5 ms·

Why would you want it to be divorced from success? Seems like popularity/commercial success is the best measure of "being good" societally that we have for art.

Why would you want it to be divorced from success? Seems like popularity/commercial success is the best measure of "being good" societally that we have for art. People making art/games only for themselves is fine of course, but I don't see why society should subsidize it (as long as we have finite resources - beyond that everything goes of course).

hresvelgr 3y ago
> Why would you want it to be divorced from success? Because art is not inherently successful, and using commercial success as a metric on whether it's "good" is philistinism. Art that is "bad" is at the very least interesting in more than one dimension. I have come to appreciate art that to most would be off-putting because where it excels and interests me, it does so in such unique ways I would never expect. There's no telling where those seeds of ingenuity will grow to and who they will inspire. We need "bad" art as much as we need "good" art.
- ImprobableTruth 3y ago
  Commercially successful art is that which is "popular enough". The value of art is completely subjective, so what other measure do we have? If there's "bad art" that appeals to you and others enough, then it isn't bad art. There's lots of art that critics and the general public would consider poorly made that is still commercially successful because it has its fans. "Real" bad art is art that almost no one cares for enough to shell out money. Why should we subsidize that? Just writing this off as philistinism isn't convincing in the least.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
It's not clear to me how you can say that in good faith. There are just too many instances of artists who died destitute only to be considered one of the greats many years after the fact. And the ones that didn't were bankrolled by a wealthy individual. thirdly, many artists draw things they don't really want to because that thing sells better than what they enjoy drawing. It's optimizing for a different thing than what the other poster is claiming should be optimized for.
- ImprobableTruth 3y ago
  Because what other good measure is there? You mention great artists who died destitute - but we consider them great because they are posthumously popular. We can't look into the future to see what stands the test of time, so current popularity and commercial success seem like the best proxies. >thirdly, many artists draw things they don't really want to because that thing sells better than what they enjoy drawing. It's optimizing for a different thing than what the other poster is claiming should be optimized for. Since the proposal isn't about UBI in general, why should we care about artists in particular? Many (most?) people work jobs where they do things they don't really want to because it's more useful to others than what they'd actually like to do.
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    There's a common complaint you'll see about google. They hired the brightest minds of our generation ... to work on ads rather than the betterment of humanity. You're saying artists should optimize for money, the other poster is saying they should optimize for fulfillment. The output you get from one vs the other is vastly different because the underlying incentives are vastly different. > Because what other good measure is there? Why does there need to _be_ a good measure? Do we have a good measure for sex? is it length of time, size of organs, number of orgasms, how deeply the participants care about each other? Why can't something just simply be?
    - ImprobableTruth 3y ago
      Unless you go for UBI, art subsidies will be finite. You need a measure to decide who gets subsidized and who doesn't. We're not talking about people doing art as a hobby after all, but about the government paying people to make art. I'm not saying artists should optimize for money but financial sustainability. It seems like a good target because it indicates popularity and means you need less subsidies. You don't need to make _all_ the money or even break even, but if nobody is interested in paying you, the odds are good that you're not enriching many peoples lives.

hresvelgr 3y ago

> Why would you want it to be divorced from success? Because art is not inherently successful, and using commercial success as a metric on whether it's "good" is philistinism. Art that is "bad" is at the very least interesting in more than one dimension. I have come to appreciate art that to most would be off-putting because where it excels and interests me, it does so in such unique ways I would never expect. There's no telling where those seeds of ingenuity will grow to and who they will inspire. We need "bad" art as much as we need "good" art.

ImprobableTruth 3y ago
Commercially successful art is that which is "popular enough". The value of art is completely subjective, so what other measure do we have? If there's "bad art" that appeals to you and others enough, then it isn't bad art. There's lots of art that critics and the general public would consider poorly made that is still commercially successful because it has its fans. "Real" bad art is art that almost no one cares for enough to shell out money. Why should we subsidize that? Just writing this off as philistinism isn't convincing in the least.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

It's not clear to me how you can say that in good faith. There are just too many instances of artists who died destitute only to be considered one of the greats many years after the fact. And the ones that didn't were bankrolled by a wealthy individual. thirdly, many artists draw things they don't really want to because that thing sells better than what they enjoy drawing. It's optimizing for a different thing than what the other poster is claiming should be optimized for.

ImprobableTruth 3y ago
Because what other good measure is there? You mention great artists who died destitute - but we consider them great because they are posthumously popular. We can't look into the future to see what stands the test of time, so current popularity and commercial success seem like the best proxies. >thirdly, many artists draw things they don't really want to because that thing sells better than what they enjoy drawing. It's optimizing for a different thing than what the other poster is claiming should be optimized for. Since the proposal isn't about UBI in general, why should we care about artists in particular? Many (most?) people work jobs where they do things they don't really want to because it's more useful to others than what they'd actually like to do.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  There's a common complaint you'll see about google. They hired the brightest minds of our generation ... to work on ads rather than the betterment of humanity. You're saying artists should optimize for money, the other poster is saying they should optimize for fulfillment. The output you get from one vs the other is vastly different because the underlying incentives are vastly different. > Because what other good measure is there? Why does there need to _be_ a good measure? Do we have a good measure for sex? is it length of time, size of organs, number of orgasms, how deeply the participants care about each other? Why can't something just simply be?
  - ImprobableTruth 3y ago
    Unless you go for UBI, art subsidies will be finite. You need a measure to decide who gets subsidized and who doesn't. We're not talking about people doing art as a hobby after all, but about the government paying people to make art. I'm not saying artists should optimize for money but financial sustainability. It seems like a good target because it indicates popularity and means you need less subsidies. You don't need to make _all_ the money or even break even, but if nobody is interested in paying you, the odds are good that you're not enriching many peoples lives.