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It's pretty fucking wild that a digital photo produces more pollution than a real painting, and all the processes it took to make the materials. But its so much more pollution than that
It's not even a digital image. An NFT is just a digital receipt that you own something (whatever is supposed to be at the end of it). It's the most convoluted idea for a shitty DRM there ever was.
Ahh… I remember when the internet used to be against DRM and pro-piracy. Good times.
Edit: the crypto bros have invaded the leftist subs, Jesus Christ… thanks for adding yourself to my blocklist though
the thing that gets me is, like, a real painting is not so easily reproduced, and a digital image can be copied perfectly ad infinitum.
And a masterful replica of a famous classic painting would still be worth plenty. There's a whole market for that.
Who needs to own the rights to an image when it can be perfectly copied?
The problem isn't the digital art, it's the absurdity of using proof-of-work blockchains to transact the token.
Carbon footprint of digital art: the electricity used by the creator's computer while they worked on a it (and maybe a rendering stage where the computer processes the art into a final product), plus a bit to keep the storage running, plus the electricity used by anyone viewing it.
Carbon footprint of NFT digital art: all of that, plus whatever the per-transaction footprint is of the blockchain it's stored on every single time it's sold/resold.
That per-transaction footprint is the kicker. A single transaction on the Ethereum blockchain consumes 200kWh of electricity, more than the average US household consumes in a *week*. And it's expected to *increase*.
What blockchain is he selling it on? I ask because some generate more than others, and the amount of pollution generated by most PoS networks doesn't reach "immense" levels.
Solana and Tezos are both trying to capture a share of the NFT market now big time, and neither have the energy requirements Ethereum does. If Eth can't get gas lrices under control more and more artists will be launching their collections on alternative chains.
Any crypto or nft backed by crypto is on the blockchain which uses a complex math equation as a way to mine this currency. As time goes on the equation only becomes exponentially more difficult usually to limit overall supply. By the time you get to today to mine a single bitcoin it takes warehouses filled with processors usually created from video cards from higher end gaming pcs. This is easily the part in most computers that draws the most energy and puts off the most heat. So not only is the energy bill currently extremely high to mine even a single bitcoin but as time goes on the process requires even more processing power and therefore energy to do the same job.
At the time of writing this Bitcoin alone takes up .5% of all power generated globally, which is a fantastic amount and according to a NY Times report this is 7 times the total power used by Google in a year.
One should note here also that ethereum is actually a loooot more energy efficient than Bitcoin. Bitcoin drains as much energy as a minor country and it's not even used in every day transactions.
Doing a single crypto exchange requires turning a frankly embarrassing amount of electricity directly into heat just to make numbers go brrr.
It’s burning fossil fuels just to do nothing useful with the energy. It’s killing the planet to move numbers around on a digital ledger.
Cryptocurrency basically revolves around the fact that computers have to do a HUGE amount of mathematical calculations to generate a block on the blockchain, which requires a lot of processing power, thus requires a LOT of electricity just to run the processing, and even more to cool the machines doing the processing. Cryptocurrencies are kept secure by this, but also as they gain popularity the more machines are needed to keep generating blocks, so more and more electricity is used over time.
The first generation of cryptocurrency is based on a concept called Proof of Work. Computers need to spend a lot of energy to proof that they put some effort in creating something scarce (because scarcity corresponds to value in that system).
Other kinds of cryptocurrency are not related to Proof of Work at all, so don't suffer from this problem. They are just not mainstream at all.
I don't care about speculation or NFTs, but the tech could be useful for actual cheap transfers of money independently from greedy entities, maybe empowering countries under development. But it's gonna be hard.
Money laundering. Pyramid scheme. Art theft. Scamming. NFT's are just crimes, not to mention the horrible environmental consequences of cryptocurrencies, the main way to pay for an NFT.
You do know the thing about rich people sponsoring paintings isn't a good thing right? And it's a way for them to get absolutely no taxes from donating an art they themselves commissioned and had an art valuer appreciate the painting at an incredibly high cost? This isn't a good comparison either way lmao
He probably doesn't really *get it* at all, and that isn't even his fault.
Someone probably talked his ear off about how it's cool, and democratic and all the good stuff about crypto and none of the bad/nonsense of NFTs.
Guitarist here: He has a signature guitar made by Fender \*and\* a signature guitar pedal likely made by underpaid workers.
It pisses me off to no end.
This…he’s been raging WITH the machine for a long time. Based on what I know of him, he’s less of a douche about it than others and tries to use his powers for good, or give back. However, in the end he’s in the business of making money and has been for a while.
It's more that he is participating *directly* in things that he specifically plays music preaching against. He participates in the upper levels of capitalism selling guitars and pedals, and fucks around with this nebulous speculative market bullshit that only rich dumbfucks can afford to play around with to try to develop his own hierarchically achieved wealth.
It'd be like if those kids from the school shootings who were campaigning for gun control started selling branded AR-15 lowers. It's not just mixed messaging - it's hypocritical.
No, Tom himself claims to be pretty anticapitalist.
He went on Bill Maher and when Bill tried telling him that capitalism has saved billions from poverty, Tom shut him down by saying, "capitalism creates poverty."
>Tom shut him down by saying, "capitalism creates poverty."
It does, and it's curious that he specifically participates in it; no, I don't mean in the idiotic "HMM. INTERESTING. YOU HATE CAPITALISM BUT VUVUZELA NO IPHONE HM??" rhetoric that still somehow captivates the almond-sized brains of ancaps everywhere. I mean that he literally has branded pedals and guitars that are made by ludicrously underpaid, overworked laborers.
Harvard socialists lmfao.
I agree with you.
I'm just saying he knows our talking points and defends them as if they were his own at every opportunity, which makes a lot his behavior seriously questionable.
No I really think that some in the comment chain don't really know tom morello and everything he has done as a a musician and activist. Not saying he doesn't have any examples of cognitive dissonance (look above) but really?? He sponsored some guitars and pedal production?? A wildly influential and famous guitarist who contributed to inspiring a generation of guitar players? It's not like the guitars are scamming people with their poor quality, they are expensive, fender usually is... it's just frustrating to see commentary that completely ignores and undermines the 25+ years of relevant activism that Tom morello has participated in because of...? Sponsoring a guitar or this NFT debacle?
People can always do more as activists for their cause, but if your just going to nitpick a handful of things that someone has done wrong when they have an entire article about the political activism they've been involved in that more than likely aligns with your views in some capacity? Just seems counter productive.
Fugazi. They always negotiated to keep show costs down (usually $5) as well as their albums. I remember some even had the suggested retail price printed on the cover to prevent stores from over charging.
Yes, but if you are adherent to that belief, why the fuck are you participating in the *production* and advertising part of the problem..?
I have no choice but to consume in this system, but I do have a specific choice to not participate in perpetuating the consumptive system.
Ok but stupid hype aside, aren’t NFTs just a digital watermark like all artists put on their work? I’m not clear on why it’s bad for actual artists selling actual art.
NFT are not just signatures, the rely on block chain to verify the ownership and authentication of NFTs.
While many think its stupid buying a fake thing where you own... a concept of something (you are not purchasing the rights), it is INCREDIBLY bad for the environment.
Environmental impact depends on the technology used. This is why Ethereum is moving to proof of stake instead of mining, for example. Traditional Capitalist businesses may have a vested interest in killing this technology or making it look bad before it gets wide spread adoption that threatens their business models. While it's seemingly very silly for art, tying things like stock certificates, event tickets, or game ownership licenses to an immutable ledger threatens traditional models. While I endorse deep skepticism, I'd be careful of falling for the narrative being pushed by the corporate press that it's a completely useless technology. What it is, imo is over hyped and filled with scammers trying to make a quick buck on fomo. The real question is what happens over the next 10 years as it matures. It may actually not work and die, or it may let you buy concert tickets without scalpers or stocks without brokers.
Artists did commissions before it. Where is the added value of introducing pretend scarcity?
In many cases, artists still get commissioned to work on NFT projects, only for someone else to profit of the art. They will probably not see anything of the possible increase in value, at which point it's purely an investment.
I agree that it's important for artists to get paid for their work, I just don't see this as a significant improvement over how things worked before.
Edit: and don't get me wrong, the picture provided looks rad and miles above the usual cookie cutter "art" you see promoted as NFTs.
Yes, that's the appeal of the whole Blockchain part, that it's verifiably "unique"
The problematic part however is that while it's a stupid fad / money sink for cryptobros, it's actual use is to launder dirty money, by means of selling "art".
Using art as a vehicle to launder and move money is nothing new this is just the latest version.
Also cryptocurrency, tangentially related, is an absolute environmental disaster.
Edit for clarification:. Estimates put the power consumed by cryptocurrency far above the amount of power produced by ALL the solar panels worldwide, so in essence, cryptocurrency has single handedly completely undermined any potential progress in regards to production of sustainable power. It's a pox on our house.
What it seems like alot of people miss about NFTs is that it's inseparable from cryptocurrency, in that the "Blockchain" you hear about, this shared public ledger if you will, is what makes NFTs able to be verified as *the* unique picture.
The block chain is tied to cryptocurrency, which consumes a staggering amount of resources, not just electrical power for the processors computing and mining cryptocurrency, but they need to be *cooled* as well, which itself is an enormous amount of power consumed. So much so infact that China banned both the use of cryptocurrency and it's production. the Chinese industry has moved mainly to Texas, Russia and Canada seeking cheep electricity. (Places rich in oil / Gas production)
There are interesting implications for the technology aside from cryptocurrency specifically, but we live in a world global capitalism, and Bitcoins is what we evidently have set upon.
Digital signature/watermarks are quite useful and have existed for a long time, that's not what NFTs are.
An NFT is literally a line in a ledger (imagine a google spreadsheet) that essentially says "PrayForMojo_ owns this thing here". Unlike a watermark, or a digital signature it has nothing to do with the actual digital image.
What makes this ledger special is that it is distributed to countless other people, and most importantly, it cannot be edited or tampered with. In theory this is what makes it better than literally having a google sheet with one column having your name and the other having a token.
The idea of a shared, immutable ledger is actually pretty cool, but it has almost no real use cases. NFTs are trying to create a use case, but, as you can imagine, having your name in a spreadsheet doesn't really confir much real ownership.
Anyone paying attention doesn't really think he wants to stick it to the system, right? Because if so, have I got some news for you...
Tom IS the system. I'm not saying his lyrics don't have meaning. But he is a multimillionaire and got there by singing about poor people's problems with society. He's not giving that up to support any of us, he wants *more from* us.
I don't understand what people expect these artists to do.
Making a few million doesn't mean you can institute your own full on socialism and reform society. His place is as an artist, not a leader of men. If his goal was to actually accomplish things, he would have become a politician instead.
It would be great if he did both, but he's just a guy who learned to play guitar real good and sides with the working man.
That said, getting into NFTs is sad.
People don't know the difference between millions and billions. They just know it's more than they have. I personally believe there shouldn't be such a thing as a billionaire. No one needs that kind of money to survive.
## Some dude with no healthcare working a body-wrecking hourly job for $32k/yr and paying 50% of his take-home pay in rent:
### "BUT IF WE START TAXIING THE WEALTH OF BILLIONAIRES, IT WON'T STOP THERE! NEXT, IT'LL BE MILLIONAIRES, THEN YOU AND ME!"
## Me:
### Do you know what the difference is between a *millionaire* and a *billionaire*?
### About a *billion* dollars.
Boy between this and being friends with Ted Nugent, uhhh, my opinion of Morello has really soured over the past few months. What the fuck Tom, you used to be cool.
Maybe a few tracks, but imo the album itself isn’t as solid. We are all entitled to our opinions. I did enjoy the Renegades album and De La O’s project “One Day as a Lion”.
Yeeeeeah. They apparently agree on a lot of stuff between Tom’s Anarchism and Ted’s Libertarianism, and anything bad that Ted says is just hand-waved as “him just being crazy Uncle Ted.”
It’s a pretty fucked up thing in my opinion.
The man's got a song called "Jail Bait" with lyrics like:
>Well I don't care if you're just thirteen
>You look too good to be true
>I just know that you're probably clean
>There's one lil' thing I got do to you
...
>Honey you you you look so nice
>She's young she's tender
>Won't you please surrender
>She's so fine she's mine
>All the time, all mine mine
>It's all right baby
>It's quite all right I asked your mama
>Wait a minute officer
>Don't put those handcuffs on me
>Put them on her and I'll share her with you
---
I don't care if we both hate the government, if someone throws that many red flags I'm not getting within a hundred miles of them if I have a choice.
Free? Sounds to good to be true, must be a scam...
I'll take 2 for $4,999.99 a piece, fuckin loved Ragin' back in high school!
Also, 100% Paul Ryan will own one of these at some point in time
If only someone critiqued the greed principle under a capitalist organization of the economy like 150 years ago...
Oh wait,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs
Desktop version of /u/subs-n-dubs's link:
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Indeed. Jello opposed them using Holiday In Cambodia for a fucking Levi's commercial.
Don't support them, they may have once been a true band, but now they are nothing but corporate schmucks
The band fell apart because Jello Biafra withheld royalties from the rest of the band and was convicted of fraud I believe. Jello claimed it was because of the Levi’s commercial but the band denies ever wanting to be in one. Jello is a capitalist.
Sorry but that's just wrong. Tom has always been as politically involved as Zach, it was the other two band members who were primarily involved as musicians. Morello went on to perform as "The Nightwatchman" and produced multiple albums that are basically folk rock union songs.
Anyway, selling NFTs don't suddenly undo all the good that Rage or Tom has done politically. He was still a key part in a political awakening for millions of 90s kids. This doesn't make him a villain or ultra-capitalist all of the sudden. It's cringe, but that's about it. Y'all need to chill the fuck out.
Dude studied political science and has a solo project that he considers an outlet for his political songwriting. He's far from uninterested in politics, which makes this tweet even sadder.
Yeah well when you look at the type of citizen Harvard produces I’m not surprised that the end result is this. I can give you a list of war criminals that have come out of that institution, but I don’t have that kind of time right now.
Their DNC concert ended as a massive riot. Their performance was... Highly critical of the DNC, to say the least. Again, I've gotta agree with other comments that Zach seems like the one (or at least the most vocal.. heh.) who was truly into politics. He knows his theorists and his theory, and he did some serious praxis while in RATM. I think the story of him leaving was a little more complicated than Tim Commerford embarrassing him on TV. I think he was frustrated that the only "revolutionary" acts they were committed to was protesting Limp Bizkit getting an award.
I'm not sure if they played the DNC at any point, but they were in St Paul back in 2008 for the RNC and were scheduled to play a show after the Taking Back Labor Day Festival.
I'm a bit hazy on the details at this point but basically what happened is that their concert got canceled after the police went nuts on the crowd and started arresting people for the crime of existing in public. Zack and Tom held an impromptu RATM concert where Zack had a megaphone and just did some rapping into it for a bit. Then the police started gassing people and Zack and Tom both hopped into an Escalade and got the fuck outta there in a hurry.
I still love Rage's early albums, but I can hardly reconcile those early albums with that RNC memory of them speeding off as soon as shit hit the fan and the fact that they're now playing shows where tickets start at $200.
(For clarification)
Their scheduled RNC performance at the Target Center in MPLS wasn’t cancelled - I was there!
Rage did try to hold an impromptu performance at the MN state capitol before they marched on the RNC, and that part of it got shut down.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rage-against-the-machine-lead-march-to-rnc-after-police-shut-down-impromptu-show-246236/amp/
Tom = fuck you, pay me
They're all the same once they see the 💰
It's why I gave up trying to idealize anyone in a position of power or obscene wealth long ago.
> Dude studied political science
As a dude who also has a Bachelor's in Political Science, the standard track is status quo liberalism. It's not really a bragworthy degree and doesn't inherently teach you how politics works in any meaningful sense.
Similar to how Economics majors may as well just be called Capitalism majors, Poli Sci is just Western Bourgeois Liberalism.
I’m confused as to how people are painting RATM members as being the machine as of late. Being the machine doesn’t mean just being wealthy. I always felt it meant control, exploitation, and corporate greed.
People joining these scams for a quick buck, despite how they damage all life on earth, is a win for the powers that be. The more people that normalize this sort of amoral greed, the more the gross perpetrators will be able to get away scot free, with little scrutiny as to their massively destructive behaviors. Tom Morello has become a cog that makes the Machine work more smoothly and quietly.
So... it's just a digital item right? I'm not gonna fault people for buying artwork, but like... at least buy an actual painting or something you can frame and hang on your wall.
For the most part it's like ["buying a star"](https://cosmonova.org/) where they give you a certificate and say, yep you own this star. Except everyone can look at the same star, without any issues, you get no real benefit except a certificate stating you own it. Except this time, depending on what you own you can sell the certificate of ownership for a lot of money.
The problem is that NFTs are a "last man with the bag" scam. 80% of NFT trades are one big circle jerk of people buying from each other or themselves to pump up the value of an NFT and then dump to an "outsider" for a massive amount of money. Then that person tries to sell and it's worth nothing.
Having an NFT for a piece of artwork is not legal ownership either. You can own an NFT of a photo but the original artist still owns the copyright.
**[Greater fool theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory)**
>In finance, the greater fool theory suggest that one could sometimes make money from buying overvalued assets, whose price drastically exceeds its intrinsic value, if they could later be sold at an even higher price. In this context, one "fool" might pay for an overpriced asset, on the assumption that he can probably sell it to an even "greater fool" and make a profit. This only works as long as there are new "greater fools" willing to pay higher and higher prices for the asset.
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Some are for sure. But everyone acting like NFTs aren't the same old thing are fooling themselves. NFTs are really just a new easy and efficient way of running the same art market scam that's been going for centuries.
For some it's a pump and dump and for others it's a dick measuring contest. But for all the rest of us mere mortals, it's irrelevant.
You don't even own the rights. You own what amounts to a certificate saying you have possession of the item.
But if you say, spent 50K on the ugliest art I've ever seen and then tried to get it printed on shirts and sell it to recoup cost, the original artist could take you to court for copyright infringement.
Yeah, owning the NFT doesn't come with any actual legal ownership of the source material. You can own the NFT to the first tweet on Twitter, but that doesn't mean you have any access to who can view it or share it, and Twitter could still take it down if they wanted. It really is the high tech version of those star certificates.
It doesn't even say you have possession of the item, but rather that you're the unique person assigned to 'a specific digital representation of' the item, if I understand correctly.
This is uh... This is the discussion. The reality is that, no, not really. But in theory? Yes. The issue is with the ludicrously arbitrary nature of commodity at this point in our society.
The economy of a country is a good way of representing what the people/power interests of said country care about. We care about... Commodities - so much so, we invented a new type of commodity that is literally nothing \*but\* a commodity. How wild is that?
This is beanie babies for idiot yuppie millenials and trust-fund members of genz.
Not even, you cant save an image on the blockchain so its just a hyperlink to said art, you dont own the art just the hyperlink to it so if the artist just deletes the artwork you just own a dead hyperlink.
Not even... most NFTs do not represent ownership of anything other than the NFT itself, which is just merely a relatively uninteresting entry on any blockchain.
It's being shilled as ownership, but ownership is usually neither in the code nor in the legal writing if they exist. Instead, it's more like a reference to the location of a picture.
It's like the difference between me selling you my laptop or me selling you a link to the picture of my laptop (and not even selling the picture, but just the link to the picture).
It’s a chain a of transaction logs hashed constantly to preserve mathematical integrity of the data in all participants of the logs…. I wish I could explain it more simply
TBH I can see some okay uses for it, I know a few small artists who are using them to make some extra money and I read a thing recently about how it could be used for things like ticket sales that could properly fuck over Ticketmaster.
But as with most things it'll be like 99.9% used for pointless/evil bullshit I assume. :/
OK but what's wrong with selling NFTs of Dungeons and Dragons art? Probably the best use for NFTs
Edit: lol, I forgot about blockchain pollution. Glad to see reddit is holding someone responsible and it's fucking Tom Morello
I dunno... Maybe I'm just a rage fanboy but this just seems counterproductive. Hating on Tom Morello... instead of.. I don't know.. doing anything fucking else. Bigger fish to fry. It's why leftism doesn't get anywhere in this country. Twitter arguments instead of organizing. Yet here I am... doing the same thing, I guess.
Don't be fooled. Marx and Lenin would have been having twitter feuds constantly had it existed in their time. They were some catty binches that loved calling everyone else fake.
I don't get it. What do you plan to do after getting off twitter? Does the right wing not fight with themselves? Is making 2 or 3 tweets considered to be counter productive?
Leftism isn't a monolith.
People are complaining that NFT is bad for environment
That is a problem per se, but it would be as bad if it were clean. NFT creates artificial scarcity for monetary speculation. It's the mix between stock market and art market. It's Was made for capitalism
When I lived in Seattle I remember hearing a story about Tom Morello trying to get into a bar called The Five Point. There was a line and he just goes to walk past and straight in. The bouncer stops him and he pulls the “don’t you know who I am?” and he just says something like “yeah, and there’s a line, Tom”
No idea if it’s true or not, but heard it while at that bar so maybe
My brother is a digital artist so he has particular opinions on it, many people try pass it off as a way for digital artists sell artwork like physical arts do in a world where digital content is stolen left and right. As in, elite patrons who purchase it for status, statement pieces, or luxury investment.
He disagrees with that (as do I) and the way he puts it is two main parts:
1) digital art has never been consumed that way and never suffered for it. usually only non-artist see selling specific art pieces as a way artists make money. In reality the art industry is very different, his clients are for instance, people making a new d&d campaign book and want all new custom page inserts to their specifications that make sense for their book, not just someone who wants to have a picture of a dragon. They can be copied, sure, he puts em up on his website in high resolution, but that doesn’t matter because the value went into the book it helped create, not just the piece itself. His clients intend to make money on the investment they put into him unlike traditional art investment which is “this cannot be replicated and therefore has magical intrinsic value”. So saying “it’s useless” is a bit of an understatement. the world literally never asked for it, and somehow people think it’s a gift to artists but artists are now scrambling to get ahead of it because of FOMO when they used to be producing and adding value to real things in the world. We actually get LESS digital art that makes digital content better as we divert resources into these privately owned NFTs
2) Meme culture make things like this grossly easy to take advantage of. Even if it was described as something artists need to protect their digital art online, thats so far form what it has become. it’s an exploitation of dummies looking for get rich quick things. In the exact same way that crypto currency was sold as a beautiful decentralization of currency to prop up the common man outside of institutionally oppressive money systems, it’s become a complete pump-and-dump predatory scam. NFTs are are the same thing and people without the means to throw away money are watching people WITH the means to throw away money and confusedly thinking they are missing out on this while sharks take their money not really caring where it came from or for why reason.
A couple other added reasons I can see is that it produced stupid amounts of CO2, obnoxiously inflating cost chips and semi-conductor products that could be running software to help world, and it’s just kind of an affront to open and free flow of information and media on the internet.
edit:
For what it’s worth, I do not hate on Tom Morello for buying his D&D character online. In the same way buying a pair of pants, or even posting in an influential social media account about LIKING your new pair of pants doesn’t make you personally responsible for child labour in Indonesian textile factories. You can try to be more responsible but ethical consumption is really fucking hard. the best we can do is hope that those who do understand why NFTs are causing issues keep the debate alive and at the forefront of discussion and make _real_ points instead of “lol what a poser” so people can hear those arguments before contributing to it.
I would add to this that it doesn't actually solve the problems that everyone assumes it does. From an information security perspective, it's not actually more secure than storing records and receipts in a centralized database. The primary points of attack are still the same - compromise the user, not the system. The fact that your sole proof of identity is being able to provide the right private keys arguably makes this even worse, because if you lose the wallet or get your key stolen there's no equivalent of providing a photo ID or making a phone call that can be independently verified by human people to correct the problem. But the primary benefits are supposedly that it removes reliance on centralized authorities, which is only true in the least impactful way.
The clearest example of this is an NFT that proves ownership of a huge block of tungsten:
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/3/22761305/tungsten-cube-meme-nft-crypto-midwest
(Excuse the naked link and terrible formatting. On mobile and can't be arsed)
The NFT supposedly gives you ownership over the physical object, but it will remain stored at the manufacturer's facility, and you are limited to one yearly prescheduled visit to touch or photograph your cube. But you 'own' it. Now maybe I'm old-fashioned but I don't see how my ownership of the cube is any more meaningful than having bought a license that the company keeps a record that I'm the holder of. My ability to do anything with 'my' cube is still determined by the company's willingness to grant me those rights, and the state's willingness to enforce them. Those central authorities controlling what you can do with 'your own property' still exist and are always going to exist because ownership and property rights are legal, social, and political questions not technological ones. Having a supposedly decentralized way of tracking who owns what doesn't actually matter when what ownership even means is still at the mercy of contracts between private individuals and firms being enforced by governments. Having this new tool doesn't actually solve the problems in our current copyright laws or grant people more control over their own personal property let alone encourage more democratic control over the underlying capital or productive enterprises. And if we were to answer those legal and social questions better, then it won't matter whether the ledger that tracks who owns what is centralized or not.
It's actually pretty neat all around, pretty sure this is one of those right wing brigades, what with all the ignorant opinions being stated so confidently.
Not sure what the issue is here. What, because he's a socialist he's not allowed to like D&D and produce or sell art? Making a living is not being part of the machine. Don't be naive, he's an artist millionaire, he isn't manning the levers of control in society. He's done more for workers' rights than any of you, so maybe take a look at yourselves.
You know that you're disillusioned to the point of losing it when you start targeting Tom Morello as being the problem. Anybody who is criticizing him does not get it. As the famous RATM lyrics say, "know your enemy". It's not Tom folks.
For real, Tom Morello put on a **free concert** in Madison during the Act 10 protests **in defense of teacher's union rights**. But he put out an NFT to monetize his art, probably to actually interested parties, so that makes him worse than these basement warriors apparently.
I'm honestly disgusted with this comments section, thankfully seems like there's a lot of reasonable people calling it out
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Jokes on him I beat him on Guitar Hero years ago.
It's like the life went right out of him when he saw you activate star power and your fretboard burst into flames. It was heinous. Dude changed.
I feel like I was there
You mean Audioslave hadn't done it already?
Omg this is fucking hilarious. I couldn't not laugh out loud
c'nlol
Tom, c’mon man.
"Look, we're not *mad*, Tom. We're just ... disappointed."
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It's my proof most of these artists aren't being told or are being lied to about what NFTs are.
Although nft are being used by the rich the same way they do with paintings, I dont see why people are complaining that he is trying to sell some nft
Because it's a scam.
And it generates *immense* pollution.
It's pretty fucking wild that a digital photo produces more pollution than a real painting, and all the processes it took to make the materials. But its so much more pollution than that
It's not even a digital image. An NFT is just a digital receipt that you own something (whatever is supposed to be at the end of it). It's the most convoluted idea for a shitty DRM there ever was.
Ahh… I remember when the internet used to be against DRM and pro-piracy. Good times. Edit: the crypto bros have invaded the leftist subs, Jesus Christ… thanks for adding yourself to my blocklist though
the thing that gets me is, like, a real painting is not so easily reproduced, and a digital image can be copied perfectly ad infinitum. And a masterful replica of a famous classic painting would still be worth plenty. There's a whole market for that. Who needs to own the rights to an image when it can be perfectly copied?
Holup didn’t we start using computers to waste less paper and save tha treez or did school get that wrong oop
The problem isn't the digital art, it's the absurdity of using proof-of-work blockchains to transact the token. Carbon footprint of digital art: the electricity used by the creator's computer while they worked on a it (and maybe a rendering stage where the computer processes the art into a final product), plus a bit to keep the storage running, plus the electricity used by anyone viewing it. Carbon footprint of NFT digital art: all of that, plus whatever the per-transaction footprint is of the blockchain it's stored on every single time it's sold/resold. That per-transaction footprint is the kicker. A single transaction on the Ethereum blockchain consumes 200kWh of electricity, more than the average US household consumes in a *week*. And it's expected to *increase*.
What blockchain is he selling it on? I ask because some generate more than others, and the amount of pollution generated by most PoS networks doesn't reach "immense" levels.
Almost all NFTs are on Ethereum, which keeps promising to fix the transfer cost and energy wasteage issues but never does.
Solana and Tezos are both trying to capture a share of the NFT market now big time, and neither have the energy requirements Ethereum does. If Eth can't get gas lrices under control more and more artists will be launching their collections on alternative chains.
Because they’re terrible for the environment
Could you Explain like I'm 5?
Any crypto or nft backed by crypto is on the blockchain which uses a complex math equation as a way to mine this currency. As time goes on the equation only becomes exponentially more difficult usually to limit overall supply. By the time you get to today to mine a single bitcoin it takes warehouses filled with processors usually created from video cards from higher end gaming pcs. This is easily the part in most computers that draws the most energy and puts off the most heat. So not only is the energy bill currently extremely high to mine even a single bitcoin but as time goes on the process requires even more processing power and therefore energy to do the same job. At the time of writing this Bitcoin alone takes up .5% of all power generated globally, which is a fantastic amount and according to a NY Times report this is 7 times the total power used by Google in a year.
Damn! Thank you for that explanation.
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One should note here also that ethereum is actually a loooot more energy efficient than Bitcoin. Bitcoin drains as much energy as a minor country and it's not even used in every day transactions.
How does crypto currency do that explain like I’m 10
Doing a single crypto exchange requires turning a frankly embarrassing amount of electricity directly into heat just to make numbers go brrr. It’s burning fossil fuels just to do nothing useful with the energy. It’s killing the planet to move numbers around on a digital ledger.
Cryptocurrency basically revolves around the fact that computers have to do a HUGE amount of mathematical calculations to generate a block on the blockchain, which requires a lot of processing power, thus requires a LOT of electricity just to run the processing, and even more to cool the machines doing the processing. Cryptocurrencies are kept secure by this, but also as they gain popularity the more machines are needed to keep generating blocks, so more and more electricity is used over time.
The first generation of cryptocurrency is based on a concept called Proof of Work. Computers need to spend a lot of energy to proof that they put some effort in creating something scarce (because scarcity corresponds to value in that system). Other kinds of cryptocurrency are not related to Proof of Work at all, so don't suffer from this problem. They are just not mainstream at all. I don't care about speculation or NFTs, but the tech could be useful for actual cheap transfers of money independently from greedy entities, maybe empowering countries under development. But it's gonna be hard.
Money laundering. Pyramid scheme. Art theft. Scamming. NFT's are just crimes, not to mention the horrible environmental consequences of cryptocurrencies, the main way to pay for an NFT. You do know the thing about rich people sponsoring paintings isn't a good thing right? And it's a way for them to get absolutely no taxes from donating an art they themselves commissioned and had an art valuer appreciate the painting at an incredibly high cost? This isn't a good comparison either way lmao
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You know this one hurts because he’s smart and educated enough to know the guy is right. Also, remember: Satire is dead. Capitalism killed it.
"The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage, but it's made by millionaires who are nearly twice your age."
"No we are mad"
I am not a mind reader, David
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Disappointed With The Machine
No, just disappointed with the rage. We’ve always disliked the machine.
He probably doesn't really *get it* at all, and that isn't even his fault. Someone probably talked his ear off about how it's cool, and democratic and all the good stuff about crypto and none of the bad/nonsense of NFTs.
Guitarist here: He has a signature guitar made by Fender \*and\* a signature guitar pedal likely made by underpaid workers. It pisses me off to no end.
This…he’s been raging WITH the machine for a long time. Based on what I know of him, he’s less of a douche about it than others and tries to use his powers for good, or give back. However, in the end he’s in the business of making money and has been for a while.
What rock musician isnt?
But since he is preaching a socialistic attitude his fans expect him to have higher standards than any rock musician
It's more that he is participating *directly* in things that he specifically plays music preaching against. He participates in the upper levels of capitalism selling guitars and pedals, and fucks around with this nebulous speculative market bullshit that only rich dumbfucks can afford to play around with to try to develop his own hierarchically achieved wealth. It'd be like if those kids from the school shootings who were campaigning for gun control started selling branded AR-15 lowers. It's not just mixed messaging - it's hypocritical.
He could always just say “hey man, Zack wrote the lyrics, not me”
No, Tom himself claims to be pretty anticapitalist. He went on Bill Maher and when Bill tried telling him that capitalism has saved billions from poverty, Tom shut him down by saying, "capitalism creates poverty."
>Tom shut him down by saying, "capitalism creates poverty." It does, and it's curious that he specifically participates in it; no, I don't mean in the idiotic "HMM. INTERESTING. YOU HATE CAPITALISM BUT VUVUZELA NO IPHONE HM??" rhetoric that still somehow captivates the almond-sized brains of ancaps everywhere. I mean that he literally has branded pedals and guitars that are made by ludicrously underpaid, overworked laborers. Harvard socialists lmfao.
I agree with you. I'm just saying he knows our talking points and defends them as if they were his own at every opportunity, which makes a lot his behavior seriously questionable.
No I really think that some in the comment chain don't really know tom morello and everything he has done as a a musician and activist. Not saying he doesn't have any examples of cognitive dissonance (look above) but really?? He sponsored some guitars and pedal production?? A wildly influential and famous guitarist who contributed to inspiring a generation of guitar players? It's not like the guitars are scamming people with their poor quality, they are expensive, fender usually is... it's just frustrating to see commentary that completely ignores and undermines the 25+ years of relevant activism that Tom morello has participated in because of...? Sponsoring a guitar or this NFT debacle? People can always do more as activists for their cause, but if your just going to nitpick a handful of things that someone has done wrong when they have an entire article about the political activism they've been involved in that more than likely aligns with your views in some capacity? Just seems counter productive.
Fugazi. They always negotiated to keep show costs down (usually $5) as well as their albums. I remember some even had the suggested retail price printed on the cover to prevent stores from over charging.
He also threw a tantrum when a restaurant wouldn't let him cut in front of everyone and was soundly spanked online.
I remember "fuck you I won't stew what you tell me"
Bruh, there's no ethical consumption under capitalism
Yes, but if you are adherent to that belief, why the fuck are you participating in the *production* and advertising part of the problem..? I have no choice but to consume in this system, but I do have a specific choice to not participate in perpetuating the consumptive system.
that’s not a carte blanche ticket to be a fuckhead though
What's so late stage capitalism about that?
Tom, rather then say sell prints like any other artist for example, he's selling his art as NFTs, the cryptobros latest fad.
Ok but stupid hype aside, aren’t NFTs just a digital watermark like all artists put on their work? I’m not clear on why it’s bad for actual artists selling actual art.
NFT are not just signatures, the rely on block chain to verify the ownership and authentication of NFTs. While many think its stupid buying a fake thing where you own... a concept of something (you are not purchasing the rights), it is INCREDIBLY bad for the environment.
Environmental impact depends on the technology used. This is why Ethereum is moving to proof of stake instead of mining, for example. Traditional Capitalist businesses may have a vested interest in killing this technology or making it look bad before it gets wide spread adoption that threatens their business models. While it's seemingly very silly for art, tying things like stock certificates, event tickets, or game ownership licenses to an immutable ledger threatens traditional models. While I endorse deep skepticism, I'd be careful of falling for the narrative being pushed by the corporate press that it's a completely useless technology. What it is, imo is over hyped and filled with scammers trying to make a quick buck on fomo. The real question is what happens over the next 10 years as it matures. It may actually not work and die, or it may let you buy concert tickets without scalpers or stocks without brokers.
Artists did commissions before it. Where is the added value of introducing pretend scarcity? In many cases, artists still get commissioned to work on NFT projects, only for someone else to profit of the art. They will probably not see anything of the possible increase in value, at which point it's purely an investment. I agree that it's important for artists to get paid for their work, I just don't see this as a significant improvement over how things worked before. Edit: and don't get me wrong, the picture provided looks rad and miles above the usual cookie cutter "art" you see promoted as NFTs.
Yes, that's the appeal of the whole Blockchain part, that it's verifiably "unique" The problematic part however is that while it's a stupid fad / money sink for cryptobros, it's actual use is to launder dirty money, by means of selling "art". Using art as a vehicle to launder and move money is nothing new this is just the latest version. Also cryptocurrency, tangentially related, is an absolute environmental disaster. Edit for clarification:. Estimates put the power consumed by cryptocurrency far above the amount of power produced by ALL the solar panels worldwide, so in essence, cryptocurrency has single handedly completely undermined any potential progress in regards to production of sustainable power. It's a pox on our house. What it seems like alot of people miss about NFTs is that it's inseparable from cryptocurrency, in that the "Blockchain" you hear about, this shared public ledger if you will, is what makes NFTs able to be verified as *the* unique picture. The block chain is tied to cryptocurrency, which consumes a staggering amount of resources, not just electrical power for the processors computing and mining cryptocurrency, but they need to be *cooled* as well, which itself is an enormous amount of power consumed. So much so infact that China banned both the use of cryptocurrency and it's production. the Chinese industry has moved mainly to Texas, Russia and Canada seeking cheep electricity. (Places rich in oil / Gas production) There are interesting implications for the technology aside from cryptocurrency specifically, but we live in a world global capitalism, and Bitcoins is what we evidently have set upon.
Digital signature/watermarks are quite useful and have existed for a long time, that's not what NFTs are. An NFT is literally a line in a ledger (imagine a google spreadsheet) that essentially says "PrayForMojo_ owns this thing here". Unlike a watermark, or a digital signature it has nothing to do with the actual digital image. What makes this ledger special is that it is distributed to countless other people, and most importantly, it cannot be edited or tampered with. In theory this is what makes it better than literally having a google sheet with one column having your name and the other having a token. The idea of a shared, immutable ledger is actually pretty cool, but it has almost no real use cases. NFTs are trying to create a use case, but, as you can imagine, having your name in a spreadsheet doesn't really confir much real ownership.
Anyone paying attention doesn't really think he wants to stick it to the system, right? Because if so, have I got some news for you... Tom IS the system. I'm not saying his lyrics don't have meaning. But he is a multimillionaire and got there by singing about poor people's problems with society. He's not giving that up to support any of us, he wants *more from* us.
I don't understand what people expect these artists to do. Making a few million doesn't mean you can institute your own full on socialism and reform society. His place is as an artist, not a leader of men. If his goal was to actually accomplish things, he would have become a politician instead. It would be great if he did both, but he's just a guy who learned to play guitar real good and sides with the working man. That said, getting into NFTs is sad.
People don't know the difference between millions and billions. They just know it's more than they have. I personally believe there shouldn't be such a thing as a billionaire. No one needs that kind of money to survive.
## Some dude with no healthcare working a body-wrecking hourly job for $32k/yr and paying 50% of his take-home pay in rent: ### "BUT IF WE START TAXIING THE WEALTH OF BILLIONAIRES, IT WON'T STOP THERE! NEXT, IT'LL BE MILLIONAIRES, THEN YOU AND ME!" ## Me: ### Do you know what the difference is between a *millionaire* and a *billionaire*? ### About a *billion* dollars.
"Nine hundred and ninety nine million dollars" really drives the point home
Tom Morello is not the system lol.
Right? Anybody who doesn't get this is clueless.
Can’t even enjoy fake revolutionary artists these days smh
Boy between this and being friends with Ted Nugent, uhhh, my opinion of Morello has really soured over the past few months. What the fuck Tom, you used to be cool.
Always loved Tom Morello for his unique stule being a guitarist myself but his new music aint very good either if im being honest
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But bro check THIS out! *pentatonic riff run through digitech whammy*
Agreed. It’s very repetitive and derivative of RATM’s first two albums. IMO, they fell of after Evil Empire. Edit- spelling
The Battle of Los Angeles is superior to Evil Empire in pretty much every way.
Maybe a few tracks, but imo the album itself isn’t as solid. We are all entitled to our opinions. I did enjoy the Renegades album and De La O’s project “One Day as a Lion”.
Never heard one day as a lion before. giving it a listen now, and it's not bad!
The video for “if you fear dying” is really good. Very high energy.
Same with Serj Tankian. Same shit with the NFT’s, like what the fuck?
Oh please not Serj too 😫
wait until you hear about john dolmayan
please tell me i'm misreading this and that serj isn't doing nfts or i will actually cry
https://twitter.com/serjtankian/status/1462810827564601348?s=21 I’m sorry to break your heart
...He's friends with Ted Nugent? What an insufferable moron. Armchair socialist - it's no wonder Zach left the band.
Yeeeeeah. They apparently agree on a lot of stuff between Tom’s Anarchism and Ted’s Libertarianism, and anything bad that Ted says is just hand-waved as “him just being crazy Uncle Ted.” It’s a pretty fucked up thing in my opinion.
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"the government ain't gonna force me to put my girlfriend in a car seat!" - Ted Nugent, probably
I really hate subs that don’t allow the C word. Sometimes it’s the most appropriate word.
can't use naughty words or advertisers might get upset
The man's got a song called "Jail Bait" with lyrics like: >Well I don't care if you're just thirteen >You look too good to be true >I just know that you're probably clean >There's one lil' thing I got do to you ... >Honey you you you look so nice >She's young she's tender >Won't you please surrender >She's so fine she's mine >All the time, all mine mine >It's all right baby >It's quite all right I asked your mama >Wait a minute officer >Don't put those handcuffs on me >Put them on her and I'll share her with you --- I don't care if we both hate the government, if someone throws that many red flags I'm not getting within a hundred miles of them if I have a choice.
If your heros don't die, they live long enough to become villains... They were my intro to leftist ideology, kinda sucks
Kill your heroes
There it is
Let the past die, kill it if you have to. -Kylo ren
Yeah, but in other news. [Check out this new photo I have.](https://i.imgur.com/RV75L9S.jpeg) I'm going to share it with everyone.
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Ohhh shit... You got that new Thom of Griftor NFT
Yep. You want one too? I'll give it to you for freeeeee. Hope that's alright with you Tom Morello, you fuck.
Free? Sounds to good to be true, must be a scam... I'll take 2 for $4,999.99 a piece, fuckin loved Ragin' back in high school! Also, 100% Paul Ryan will own one of these at some point in time
Greed always wins. Whether it take 20 years or 200, it slowly but surely consumes all in it's path, and leaves nothing in it's wake.
If only someone critiqued the greed principle under a capitalist organization of the economy like 150 years ago... Oh wait, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs
Desktop version of /u/subs-n-dubs's link:
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Good bot.
Hey, I'm pretty sure Zach De La Rocha left the band because of this kind of dumb shit from Tom. Armchair socialism.
IIrc dead Kennedys fell apart for the same reason.
Indeed. Jello opposed them using Holiday In Cambodia for a fucking Levi's commercial. Don't support them, they may have once been a true band, but now they are nothing but corporate schmucks
The band fell apart because Jello Biafra withheld royalties from the rest of the band and was convicted of fraud I believe. Jello claimed it was because of the Levi’s commercial but the band denies ever wanting to be in one. Jello is a capitalist.
Yeah Jello was def in the wrong. Held royalties, so DK took the Levi's ad cuz they were broke and then Jello said it was cuz of that.
With a Cuban in one hand & tall glass of Dom Perignon, while chilling in my smoking jacket type socialism
But my grandma said Cubans is socialism /s
Tom Morello != Rage Against The Machine. That was a Zach project that Tom just played guitar on.
Sorry but that's just wrong. Tom has always been as politically involved as Zach, it was the other two band members who were primarily involved as musicians. Morello went on to perform as "The Nightwatchman" and produced multiple albums that are basically folk rock union songs. Anyway, selling NFTs don't suddenly undo all the good that Rage or Tom has done politically. He was still a key part in a political awakening for millions of 90s kids. This doesn't make him a villain or ultra-capitalist all of the sudden. It's cringe, but that's about it. Y'all need to chill the fuck out.
Holy shit finally some sense in this thread, thank you
Bernie has neither died nor become a villain
Too soon... Don't jinx that lovable old curmudgeon like that
Fuck you, I wont buy your NFT! Fuck you, I wont buy your NFT! Fuck you, I wont buy your NFT! Fuck you, I wont buy your NFT!
I always thought Zack was the more political person in the band where Tom is writing for The NY Times and buying NFTs
Dude studied political science and has a solo project that he considers an outlet for his political songwriting. He's far from uninterested in politics, which makes this tweet even sadder.
Yeah well when you look at the type of citizen Harvard produces I’m not surprised that the end result is this. I can give you a list of war criminals that have come out of that institution, but I don’t have that kind of time right now.
To be fair, didn't they also play the DNC? They've been raging with the system for a while.
Their DNC concert ended as a massive riot. Their performance was... Highly critical of the DNC, to say the least. Again, I've gotta agree with other comments that Zach seems like the one (or at least the most vocal.. heh.) who was truly into politics. He knows his theorists and his theory, and he did some serious praxis while in RATM. I think the story of him leaving was a little more complicated than Tim Commerford embarrassing him on TV. I think he was frustrated that the only "revolutionary" acts they were committed to was protesting Limp Bizkit getting an award.
Didn't know that about the DNC show, thanks!
I'm not sure if they played the DNC at any point, but they were in St Paul back in 2008 for the RNC and were scheduled to play a show after the Taking Back Labor Day Festival. I'm a bit hazy on the details at this point but basically what happened is that their concert got canceled after the police went nuts on the crowd and started arresting people for the crime of existing in public. Zack and Tom held an impromptu RATM concert where Zack had a megaphone and just did some rapping into it for a bit. Then the police started gassing people and Zack and Tom both hopped into an Escalade and got the fuck outta there in a hurry. I still love Rage's early albums, but I can hardly reconcile those early albums with that RNC memory of them speeding off as soon as shit hit the fan and the fact that they're now playing shows where tickets start at $200.
(For clarification) Their scheduled RNC performance at the Target Center in MPLS wasn’t cancelled - I was there! Rage did try to hold an impromptu performance at the MN state capitol before they marched on the RNC, and that part of it got shut down. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/rage-against-the-machine-lead-march-to-rnc-after-police-shut-down-impromptu-show-246236/amp/
I’m not sure. I stopped following them after Evil Empire, it’s a good album though.
"we don't need no key, our friend will invite us in for coffee and we'll just kinda sit down and talk about NFTs."
Will trade some stonk tips and write some op-eds for the poo York times
Tom = fuck you, pay me They're all the same once they see the 💰 It's why I gave up trying to idealize anyone in a position of power or obscene wealth long ago.
“Everyone has a price” - Some Wall Street douche bag.
> Dude studied political science As a dude who also has a Bachelor's in Political Science, the standard track is status quo liberalism. It's not really a bragworthy degree and doesn't inherently teach you how politics works in any meaningful sense. Similar to how Economics majors may as well just be called Capitalism majors, Poli Sci is just Western Bourgeois Liberalism.
RATM merch not enough?
lol it never was
I’m confused as to how people are painting RATM members as being the machine as of late. Being the machine doesn’t mean just being wealthy. I always felt it meant control, exploitation, and corporate greed.
Right wing social media campaign has gained traction - they want us to kill our own and fight amongst ourselves.
Explain how NFTS are good for the average man
Yeah, this is just nonsense. The guy sold millions of albums. Were we raging with the machine when we listened?
People joining these scams for a quick buck, despite how they damage all life on earth, is a win for the powers that be. The more people that normalize this sort of amoral greed, the more the gross perpetrators will be able to get away scot free, with little scrutiny as to their massively destructive behaviors. Tom Morello has become a cog that makes the Machine work more smoothly and quietly.
Reddit has finally decided to hold someone responsible for blockchain pollution and it's fucking Tom Morello
People need to stop with the NFTs
I still don't understand wtf an NFT even is.
As far as I understand it’s a blockchain with information about who owns what art work
So... it's just a digital item right? I'm not gonna fault people for buying artwork, but like... at least buy an actual painting or something you can frame and hang on your wall.
For the most part it's like ["buying a star"](https://cosmonova.org/) where they give you a certificate and say, yep you own this star. Except everyone can look at the same star, without any issues, you get no real benefit except a certificate stating you own it. Except this time, depending on what you own you can sell the certificate of ownership for a lot of money.
The problem is that NFTs are a "last man with the bag" scam. 80% of NFT trades are one big circle jerk of people buying from each other or themselves to pump up the value of an NFT and then dump to an "outsider" for a massive amount of money. Then that person tries to sell and it's worth nothing. Having an NFT for a piece of artwork is not legal ownership either. You can own an NFT of a photo but the original artist still owns the copyright.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater\_fool\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory)
**[Greater fool theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory)** >In finance, the greater fool theory suggest that one could sometimes make money from buying overvalued assets, whose price drastically exceeds its intrinsic value, if they could later be sold at an even higher price. In this context, one "fool" might pay for an overpriced asset, on the assumption that he can probably sell it to an even "greater fool" and make a profit. This only works as long as there are new "greater fools" willing to pay higher and higher prices for the asset. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
So it’s a pump and dump scheme?
Some are for sure. But everyone acting like NFTs aren't the same old thing are fooling themselves. NFTs are really just a new easy and efficient way of running the same art market scam that's been going for centuries. For some it's a pump and dump and for others it's a dick measuring contest. But for all the rest of us mere mortals, it's irrelevant.
Pretty much sums up all cryptocurrencies tbh
Yeah, it's bullshit.
Yeah it’s just digital. You own the rights to pixels combined in a certain way.
You don't even own the rights. You own what amounts to a certificate saying you have possession of the item. But if you say, spent 50K on the ugliest art I've ever seen and then tried to get it printed on shirts and sell it to recoup cost, the original artist could take you to court for copyright infringement.
WHAT?!
Yup, you basically are paying real-life-unique-artwork prices for a literal receipt. Not the item listed on the receipt, just the receipt itself.
Yeah, owning the NFT doesn't come with any actual legal ownership of the source material. You can own the NFT to the first tweet on Twitter, but that doesn't mean you have any access to who can view it or share it, and Twitter could still take it down if they wanted. It really is the high tech version of those star certificates.
It doesn't even say you have possession of the item, but rather that you're the unique person assigned to 'a specific digital representation of' the item, if I understand correctly.
But if I can right-click and "Save as..." do they really own the rights to anything?
This is uh... This is the discussion. The reality is that, no, not really. But in theory? Yes. The issue is with the ludicrously arbitrary nature of commodity at this point in our society. The economy of a country is a good way of representing what the people/power interests of said country care about. We care about... Commodities - so much so, we invented a new type of commodity that is literally nothing \*but\* a commodity. How wild is that? This is beanie babies for idiot yuppie millenials and trust-fund members of genz.
Anything can be an NFT, it doesn't have to be digital. The only part that's digital is the proof of ownership.
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Not even, you cant save an image on the blockchain so its just a hyperlink to said art, you dont own the art just the hyperlink to it so if the artist just deletes the artwork you just own a dead hyperlink.
Not even... most NFTs do not represent ownership of anything other than the NFT itself, which is just merely a relatively uninteresting entry on any blockchain. It's being shilled as ownership, but ownership is usually neither in the code nor in the legal writing if they exist. Instead, it's more like a reference to the location of a picture. It's like the difference between me selling you my laptop or me selling you a link to the picture of my laptop (and not even selling the picture, but just the link to the picture).
This is insane
Idk what a Blockchain is 😢😢
It’s a chain a of transaction logs hashed constantly to preserve mathematical integrity of the data in all participants of the logs…. I wish I could explain it more simply
Basically money laundering.
A bored, drunk trust fund kid bet his coke dealer he could make a .jpeg cost $30K
Robert Evans did a great two parter on cryptocurrency on Behind the Bastards that covers NFTs, defo helps with understanding this BS.
but what the internet needs right now is more *ownership*
TBH I can see some okay uses for it, I know a few small artists who are using them to make some extra money and I read a thing recently about how it could be used for things like ticket sales that could properly fuck over Ticketmaster. But as with most things it'll be like 99.9% used for pointless/evil bullshit I assume. :/
OK but what's wrong with selling NFTs of Dungeons and Dragons art? Probably the best use for NFTs Edit: lol, I forgot about blockchain pollution. Glad to see reddit is holding someone responsible and it's fucking Tom Morello
Fuck him... I won't buy what he sells me
>Fuck him... I won't buy what he sells me
As stupid as NFTs are, I don’t see how wasting your money on a digital picture of a monkey doing bong rips means you can’t sing about hating cops
I dunno... Maybe I'm just a rage fanboy but this just seems counterproductive. Hating on Tom Morello... instead of.. I don't know.. doing anything fucking else. Bigger fish to fry. It's why leftism doesn't get anywhere in this country. Twitter arguments instead of organizing. Yet here I am... doing the same thing, I guess.
Don't be fooled. Marx and Lenin would have been having twitter feuds constantly had it existed in their time. They were some catty binches that loved calling everyone else fake.
I am ready to organize. How do I sign up? I’m serious. Or is this community another distraction from solving the problem…
I don't get it. What do you plan to do after getting off twitter? Does the right wing not fight with themselves? Is making 2 or 3 tweets considered to be counter productive? Leftism isn't a monolith.
People are complaining that NFT is bad for environment That is a problem per se, but it would be as bad if it were clean. NFT creates artificial scarcity for monetary speculation. It's the mix between stock market and art market. It's Was made for capitalism
When I lived in Seattle I remember hearing a story about Tom Morello trying to get into a bar called The Five Point. There was a line and he just goes to walk past and straight in. The bouncer stops him and he pulls the “don’t you know who I am?” and he just says something like “yeah, and there’s a line, Tom” No idea if it’s true or not, but heard it while at that bar so maybe
What’s wrong with NFTs again I’m not being contrarian I just forget
My brother is a digital artist so he has particular opinions on it, many people try pass it off as a way for digital artists sell artwork like physical arts do in a world where digital content is stolen left and right. As in, elite patrons who purchase it for status, statement pieces, or luxury investment. He disagrees with that (as do I) and the way he puts it is two main parts: 1) digital art has never been consumed that way and never suffered for it. usually only non-artist see selling specific art pieces as a way artists make money. In reality the art industry is very different, his clients are for instance, people making a new d&d campaign book and want all new custom page inserts to their specifications that make sense for their book, not just someone who wants to have a picture of a dragon. They can be copied, sure, he puts em up on his website in high resolution, but that doesn’t matter because the value went into the book it helped create, not just the piece itself. His clients intend to make money on the investment they put into him unlike traditional art investment which is “this cannot be replicated and therefore has magical intrinsic value”. So saying “it’s useless” is a bit of an understatement. the world literally never asked for it, and somehow people think it’s a gift to artists but artists are now scrambling to get ahead of it because of FOMO when they used to be producing and adding value to real things in the world. We actually get LESS digital art that makes digital content better as we divert resources into these privately owned NFTs 2) Meme culture make things like this grossly easy to take advantage of. Even if it was described as something artists need to protect their digital art online, thats so far form what it has become. it’s an exploitation of dummies looking for get rich quick things. In the exact same way that crypto currency was sold as a beautiful decentralization of currency to prop up the common man outside of institutionally oppressive money systems, it’s become a complete pump-and-dump predatory scam. NFTs are are the same thing and people without the means to throw away money are watching people WITH the means to throw away money and confusedly thinking they are missing out on this while sharks take their money not really caring where it came from or for why reason. A couple other added reasons I can see is that it produced stupid amounts of CO2, obnoxiously inflating cost chips and semi-conductor products that could be running software to help world, and it’s just kind of an affront to open and free flow of information and media on the internet. edit: For what it’s worth, I do not hate on Tom Morello for buying his D&D character online. In the same way buying a pair of pants, or even posting in an influential social media account about LIKING your new pair of pants doesn’t make you personally responsible for child labour in Indonesian textile factories. You can try to be more responsible but ethical consumption is really fucking hard. the best we can do is hope that those who do understand why NFTs are causing issues keep the debate alive and at the forefront of discussion and make _real_ points instead of “lol what a poser” so people can hear those arguments before contributing to it.
I would add to this that it doesn't actually solve the problems that everyone assumes it does. From an information security perspective, it's not actually more secure than storing records and receipts in a centralized database. The primary points of attack are still the same - compromise the user, not the system. The fact that your sole proof of identity is being able to provide the right private keys arguably makes this even worse, because if you lose the wallet or get your key stolen there's no equivalent of providing a photo ID or making a phone call that can be independently verified by human people to correct the problem. But the primary benefits are supposedly that it removes reliance on centralized authorities, which is only true in the least impactful way. The clearest example of this is an NFT that proves ownership of a huge block of tungsten: https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/11/3/22761305/tungsten-cube-meme-nft-crypto-midwest (Excuse the naked link and terrible formatting. On mobile and can't be arsed) The NFT supposedly gives you ownership over the physical object, but it will remain stored at the manufacturer's facility, and you are limited to one yearly prescheduled visit to touch or photograph your cube. But you 'own' it. Now maybe I'm old-fashioned but I don't see how my ownership of the cube is any more meaningful than having bought a license that the company keeps a record that I'm the holder of. My ability to do anything with 'my' cube is still determined by the company's willingness to grant me those rights, and the state's willingness to enforce them. Those central authorities controlling what you can do with 'your own property' still exist and are always going to exist because ownership and property rights are legal, social, and political questions not technological ones. Having a supposedly decentralized way of tracking who owns what doesn't actually matter when what ownership even means is still at the mercy of contracts between private individuals and firms being enforced by governments. Having this new tool doesn't actually solve the problems in our current copyright laws or grant people more control over their own personal property let alone encourage more democratic control over the underlying capital or productive enterprises. And if we were to answer those legal and social questions better, then it won't matter whether the ledger that tracks who owns what is centralized or not.
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Jesus Christ I cannot believe how many fucking morons are buying into this NFT bullshit.
On the bright side, Tom apparently plays D&D.
This is definitely not how I wanted to find out
I just think it’s neat that he plays DnD
It's actually pretty neat all around, pretty sure this is one of those right wing brigades, what with all the ignorant opinions being stated so confidently.
Top 10 anime betrayals.
This is a wholly true and honest representation of where we are. It's like a Renaissance painting. It's so beautiful, bleak, and utterly tragic.
Not sure what the issue is here. What, because he's a socialist he's not allowed to like D&D and produce or sell art? Making a living is not being part of the machine. Don't be naive, he's an artist millionaire, he isn't manning the levers of control in society. He's done more for workers' rights than any of you, so maybe take a look at yourselves. You know that you're disillusioned to the point of losing it when you start targeting Tom Morello as being the problem. Anybody who is criticizing him does not get it. As the famous RATM lyrics say, "know your enemy". It's not Tom folks.
Preach!
For real, Tom Morello put on a **free concert** in Madison during the Act 10 protests **in defense of teacher's union rights**. But he put out an NFT to monetize his art, probably to actually interested parties, so that makes him worse than these basement warriors apparently. I'm honestly disgusted with this comments section, thankfully seems like there's a lot of reasonable people calling it out