NFTs Will NOT Save Us | China Miéville
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- Опубликовано: 12 июн 2022
- China Miéville talks to Ash Sarkar about how the totality of capitalism affects art.
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Whatever the case may be with NFTs, one thing is certain: this technology has worked wonders for criminals laundering money.
Not to mention scamming. And tax evasion. And it goes for cryptocurrency too. It's almost like lack of regulation, oversight, paper trail etc. might be a massive benefit for anyone engaging in shady sh*t, who would've thought?
@Black Jock They certainly didn't. But we need fewer criminals, con-artists and tax evaders, not more.
Really liked the point on the Utopian beliefs about the internet and how ultimately any tool can have Utopian potential but is determined by the system within which it operates
Omg never noticed the Donald fagan lyrics! Idk wether to laugh or cry...
@Black Jock Isn't the Internet itself becoming a system? A distributed web that can provide a platform for information. One that's accessed by external 'tools' (devices) or has new uses from 'sub-systems' (web apps) inside of it. Like a canvas.
I think the question Ash puts is predicated on a mis-understanding of what NFTs are actually are. NFTs aren't an "innovation in art"; they're an innovation in "ownership".
NFTs are not the (usually fucking ugly image) files they're commonly associated with - they're the token by which "ownership" of a thing (the usually fucking ugly image files) are recognized by, and that "ownership" is what's being tracked, traded and transferred. Theoretically, you can use NFTs to recognise the ownership of tangible assets (though why anyone would chose to do this, or have anything to do with NFTs, is utterly beyond me).
But the question is framed as if NFTs are supposed some catalyst for an artistic boom. They're not, and they were never intended for that. They're a catalyst for a boom in making it possible to trade "ownership". It's capitalism at it's finest worst, "I own, therefore I make profit". The problem that NFTs have is that they must have something which is "owned" before they can have any "value", which is why you get all these low-effort, copy-pasta, computer generated, combinatorial, artistically vacuous images that NFTs are most associated with. To make as much money as possible from the con, you need something which has little to no intrinsic value itself, the "ownership" of which you can imbue with "value" which you can then sell to your marks.
NFTs _could_ be used to track the ownership of things where the thing itself is valuable, rather than the ownership of the thing having all the value. Instead, because it requires fuck all effort to make something to which ownership can be assigned, we have digital image trading backed by the NFT system, people falling for it like utter fucking chumps, and the con-artists running the rigged games part fools from their cash at a record rate.
Someone that understands the tech making a comment. Good work 👍
The problem is, that there is no real relationship between the thing itself, and the NFT. It's ownership of a receipt, not ownership of the thing.
@@MPostma72 so when you buy a house you get the deeds to the land which are held by yourself and a solicitor. That's a receipt and is on a database showing you have ownership. NFTs are the same but instead of a bit of paper that can be lost or destroyed or a centralised database they are held on a decentralised system where the only person that can alter the deed is the owner of it. They remove trust and replace it with a system that can be verified.
IP ownership is massively overrated and can actually restricts the creation of new work. This whole IP paradigm was just invented in the last couple hundred years, so it was hardly ever needed. Its an object of pure ego designed to control the will of others.
What we really need to save us is a new New Crobuzon novel, China!
Media and corporations hyper commercialised culture is all about celebrating mediocrity and the mendacity of the super rich as aspirational
People actually fell for NFT lol, also crypto my goodness what a mess it has been as of recent 😅
Cash is King!
I make 50,000 a second. 😉
Might be worth discussing blockchain/bitcoin with “The Blockchain Socialist”. There are others making the socialist case for this kind of economy.
Love China. Don't agree with all his politics but he's a very interesting guy and a great writer who produces really interesting books.
Love China, I would recommend Embassy Town its a fascinating and clever book.
Difficult book. Borrow a copy to see if you'll like it.
I literally used the same phrase as you 'Love China', then scrolled down to see your comment!
Great minds.
@@PJF1981 yes it is a challenging read but rewarding too, eventually!
YES, My favourite Sci Fi book of all time. Challenging yes, but so satisfying
I saw the thumbnail, and recalling Theodore Sturgeon's quote about "90% of everything..." watched the video. At outset I had no idea what an NFT was, subsequently thought it might be some currency or payment system and something to do with the arts, then wondered do I need to know - will it affect me?
Whatever NFTs were/are, if capitalism has its greedy hands on it, it's probably naff.
Afterwards I Googled the definition, and wasn't much clearer. But then I'm a guy who performs live music (no tech other than occasional amplification), someone who prefers CDs, DVDs and vinyl (and even the odd VHS) to streaming - preferring physical ownership. Maybe it's unfashionable, but getting back to Theo Sturgeon, "90% of everything" applies to fashion too.
If you want to have some better understanding, I suggest watching the video 'Line goes up" by Folding Ideas.
Seems like NFTs are a bit like shares in supposed actual/physical “assets”. I look upon them a bit like performance art; they act like shares but it’s obviously just theatre. Maybe their whole point is to demonstrate that shares in companies are exactly that. I could easily be barking up the wrong tree though.
There’s a view that everything would be better utilized by the community and individuals if, rather than possessing something personally for life, we exchange things as and when we need them. So, that sewing machine in the spare bedroom - doing nothing most of the time, could be passed around the neighbourhood as a shared asset; better for the environment. Same could be said of the “spare” bedroom.
It reminds me of how the printing press made copies so cheap and democratized information. Consequently stuff got shared quickly, cheaply and easily and the price of the authentic documents/art went up as time went by. This has been accelerated with audio/video recording and the internet. It has also turned the “inauthentic” copies into a form of grey goo.
Still can’t believe people have been so stupid to fall for that one...what’s that?...Look at politics?...Aye well fair enough... 😬🤦♀️
99% of culture is crap sounds harsh, but that's how culture works, especially in the information age. Anybody with a PC can make art or literature or music and put it on the internet. Only the very best pieces will stand the test of time and gain major cultural significance.
Sounds harsh is an understatement. It sounds out right stupid. The man clearly has no idea what he's talking about and I wonder if he ever had a childhood or ever done anything outside his comfort zone. Who is he? There is no such thing as perfection. It does not exist. Laudy. laudy protect us from wannabe perfectionist intellectuals who claim to have all the answers to humanities problems.
Don’t you think he looks a bit like the aliens in Prometheus?
Love China's fiction, excellent political views too
NFTs = New F…… Tulips
ash's truth bomb at 0:11 should have a trigger warning for anyone caught up in this lol
Bottled Dog Farts for sale, get them while there hot! Ppfftt! And they will be all gone.
I love novara media, loved this interview, but I thought I'd watch this clip because the thumbnail struck me as a level of clickbait they'd never lowered themselves to. I had assumed the bit where he'd specified 'under late capitalism' was said immediately before, but he literally says '99% of culture UNDER CAPITALISM is crap', which would make the thumbnail not only click bait but just straight mis quoting. Now you could say well, what culture is in living memory aside from culture under capitalism, and yeah, you'd be right, but the vibe of having that as a thumbnail is just not one I'd come to expect. It's the sort of thing that makes it all too easy for some right wing hack and use for their own ends. Again, they are going to do that anyway, but this is like delivering it to them on a silver platter
I have to agree on the clickbaity titles and thumbnails, but apparently this stuff increases views, and as much I hate it personally, if it helps get Novara Media noticed outside of the bubble a bit more, it's maybe worth it (Caveats and exceptions delibrately inserted).
@@ahdkaw usually I would agree with you along the same lines but I felt this one was particularly egregious and just lead to china dealing with a whole bunch of shit. it's prime culture war ammo
NFT’s are the perfect artistic representation of capitalism though, you can’t deny that 🤔
post modern neo capitalism
If you think culture is crap, you’re just looking on the surface, we’re in a golden age of art and music, you just need to search for it.
exactly the point tho. theres just so much crap. the internet has been great for connecting us but with the techno-feudalist future on the horizon its concerning whether this golden age can last...
name some of this art and music because i cerainly havent seen or heard it
@@kylebalmer3396 Life rewards those who search hard for the gold!
What are you into?
@@Brokout pretty open minded to be honest
But if it wasn't for their horrible NFTs, how would we know CNN plus ever really existed?
What about fat32?
🙌🏻👏🏻 crap is the right word. Just another unrelevant phase.
It is sadly very relevant, despite being crap... I saw recent studies estimate that 7% of the world's wealth (liquid assets only, that is) is now tied up in crypto. If that is true... I suspect it's probably playing a big part in the current global economic difficulties, and just nobody is talking about it yet.
The idea of the Blockchains involvement in art was to allow creators to benefit from copyright ownership for images that they owned & existed virtually. This is where the scammers moved in & exposed it's flaws. Whether you like the content being produced as an NFT is irrelevant.
All art is not necessarily 'good' art regardless if it's registered as an NFT of not. The idea that NFT's have anything to do with
with the artistic worth of a piece is a ludicrous suggestion & demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the subject.
Whatever the case may be, one thing is certain: this technology has worked wonders for criminals laundering money.
Man I love China Mieville!
Who is this man? I think I'm in love. Not bad at 70 yrs old 😆😆😆
I'm not sure either of these presenters have grasped the concept of NFTs. They are not a form of art, they are a form of ownership. Yes the art world has jumped on the technology as it is perfect for proving the authentic of a digital piece of art, and yes, there are lots of crap examples, but that does not negate the foundational concept behind them. Would they have the same criticisms of real world fungible items? Why is it when technology allows us to create digital fungible items it becomes a capitalist failure?
The creativity and independent income that NFTs has finally allowed artists is unrivalled in its significance. Why would you want to deprive artists of being able to make a living outside of the traditional monetary system, a system that props up the capitalism you despise?
It costs over $100 to put one artwork on the market, before you even know if it'll sell. The only artists to benefit have been the already wildly successful ones.
NFT art is a playground for the rich, disguised as an opportunity for the little guy.
Yeah, right. Capitalism is to blame for everything, i forgot. :p
I think capitalism is a good system we just need to tax wealth and people with assets better
A blind like just cause China Miéville.
This clip is typically depressing.
A posh guy moaning about all culture being shit, this is the messaging that will spark a revolution after all!
Obvious point to make, but culture and art is subjective and as entitled to his opinion as he is, this just strikes me as typical snobbish elitism. Some of the best culture ever created has been created under extreme capitalistic conditions, in fact some would argue it's accelerated the proliferation of amazing cultural creation over the last 50-100 years.
As for blockchain and NFT's this video demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding by both parties of the benefits and reasons people are excited about the tech.
As for the specific point of the art, there is lots of amazing NFT art (IMO) when you look beyond popular profile picture projects like Bored Apes, which is the antithesis of what leftist blockchain advocates are striving for. NFT's are not fundamentally just about the art anyway, it is a technology that allows communities to be formed around an artist and for utility beyond the image.
Secondly, you should really do more research into what people are striving to achieve, including some very leftist concepts such as collective ownership of businesses with DAO's, to reclaiming control of your own personal data and wrestling power from the top 4 companies in tech. This is our chance to reset the internet to being an open source and free domain that it was in the 90s.
Seriously this is happening whether the left get on board or not, I think we should be advocating for leftist positions within this new paradigm. There are lots of utopian elements, but there is more potential for good outcomes than the existing internet paradigm.
For a writer China Mieville's not that articulate when puntuating every sentence with 'you know'. I found it quite frustrating to listen to him!
maybe thats why he writes instead of doing talks/videos?
Try reading one of his books. Some interesting ideas, but not so articulate there either.
No Fcuking Thanks!
"99% of culture under capitalism is crap" is such an edgy guy in a smoking area line
its true though. with less people able to subsidize their art with good wellfare, artists are stuck wasting their time focusing on marketability and appealing to as many people as possible. And thats the ones that can make time for it outside of making money to survive.
Theres also the fact that with lower barriers to entry theres just way more art than ever, nvm disney pumping out cinema dominating mildly varied superhero movies 3 times a year...
I agree that 99% of culture is probably crap but it would be the same under a theocracy or a socialism. It is in the reaction to the norm that any interesting culture develops. As for NFTs, such a nebulous concepts divorced form any from of non-nerd reality were always suspect. if cripto currency can deliver me a pig or some cornflakes as collateral to their claims I might be less sceptical.
soviet art was lit tho.
Prometheus
I’m a digital engineer. I design software and create traditional digital art / photography in my spare time. I don’t know and don’t want to know what an NFT or crypto is. I deleted all social media, I have zero interest in this meta rubbish. Ash is right, the internet was a great invention that turned into a cesspit. Instead of promoting wealth of knowledge, companies are promoting junk in exchange for making as much money as possible. Music, film, television, art, theatre it’s all shit. Disney is a great example of what shit is.
Love Miéville but his "capitalism makes art shit" is a stupid take. The most capitalist county in history was Victorian England and it by far the greatest period of literary creativity in the history of the world. The novel as an art form doesn't emerge in non capitalist countries.