivion if you fuck them up
- dghlsakjg 4y agoI've always thought that there should be a property damage liability limit on public roads. If you want to drive a $250k lambo why do I have to buy extra insurance because you brought an expensive toy out to play on vital public infrastructure? Pass the extra liability beyond, say, $100k to the owner of the toy car. If some shitty driver plows into my crappy old car, they are out maybe $3k in property damage. If they happen to hit a supercar, then somehow the same action nets them a liability that could buy them a starter home? Mind you, I live in BC, where there is only one liability insurance company, and they have a government mandate to insure everyone with a license, no matter how bad their driving record is. Which means that every idiot's risk gets spread onto my bill.
- user_7832 4y agoI would actually disagree with this one even though I agree with the overall sentiment. Hypercars are much better than regular/sports cars, and should be considered the atomic clock equivalent to the quartz watch - far more accuracy/performance albeit at a significant literal cost. I do not know the real world implications of hyper cars on fuel consumption (I can't expect it to be very good, but I don't expect too many such vehicles either). For better or for worse there are many more mundane things that can have a much larger improvement for human life (eg reducing food waste).
- fomine3 4y agoI believe hypercars are much worse for every practical point like reliability, noise, ... Performance is superior but won't work on most public road.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoWatches are about movement/storage of wealth and tax evasion. Like art, very high timepiece value is its ability to move money. They're Old Money Cryptocurrency. Bring $50,000 in cash on a plane to another country and you're a drug dealer/criminal, or at the very least, the tax inspectors want to talk to you. Bring a $50,000 watch on holiday or a business trip, and nobody blinks an eye. Your average customs/border/security person probably no idea what a $1,000 watch looks like compared to a $50,000 or $100,000 watch...or they're The Chinese in particular are using luxury watches to get around money export controls (you can't export more than a fairly small amount of money out of China.) Further reading: Tax evasion: https://thetruthaboutwatches.com/2020/09/uk-kills-new-watch-smuggling/ https://thetruthaboutwatches.com/2020/09/uk-kills-new-watch-... Chinese wealth export mechanism: https://www.ft.com/content/a9a34f94-9a49-4938-ae9e-ec4e6d2f4838 https://www.ft.com/content/a9a34f94-9a49-4938-ae9e-ec4e6d2f4...
- akomtu 4y agoSo a watch serves as a proof of work, and a distributed ledger of watchsmiths can verify a watch for you, anonymously, for a small fee.
- Sporktacular 4y agoProof of stake anyway.
- akomtu 4y agoProof of stake is precious stones and metals.
- quickthrower2 4y agoAlso proof of work (mining)
- b06timmer 4y agoEarly explorers, journalists, etc., wore Rolex watches because they could barter the watch to get them out of a jam. I currently have a Seiko 5 mechanical watch. It doesn't hack or keep time particularly well (runs fast) but I love it all the same for its quirks.
- mulmen 4y agoIt’s easy to spend other people’s money. The base argument of democracy is that because none of us knows the downstream effects we all share decision making. In other words: “that’s just like, your opinion, man.”
- nextaccountic 4y agoDemocracy works with one person = one vote. When you have one dollar = one vote you get a plutocracy instead. So when consumers vote with their wallets, this vote isn't democratic at all. People that don't have money in their wallets don't get to vote.
- kqr 4y agoPut differently: we want market economies to be about satisfying the greatest need. In practise, they're about satisfying the greatest ability to pay. And ability to pay does not come with need -- it comes with privilege, luck, and political skill.
- mulmen 4y agoThe point is you don’t get to tell other people how to spend their money outside the narrow exception of taxation and prohibition, both of which are democratically defined.
- polio 4y agoYes, I know it is my opinion.
- disillusioned 4y agoI mean, herein lies the philosophical argument of opportunity cost to society in general. Every thing we spend money that is, perhaps, any amount over-engineered or nice-for-nice sake, or made of slightly higher grade materials, or, well, anything other than strictly utilitarian and minimalist as possible is technically consuming opportunity cost that could benefit society. If I order wings with my pizza tonight, as I have done, and I decide to consume both of those things, instead of donating the money on the wings to someone else, I've directed excess to myself instead of to the betterment of society. And obviously that's the reductive, logical conclusion of the argument. What I'm getting at is that it's an interesting mental and philosophical exercise to figure out where that line lies. Does it lie with $400M super-yachts? Sure, probably we don't need that wealth going directly to propping up the yacht industry, which, itself, doesn't need to exist from a utilitarian perspective. But I'm not sure how to define where that line lies. Is it the old "know it when you see it" line? If I buy a 26' sailboat, is that still falling into the ostentatious conspicuous-consumption-that-could've-been-spent-on-others? Of course it is. What about a jet ski? What about a $400 kayak? I'm not sure the answer here. I agree with your core sentiment that "I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities" in that it sounds lovely. I struggle with the idea that charities have to exist to patchwork fix parts of society and government that are inherently broken. Creating a construct that inherently hyper benefits a small coterie of people and necessarily introduces some inequities, and then hoping that that same small coterie of people will feel just guilty enough to donate to others to try to whitewash some of those problems... is inherently flawed. Obviously. But I also recognize that the downstream and upstream of the middle of the bell curve of capitalism is basically what powers almost all of our jobs. We work because we produce something that someone, somewhere wants. Or needs, sometimes. But a LOT of it is "wants." And if it was _just_ needs, the economy would be an even bleaker place. We've seen what that looks like too. That being said, I personally feel like, you know, a clever tax policy helps with a lot of this, if it's underpinned with effective enforcement and effective oversight and efficient use of those funds. But boy are those tricky.
- lmm 4y agoI find a super-yacht less offensive than an expensive watch, because at least a super-yacht lets you do things that a regular yacht couldn't, or do them better. Getting a yacht with e.g. a helipad on it is obviously a luxury, but it's a reasonable luxury: anyone can see how it's nicer to be able to fly to your yacht rather than having to bring it in and out of port. What makes these watches so infuriating is that all that money (and not just notional money, but real hours of skilled labour) is poured into a black hole: at the end of the day you get a watch that's very visibly less good than a $300 smartwatch.
- Mikeb85 4y ago> I wish people would flex their donations to effective charities instead and find simpler luxuries. Why? Are watchmakers not people who deserve to have an income? Do they not then spend their income on goods and services that help the economy?
- metadat 4y agoI believe parent comment is trying to convey that more societal good could be done through more effective donations compared to donating thousands to a watchmaker or watchmaking corporation. Are they using the surplus to better society or only to enrich themselves?
- lmm 4y ago> Why? Are watchmakers not people who deserve to have an income? Why? Just because they're good at something that takes effort? By that logic everyone who has a challenging hobby - and most hobbies are ultimately challenging - deserves an income from it. Would you say that anyone who's good at any sport, or any craft, or any game, or even knowing celebrity trivia, deserves an income? IMO at most people who produce real value for others can be said to "deserve" an income. And while watchmakers produce something that a small number of people are willing to pay a lot for, it's hard to say that they're producing real value as opposed to some kind of Veblen status display. (Contrast that with something like a mansion or a sports car - although it's a luxury good, there are tangible ways in which it's objectively better than the "cheap" equivalent, in a way that a mechanical watch is not)
- Justin_K 4y agoShould we also drive shitty cars and live in small houses?
- kqr 4y agoQuartz watches are not shitty or small. They are more accurate and reliable than mechanical watches. (I say this as an owner of several mechanical watches. I love them, but they are strictly worse than anything decently priced in any watch store.)
- quickthrower2 4y agoShould? No. But smaller cars and houses can be nicer. Smaller house = easier to maintain, for example.
- nunez 4y agoironically, there is a lot of overlap between the "buys hyper expensive wrist Tamagotchis", "owns a charity," and "donates to charities" Venn diagram.
- Animats 4y agoMechanical watch pricing has become silly. The Rolex Submariner, a useful tool in the 1950s for mariners and pilots, sold for $150 in 1953, or about $1500 now. It now costs about $8950. Same item. “Rolex is not in the watch business, we are in the luxury business” - attributed to a Rolex chairman.
- rmason 4y agoIt's an acceptable way for men to wear jewelry. To flaunt success without being gaudy. I prefer skeleton watches and although even more expensive models exist imho Richard Mille makes the top of the line.
- SergeAx 4y agoExpensive timepiece today is the only way for a man to show off his wealth indoors in a relatively tasteful manner. Woman can wear gold and diamonds on the neck, in the ears, on the wrists, on the lapel. She may carry a bag which costs thousands. Man can't wear any gold at all, except he is a rap star. He can't even wear cufflinks outside formal attire. Not sure about even a ring with stone. Maybe steel one with small diamond will not look extremely kitsch, but it is a big maybe. Expensive low-key watch on steel or leather wristband is totally okay in almost any social situation. In case someone suddenly recognizes the brand - you always may say that it is a Chinese replica. Not that I endorse that, just pointing out.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoIt is an NFT of sorts, only without the cryptographic proof.