Keanu Reeves Thinks NFTs Are a Joke(forbes.com)
forbes.com
Keanu Reeves Thinks NFTs Are a Joke
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2021/12/11/keanu-reeves-thinks-nfts-are-a-joke/
94 comments
We all knew he's a nice man: This shows he's also a smart man, and doesn't want to be part of a long con.
They should've been called TMAs - Throwing Money Away. If you can't trust the system that processes it, the durability of it, the exchanges, or it lacking any intrinsic liquidation value, then it's TMA.
I've heard a similar phrase in the antique trade, "Old stuff, found new money"
An old dresser is still often useful as a dresser.
It is for sure. If the price matched "an old dresser" I would probably buy it too. If that old dresser costs $12k because it was made during the great depression then I will let someone else buy it.
Thanks based Neo.
Nothing against Keanu Reeves, but why is his opinion about NFTs worthwhile news to anyone? The story isn't inconveniencing me in any way, so I should let it go and move with my life, but I can't help but feel that stories of this nature are nothing more than noise; useless, trashy noise that clogs our minds and doesn't add value to anyone other than a magazine editor who needs to cover SOMETHING for engagement's sake, and possibly a PR team for an upcoming movie.
Your question re-framed as "why is any famous person's opinion on a topic outside of their expertise worth anything more than some person in a bar?" Is an entirely fair question with the answer "It isn't!"
Sadly we seem to a very, very long way from that obvious truth. Being famous is vastly more important than knowing something through hard work when it comes to your thoughts being heard. Especially given most famous hollywood people are famous for being attractive to look at and if they have any skill at all other than having luckily failed upwards that skill is to lie, convincingly enough so you believe it even when you know it is pure fantasy, the thing becomes clear. There has been many such people opining on NFTs.
From TFA: Hence, it’s incredibly refreshing to see Reeves react so honestly - most celebrities have embraced the technology with alarming enthusiasm; beloved figures such as Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Doja Cat, Tony Hawk, Eminem, and Grimes have all endorsed NFTs. Reese Witherspoon even tried putting a pseudo-feminist spin on the fad (because equality means women should be participating in pyramid schemes too!).
I don't know how to counter it. I strongly think that any agreement concerning the content of an interview (no questions about X, if my PR client movie star looks bad you never get another interview from anyone I represent etc.) in the media should be the opening paragraph but there are so many ways around it. Maybe if a few reputable news organisations had a charter they followed saying they will never agree to a no-go area to secure an interview and were willing to fire any employee who does it in disgrace, celebrities might have their luster reduced compared with people who should be interviewed. Also the transcript of any interview should be published in full as there has been a lot of BS from the media where the pretend to do an interview then report "impressions" from it rather than its content which have clearly been very misleading at times.
Sadly we seem to a very, very long way from that obvious truth. Being famous is vastly more important than knowing something through hard work when it comes to your thoughts being heard. Especially given most famous hollywood people are famous for being attractive to look at and if they have any skill at all other than having luckily failed upwards that skill is to lie, convincingly enough so you believe it even when you know it is pure fantasy, the thing becomes clear. There has been many such people opining on NFTs.
From TFA: Hence, it’s incredibly refreshing to see Reeves react so honestly - most celebrities have embraced the technology with alarming enthusiasm; beloved figures such as Snoop Dogg, William Shatner, Doja Cat, Tony Hawk, Eminem, and Grimes have all endorsed NFTs. Reese Witherspoon even tried putting a pseudo-feminist spin on the fad (because equality means women should be participating in pyramid schemes too!).
I don't know how to counter it. I strongly think that any agreement concerning the content of an interview (no questions about X, if my PR client movie star looks bad you never get another interview from anyone I represent etc.) in the media should be the opening paragraph but there are so many ways around it. Maybe if a few reputable news organisations had a charter they followed saying they will never agree to a no-go area to secure an interview and were willing to fire any employee who does it in disgrace, celebrities might have their luster reduced compared with people who should be interviewed. Also the transcript of any interview should be published in full as there has been a lot of BS from the media where the pretend to do an interview then report "impressions" from it rather than its content which have clearly been very misleading at times.
Did you look at the context, his opinion was asked about NFTs specifically related to the new matrix project(https://niftys.com/thematrix) that he is associated with, typically one would expect a celebrity endorsement for things being used to promote their up coming projects.
When a celebrity in this situation doesn't it draws the attention of people.
When a celebrity in this situation doesn't it draws the attention of people.
I think any takedown of crypto and NFTs is a benefit to society at this point, so I welcome whoever is debunking it.
sure, but you're also kind of setting the precedent that random famous people's opinion on things they have no expertise on matters, which probably isn't good for debunking things in the long run
If you can't trust Johnny Silverhand, who can you trust?
I mean, the precedent has been there for a looong time, and grandparent commenter certainly didn't set it...
As to the why, it's probably related to social status. In the old days people paid attention and listened to the people with status (who usually became leaders), nowadays with celebrity culture it's somehow inverted, a good looking person who can act or sing gets put on stage, and they get the attention (for singing, acting, or looking good), and they gain status.
As to the why, it's probably related to social status. In the old days people paid attention and listened to the people with status (who usually became leaders), nowadays with celebrity culture it's somehow inverted, a good looking person who can act or sing gets put on stage, and they get the attention (for singing, acting, or looking good), and they gain status.
sure, but you can't really complain if people believe jenny mccarthy that vaccines cause autism if your counterargument is that keanu reeves said they don't. obviously we're not talking about vaccines right now, but I hope you can see my point
We encourage celebrities to engage with other PSAs, why not encourage then to stand up against something that is so clearly a fraud?
The more people taking about what "crypto" really is, the better. It's nice to have bit of balance when so many teams and other celebrities have been so quick to cash in here.
A PSA isn't news, but is everything that isn't news just noise?
The more people taking about what "crypto" really is, the better. It's nice to have bit of balance when so many teams and other celebrities have been so quick to cash in here.
A PSA isn't news, but is everything that isn't news just noise?
There seems to be confusion about what my point is, so I’ll clarify: It’s not “why should we listen to the opinions of public figures talking about subjects they’re not experts in?” and more about “Why have editors decided that this is newsworthy?”
I’m indifferent to what Keanu has to say. Good or bad. He’s welcome to have opinions and share them in a public forum. But the fact that an editor has elevated this opinion as newsworthy feels motivated purely by the need for engagement. It feels gossipy. These types of shallow reporting are less about informing or educating and more of a way for the readership to have an emotional response in a way that benefits the publication.
I’m indifferent to what Keanu has to say. Good or bad. He’s welcome to have opinions and share them in a public forum. But the fact that an editor has elevated this opinion as newsworthy feels motivated purely by the need for engagement. It feels gossipy. These types of shallow reporting are less about informing or educating and more of a way for the readership to have an emotional response in a way that benefits the publication.
Keanu, or literally any famous celebrity's word has more impact solely because they are a celebrity. Much more people will be interested to know what he thinks than what you and I think about NFTs. It sure seems asinine considering he is no expert in the field, but that's just how it is. Fame trumps expertise when it comes to having your voice heard.
Or better yet, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and he has is own opinion since he's being associated with some NFT project - so at bare minimum someone briefed him about it, best case scenario, he actually studied it enough to have an educated opinion.
You don't need to know how to program smart contracts to have an opinion on NFTs, and the guy has been around and knows what fads and trends look like, and probably has dealt with these types of concepts from the whole Matrix culture around it.
Plus we all know NFTs survive on hype, and he knows how hype works.
Does this make him an opinion leader?
I don't think so, but he does have an opinion apparently and thinks people shouldn't take these NFTs seriously.
You don't need to know how to program smart contracts to have an opinion on NFTs, and the guy has been around and knows what fads and trends look like, and probably has dealt with these types of concepts from the whole Matrix culture around it.
Plus we all know NFTs survive on hype, and he knows how hype works.
Does this make him an opinion leader?
I don't think so, but he does have an opinion apparently and thinks people shouldn't take these NFTs seriously.
this happens with celeb developers too
This isn’t a news article, it’s a blog post.
This isn’t about his fame only. It’s because he is related to the Matrix. Which is related to the NFTs.
In general famous people opinions aren’t worth more. Though most people especially HN give far too much credence to appealing to authority with experts. Famous people is low hanging fruit
In general famous people opinions aren’t worth more. Though most people especially HN give far too much credence to appealing to authority with experts. Famous people is low hanging fruit
> In general famous people opinions aren’t worth more.
There is a multi-billion dollar celebrity endorsement industry that would absolutely disagree with you, and I suspect they've done the research to justify it.
There is a multi-billion dollar celebrity endorsement industry that would absolutely disagree with you, and I suspect they've done the research to justify it.
There is no spoon. Just a hash of a jpeg of a spoon on a blockchain.
Sometimes it's just a link to an image! So if the server goes bye-bye, then you have no spoon!
I was under the impression it is always a hyperlink.
I don't get it either. I understand that there are legit use cases for nfts.. But this stuff is insane.. Links to pictures selling for thousands of dollars.. Sometimes i think im just too stupid and maybe its just a new generation and instead of spending thousands of dollar for Gucci it goes to nfts..
It's genius in the way that it's a once in a life time opportunity for cash grab, there are tons of people willingly waiting to be exploited to buy your make-believe scarcity, you just need a good story not even a good product.
No, there are not legit uses. It is for money laundering. The speculation is a side show. Although the speculation isn't legit either.
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underrated reply
Just like as with social media, if you're popular, you stand to make some money at the possible loss of your credibility...
But if you're a normal everyday Joe like me, it's like trading baseball cards... I don't know s*it about baseball, so I better not buy and trade them, and nothing I've got in my pocket has any value in that game. :\
But if you're a normal everyday Joe like me, it's like trading baseball cards... I don't know s*it about baseball, so I better not buy and trade them, and nothing I've got in my pocket has any value in that game. :\
Well they are. Hyperfinancialization of replicative-stuff-made-unique-by-algorithmic-randomization-and-blockchain-hash-using-computers.
I do think NFTs are a bubble now. By investors that think that one NFT is worth the same as the next one minted while it is just the exact pointe that they are not interchangeable. You don't get a piece unique with significant history attached. Mondriaan, Van Gogh and Monet were innovators now it is just a deep learning gan style trick. I do see the value of NFT in asset tracking of unique pieces to provide transparency, fairness and safety in supply chains.
Like another commenter said, you can do the asset tracking with digital signatures (owner signs that they've handed it off) you don't need blockchain, mining farms burning a small countries' worth of electricity, etc.
if you ever worked at the bottom of a supply chain you would understand that there are currently major issues with gatekeepers levying high margins (note I grew up on a industrial farm). If a farmer could sell his product under a smart contract that garantueed a percentage of the transaction costs flowed back to him and end consumers would have greater transparency into the origin of its product their would be a nett societal benefit. Minig farms blablabla, you can use other proofs for verification (proof of stake) or scale it with zero knowledge proofs
I don't know the specifics but most suppliers don't want to deal with the hassle of retail and marketing, so it makes sense for distribution / retail gatekeepers to charge a fee. And smart contracts aren't going to magically guarantee someone will buy your corn.
Moreover, ETH transactions often run in the $100+ range now, mind-bogglingly expensive and inefficient. Those fees pay miners to waste electricity, hoard silicon, and scorch the earth. Ethereum has been switching to proof of stake "any day now" since it's inception 6 years ago. And even if they actually pull it off I don't see why staking $20k of crypto to participate is somehow better or more fair than spinning up a $4/month cloud VM to manage a 1000x more efficient, fast, and effective supply chain database with digital signatures.
There's a lot of utopian handwavey BS around crypto, but it seems to be turning out like other magic utopian solutions in human history (gurus, communism, etc.). Wish people would divert this time and energy into things that actually benefit society.
Moreover, ETH transactions often run in the $100+ range now, mind-bogglingly expensive and inefficient. Those fees pay miners to waste electricity, hoard silicon, and scorch the earth. Ethereum has been switching to proof of stake "any day now" since it's inception 6 years ago. And even if they actually pull it off I don't see why staking $20k of crypto to participate is somehow better or more fair than spinning up a $4/month cloud VM to manage a 1000x more efficient, fast, and effective supply chain database with digital signatures.
There's a lot of utopian handwavey BS around crypto, but it seems to be turning out like other magic utopian solutions in human history (gurus, communism, etc.). Wish people would divert this time and energy into things that actually benefit society.
Well I do know the specifics, I've worked on our farm. I've worked in and for processing plants and at food retailers. I did an engineering degree in agriculture with a minor in economics (plus some post grads in IT). We produced and sold our farm products at local farmers markets. I now work at the agricultural government agency of my local region. And I can tell you that the margins that those gatekeepers take are not proportional the service of marketing and distribution they provide. I'm not talking about magic. I'm talking about mathematics and logic in the form of proof systems that have the authority that would otherwise be relegated to central enforcers. There is distributed ledger technology that already uses proof of stake like cardano or polkadot. As for high transaction cost and scalability of pos you should look into zero knowledge proofs which allows to package a massive amount of transactions into one proof that hides a lot knowledge and still allows for checking transactions: https://starkware.co/
I defer to your domain expertise there, don't know much about the food industry and supply chain. Sounds like there are some monopolistic players & regulatory capture involved.
I don't think ZKP or blockchains are going to save you though. Say Cardano actually gets past their "Byron" ICO pump-and-dump phase and implements smart contracts, or Polkadot gets off the ground.
OK, so we have a fast, non-world-destroying blockchain computing platform and can freely write programs to exchange PolkaDots or Adas or whatever. So what? Now anyone and their brother can set up a futures exchange via smart contracts, and we can all trade PolkaDots for corn futures. Whose brother's exchange do we use? If a de-facto standard one arises, who enforces quality and resolves disputes if the produce isn't up to snuff? Blockchains tend to be immutable no-refund situations, and discourage the use of "oracles" from outside for human factors like the corn being moldy. Who regulates the exchange to prevent abuses on both sides? And couldn't MonopoliCorp still use its connections and infrastructure and reach to corner the market? You still need trucks, refrigeration, deals with grocery purchasers, etc. That's the actual important substance of the whole enterprise, not the system coordinating it. Couldn't you do all this on a non-blockchain computing platform, say with digital signatures, if you just got people to agree on one?
Not to mention the questionably-solvable problems of massive volatility in PolkaDots, unforseen smart contract bugs enabling and encouraging theft opportunities, constant hack attempts, potential that the whole platform could collapse if the currency collapses and nobody cares to stake it anymore.
I don't think ZKP or blockchains are going to save you though. Say Cardano actually gets past their "Byron" ICO pump-and-dump phase and implements smart contracts, or Polkadot gets off the ground.
OK, so we have a fast, non-world-destroying blockchain computing platform and can freely write programs to exchange PolkaDots or Adas or whatever. So what? Now anyone and their brother can set up a futures exchange via smart contracts, and we can all trade PolkaDots for corn futures. Whose brother's exchange do we use? If a de-facto standard one arises, who enforces quality and resolves disputes if the produce isn't up to snuff? Blockchains tend to be immutable no-refund situations, and discourage the use of "oracles" from outside for human factors like the corn being moldy. Who regulates the exchange to prevent abuses on both sides? And couldn't MonopoliCorp still use its connections and infrastructure and reach to corner the market? You still need trucks, refrigeration, deals with grocery purchasers, etc. That's the actual important substance of the whole enterprise, not the system coordinating it. Couldn't you do all this on a non-blockchain computing platform, say with digital signatures, if you just got people to agree on one?
Not to mention the questionably-solvable problems of massive volatility in PolkaDots, unforseen smart contract bugs enabling and encouraging theft opportunities, constant hack attempts, potential that the whole platform could collapse if the currency collapses and nobody cares to stake it anymore.
The farm commodity hedge markets are dominated by players who leverage private access and knowledge to make massive margins. I think decentralizing this market (by anyone and their brother) would certainly benefit producers and end consumers by increasing transparency and thus lowering these transaction costs and providing liquidity. What you are talking about are auctions (like for pigs, fish or flowers) and this is already invented, centralized and corrupted and they set prices for producers and consumers in secret meetings and calls (before that wasnt even outlawed). For distribution, how easy is it to set up an ecommerce shop and for distribution you have a lot of thurd party logistics service providers. By increasing competition between these service providers of distribution etc you would again lower costs for producers and prices for consumer instead of relying on massively vertically or horizontally integrated supply chain players. Few benefits from massive monoculture productions (certainly not producers, consumers or the environment). Do you really think there are no scandals in centralized quality control systems?
Talking about price volatility. Costs for producers and prices for consumers are increasing dramatically because central banks in the western world decided to print massive amounts of currency and buying zombie companies on the stock exchange. How are these currencies considered stable in any way? Look what is happening in is happening in Turkey or Lebanon. Even worse what the US is doing to the people of afghanistan.
Talking about price volatility. Costs for producers and prices for consumers are increasing dramatically because central banks in the western world decided to print massive amounts of currency and buying zombie companies on the stock exchange. How are these currencies considered stable in any way? Look what is happening in is happening in Turkey or Lebanon. Even worse what the US is doing to the people of afghanistan.
Probably not the right place to comment this but man, it was amusing to see Carrie-Anne just sitting there smiling silently for so long, while Keanu and the interviewer go into long engaging dialogues about things she apparently has no idea about.
An apt comment down below:
>Carrie-Ann Moss is every parent listening to their child talk about their cool new hobby.
An apt comment down below:
>Carrie-Ann Moss is every parent listening to their child talk about their cool new hobby.
It’s irritating to constantly read so many articles devolve into attacks on the blockchain itself, indirectly blaming the proof of work algorithm and the amounts of energy it uses. It’s always the same theme, oh this stuff is silly, oh and it’s destroying our planet too, what a terrible thing. The tone comes off as we’re here to tear down a side effect of decentralized authenticity and once exposed as a sham, we’ll go ahead and attack the technology itself.. it’s frustrating is all and counterproductive if you ask me. FWIW, I think the value of NFTs are ridiculous but the idea is cool. It just sucks seeing tabloid bullshit driving discussions about a ingenious technology and what’s left is a bunch of thrashing comment threads expressing for or against, for or against.. gets old.
While I agree politically with the idea of a distributed ledger, this implementation (and I am sure a lot of thought has gone into design of distributed ledgers) of making computational complexity as a pre-condition to participate in the ledger is rightfully criticized. The world, overall does not benefit from using the blockchain, in any form, just for the energy consumed.
How else could you verify the ledger without computational power without the reliance on an authority? This is assuming that we are philosophically considering authority as undesirable for ledgers.. like I get it, proof of work at this point is kind of BS in the sense that it’s not accessible for the individual so it loses all its novelty in the libertarian sense.. energy just feels like a problem that is solved elsewhere, I don’t think we should be calling it wasteful if humanity is on the brink of fusion and newer cleaner sources of energy.. I dunno, scrutinizing energy consumption just seems like an easy target, too easy, like lazy.
Maybe some reliance on authority is a good thing?
Because the answer crytpocurrency provides to "how much are you willing to pay to never have to trust anyone" is "one hell of a lot" via work-factor.
A fundamental characteristic of all exchange systems is trust. That may not be institutional trust, but there is trust in something: mineral scarcity and assayability, counterparty, commodity-currency acceptability by others, pricing and exchange systems, recourse options, etc.
In economics, there's a long observation that high-trust markets and the societies in which they exist perform vastly better than low-trust ones. And interestingly, cryptocurrency fairly neatly segregates markets into those who do have fundamental trust in institutions and practices, and those who do not.
Because the answer crytpocurrency provides to "how much are you willing to pay to never have to trust anyone" is "one hell of a lot" via work-factor.
A fundamental characteristic of all exchange systems is trust. That may not be institutional trust, but there is trust in something: mineral scarcity and assayability, counterparty, commodity-currency acceptability by others, pricing and exchange systems, recourse options, etc.
In economics, there's a long observation that high-trust markets and the societies in which they exist perform vastly better than low-trust ones. And interestingly, cryptocurrency fairly neatly segregates markets into those who do have fundamental trust in institutions and practices, and those who do not.
Iota
Well the problem is, we need something that is a creditable implementation block chain, Nearly all uses today are dodgy. The almost all seem to think creating a system of false scarcity and convincing people that it makes it valuable.
Mining is pointless, waste of power and resources, So I agree it is the technologies fault, it has yet to have something to seemingly implement its usage in a way that is useful.
Mining is pointless, waste of power and resources, So I agree it is the technologies fault, it has yet to have something to seemingly implement its usage in a way that is useful.
Plenty of waste, yes, but distributed authority of history has lots of intrinsic value IMHO, plenty of uses, and I suppose I’m optimistic more will emerge than what’s out there today. Copyright enforcement or decentralized DRM seem like natural evolutions.. I mostly agree, but I disagree with the general concept that blockchain is bad. At most, cryptocurrency is bad, but I don’t think it had to be bad, if that makes sense.
How will you use a blockchain to do either of those things. DRM is only truly useful for interactive media anyway, so even if you have some kind of decentralized encrypted data decrypted on sufficient transaction, that data flows out of something into pixels and sound waves at some point. No real advantage to be gained over just doing the same in an ordinary W3 online storefront. Copyright management is very doable with stuff like NFTs, but that's management as a separate thing from enforcement. A blockchain cannot automatically detect misuse of copyrighted material or do anything about it even if something on the blockchain knew. It just doesn't seem reasonable to do these things.
On the other hand, the main advantage we should consider with blockchain is decentralised computation. Decentralised computation can possibly be managed and regulated by a cryptocurrency which itself is tied to the value of decentralised computation and as such does not exist as some imaginary token of value from artificial scarcity. The ability for a system to exist all over the world and to communicate and compute everywhere can be important to many applications. Communication, fintech, serverless services, license management, ownership management, the very idea of smart contracts etc.
That's where the real meat of the system lies, and not in online artificial scarcity tokens distributing a soulless, valueless illustration procedurally generated like millions like it based off a bunch of templates drawn in paint over about an hour.
On the other hand, the main advantage we should consider with blockchain is decentralised computation. Decentralised computation can possibly be managed and regulated by a cryptocurrency which itself is tied to the value of decentralised computation and as such does not exist as some imaginary token of value from artificial scarcity. The ability for a system to exist all over the world and to communicate and compute everywhere can be important to many applications. Communication, fintech, serverless services, license management, ownership management, the very idea of smart contracts etc.
That's where the real meat of the system lies, and not in online artificial scarcity tokens distributing a soulless, valueless illustration procedurally generated like millions like it based off a bunch of templates drawn in paint over about an hour.
I agree that the tech isn't bad, it just to the general public, if everything built on a tech is bad, they will equate the tech as bad.
In practice there really is no valid use case for a blockchain. Sure, the idea of a distributed, trustless ledger is clever. But in practice the only people able to run full nodes and do transactions are the big stakeholders, either in terms of PoW mining pools or whatever proof of stake model is “totally coming soon”.
The transaction fees and excruciatingly small transaction throughout make on-chain transactions impractical for ordinary transactions, so now you’re back to running transactions through centralized exchanges, which undermines the security of the trust model.
The transaction fees and excruciatingly small transaction throughout make on-chain transactions impractical for ordinary transactions, so now you’re back to running transactions through centralized exchanges, which undermines the security of the trust model.
Welcome to the Internet. That’s always gonna be something people are vehemently opposed to, and most people won’t go deeper than surface level to understand what they’re against.
It’s funny because when I think about that, it makes me go, damn, is that the destiny of all speech and interaction between people on the internet? Regardless of our attempts to bring brilliance and added dimension to our existence and social constructs, at the end of the day, in its current form, argumentation and personalities on the internet get reduced down to binary forms, physically, logically, spiritually.
It’s really quite exhausting to see people air their grievances and then when presented with more info by an empathetic party, these people just wave off said info. Happened to me last week or so.
https://twitter.com/NetOpWibby/status/1466524102009577475
On the topic of NFTs, most naysayers don’t like how much energy it takes to mint just one on the most popular blockchain for NFTs right now, Ethereum.
With blockchains like Tezos and Solana, the energy output from minting an NFT collection of let’s say a few thousand, is equivalent to using an in-window AC unit for eight hours…drastically better than Ethereum but like we’ve established, most people aren’t looking past the surface with their complaints/distaste.
https://twitter.com/NetOpWibby/status/1466524102009577475
On the topic of NFTs, most naysayers don’t like how much energy it takes to mint just one on the most popular blockchain for NFTs right now, Ethereum.
With blockchains like Tezos and Solana, the energy output from minting an NFT collection of let’s say a few thousand, is equivalent to using an in-window AC unit for eight hours…drastically better than Ethereum but like we’ve established, most people aren’t looking past the surface with their complaints/distaste.
Not just him...NFTs are a new way to spend money for useless things. At the other day one of the good podcasts the guys bought a new title theme/song and he said: this is the NFT that you are listening to! So you bought an NFT and not a theme song??? Just calling things differently?
Reeves seems to be an overall great guy, maybe he likes this:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/12/malaysian-artists-...
There is always a buck to be made by pleasing the mind.
I think religion is a joke, who cares?
What is value anyway?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/12/malaysian-artists-...
There is always a buck to be made by pleasing the mind.
I think religion is a joke, who cares?
What is value anyway?
NFTs: Overpaying for serial numbers loosely related to jpgs which may or may not still be hosted on the internet.
NFTs are technically good, with strong fundamentals, and real world applications, the same way ICOs were. But the way they are used has been absolute shit, and nothing sort of utterly useless.
I lean in the same direction, I thought ICOs were a very cool way to replace kickstarter: raising funds, staking ownership, if some enterprise was successful you could even sell your share at market value, or cash out early if you're starting to doubt the campaign's ability to ship the product (if you can find someone willing to take the risk at a lower price)
Unfortunately even more than that they lend themselves to raising funds for vaporware, and I don't think there was a single ICO that actually resulted in a real-world product.
NFTs are essentially a reboot of ICO, except instead of a million tokens each representing a small percentage of ownership, you sell a single token representing 100% ownership. I think they could still be used to fund artists (I think of them more as patronage than trading cards), but very few artists are actually raising funds this way, the market is almost entirely trash being wash traded and plots of land in metaverses that don't exist yet.
I think they will suffer the same fate I see in crypto over and over again, any legitimate use case is totally overwhelmed by the number of scams, makes the whole thing wholly unattractive to participate in.
Unfortunately even more than that they lend themselves to raising funds for vaporware, and I don't think there was a single ICO that actually resulted in a real-world product.
NFTs are essentially a reboot of ICO, except instead of a million tokens each representing a small percentage of ownership, you sell a single token representing 100% ownership. I think they could still be used to fund artists (I think of them more as patronage than trading cards), but very few artists are actually raising funds this way, the market is almost entirely trash being wash traded and plots of land in metaverses that don't exist yet.
I think they will suffer the same fate I see in crypto over and over again, any legitimate use case is totally overwhelmed by the number of scams, makes the whole thing wholly unattractive to participate in.
This is misunderstanding of the situation derived I think from a believe that the technology somehow changes the use case.
ICO's are a scam because they are essentially unregulated securities.
If all securities were unregulated, then they would all be scams.
The moment you strongly regulate ICO's, then they don't get their pop, they lose their allure, and they make no sense.
There's no material or commercial advantage to Crypto or NFT's, or rather, any advantages they might offer are outweighed by the drawbacks.
And so the big remaining advantage is for scammers, which is why they take advantage of it.
ICO's are a scam because they are essentially unregulated securities.
If all securities were unregulated, then they would all be scams.
The moment you strongly regulate ICO's, then they don't get their pop, they lose their allure, and they make no sense.
There's no material or commercial advantage to Crypto or NFT's, or rather, any advantages they might offer are outweighed by the drawbacks.
And so the big remaining advantage is for scammers, which is why they take advantage of it.
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There are literally thousands of dApps developed and governed by DAOs funded by ICOs which tens of millions of daily active users derive economic value from. Sure, lots of ICOs find vaporware. But so do the overwhelming majority of VC investments.
Sorry, by "real world product" I was thinking the kind of thing that gets funded on Kickstarter, e.g. hardware or at least some kind of entertainment production.
I'm aware there's thousands of dApps and DAOs but I don't know what any of them actually do besides pay early participants with funds derived from later participants.
I'm aware there's thousands of dApps and DAOs but I don't know what any of them actually do besides pay early participants with funds derived from later participants.
> NFTs are technically good, with strong fundamentals, and real world applications, the same way ICOs were. But the way they are used has been absolute shit, and nothing sort of utterly useless.
I keep thinking that all the use-cases for NFT's can be replaced with current digital certificate signing. Transferring something only needs signing with the private key, right?
What are the real-world use-cases for NFT that simple and existing PGP signing won't work for?
I keep thinking that all the use-cases for NFT's can be replaced with current digital certificate signing. Transferring something only needs signing with the private key, right?
What are the real-world use-cases for NFT that simple and existing PGP signing won't work for?
NFTs are smart contracts and as such come with automatically enforced terms. You can create a token which expires, useful for licensing. You can create a token which pays royalties to an artist with every sale. You can create smart financial instruments which are technically NFTs and which skip the regulation put on the financial industry to perform more risky investments, and even automate functions like profit sharing or paying off a bond. You can even develop various semi-fungible tokens that do all these things!
You can't do that with PGP. You'd need to run a bank to get most of that and some of that is illegal on a global level so even as a bank you'd have to dip outside the law. These are the real uses of NFTs, not artificial scarcity magic internet tokens associated with procedurally generated soulless art from templates made in paint over 5 minutes.
You can't do that with PGP. You'd need to run a bank to get most of that and some of that is illegal on a global level so even as a bank you'd have to dip outside the law. These are the real uses of NFTs, not artificial scarcity magic internet tokens associated with procedurally generated soulless art from templates made in paint over 5 minutes.
> You can create a token which expires, useful for licensing.
Can you end the license before expiry? Because if you cannot, then it isn't useful. License holders like to know that they can revoke the license if terms are not met.
> You can create a token which pays royalties to an artist with every sale.
Can you end the royalties? Who gets the royalty when a dispute arises is frequently decided by the courts.
> You can create smart financial instruments which are technically NFTs and which skip the regulation put on the financial industry to perform more risky investments, and even automate functions like profit sharing or paying off a bond.
So, enable one to skip the laws? That doesn't sound very much like something society wants.
> You'd need to run a bank to get most of that and some of that is illegal on a global level so even as a bank you'd have to dip outside the law.
Using a tool or instrument to do something illegal doesn't make it okay to do that thing.
Can you end the license before expiry? Because if you cannot, then it isn't useful. License holders like to know that they can revoke the license if terms are not met.
> You can create a token which pays royalties to an artist with every sale.
Can you end the royalties? Who gets the royalty when a dispute arises is frequently decided by the courts.
> You can create smart financial instruments which are technically NFTs and which skip the regulation put on the financial industry to perform more risky investments, and even automate functions like profit sharing or paying off a bond.
So, enable one to skip the laws? That doesn't sound very much like something society wants.
> You'd need to run a bank to get most of that and some of that is illegal on a global level so even as a bank you'd have to dip outside the law.
Using a tool or instrument to do something illegal doesn't make it okay to do that thing.
> Can you end the license before expiry?
Of course you can, you just need to specify terms. Terms that can be in some reliable way observed by the blockchain, of course, so you'd need a trustworthy oracle or whatever to actually observe activities outside the state.
> Can you end the royalties? Who gets the royalty when a dispute arises is frequently decided by the courts.
If that's part of the contract, then yes. A smart contract is not necessarily a legally binding contract, it's a computer program which can be or represent some actual legal instrument. Once a contract is written, it cannot be revoked, unless it itself contains code that allows for one or both parties to make it not function. At the moment it is created, it becomes just an entity on the blockchain, linked to the parties by nothing but the fact that under certain conditions it will perform certain actions, which can relate to certain accounts.
> So, enable one to skip the laws?
Yes, this is a fundamental belief that can't really be separated from blockchain technology. All data and all things of value are equal before the law and you can sell illegal bonds as easily as a kid can sell him ms paint art. For several reasons, you can imagine the most reprehensible type of data or instrument one could sell online, and blockchain tech would declare that it deserves to be traded on a public market like any other commodity.
> Using a tool or instrument to do something illegal doesn't make it okay to do that thing.
Something being illegal doesn't mean it's not okay to do. Using a method which makes a law impossible to actually enforce makes that thing effectively not a law, and to do or enable that is to declare to the world that this thing should not be illegal. Fundamental, again, I cannot see a way of separating this from blockchains with arbitrary smart contracts.
Of course you can, you just need to specify terms. Terms that can be in some reliable way observed by the blockchain, of course, so you'd need a trustworthy oracle or whatever to actually observe activities outside the state.
> Can you end the royalties? Who gets the royalty when a dispute arises is frequently decided by the courts.
If that's part of the contract, then yes. A smart contract is not necessarily a legally binding contract, it's a computer program which can be or represent some actual legal instrument. Once a contract is written, it cannot be revoked, unless it itself contains code that allows for one or both parties to make it not function. At the moment it is created, it becomes just an entity on the blockchain, linked to the parties by nothing but the fact that under certain conditions it will perform certain actions, which can relate to certain accounts.
> So, enable one to skip the laws?
Yes, this is a fundamental belief that can't really be separated from blockchain technology. All data and all things of value are equal before the law and you can sell illegal bonds as easily as a kid can sell him ms paint art. For several reasons, you can imagine the most reprehensible type of data or instrument one could sell online, and blockchain tech would declare that it deserves to be traded on a public market like any other commodity.
> Using a tool or instrument to do something illegal doesn't make it okay to do that thing.
Something being illegal doesn't mean it's not okay to do. Using a method which makes a law impossible to actually enforce makes that thing effectively not a law, and to do or enable that is to declare to the world that this thing should not be illegal. Fundamental, again, I cannot see a way of separating this from blockchains with arbitrary smart contracts.
“Smart contracts” are also automatically enforced bug bounties, as anyone familiar with their sordid history knows. With “smart contracts”, you could argue that exploiting a “bug” in them is just part of the contract.
Actual contracts have some very good properties: they must be legal, and they are open to (some) interpretation in case they aren’t perfectly written. And we have a process for resolving disputes that doesn’t involve forking the entire blockchain.
Actual contracts have some very good properties: they must be legal, and they are open to (some) interpretation in case they aren’t perfectly written. And we have a process for resolving disputes that doesn’t involve forking the entire blockchain.
Like any fintech thing to be honest. In this case it just happens to be quite legal as well as the law extends its grasp into the crypto space quite slowly.
And if the terms support it (and for any nontrivial case they will), with automatically-enforced fraud.
You don’t even need that level of technology. If I bought an NFT of someone’s cat all they’d need to do is tweet that I did so, from their blue ticked alt.
What are these "real world applications", pray tell?
NFTs don’t have to be digital assets. They can represent ownership or a share of ownership of something unique, like a piece of real estate. All depends on what can be legally recognized as part of the contract.
I'll grant you that but we already have something that represents ownership in the real world - contracts. I'm not clear what advantages NFTs bring to the table for non-digital assets.
No, they make no sense at all, they are used as they were effectively designed.
That the technology is sound is not hugely relevant.
The commercial notion of NFT's is nonsensical.
That the technology is sound is not hugely relevant.
The commercial notion of NFT's is nonsensical.
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There is something worse than appeal to authority: appeal to non-authority.
nft is the most legit scam you will ever see in your life.
And he's right.
Keanu Reeves Knows NFTs Are A Joke
1cvmask(2)
I think NFTs are fine. If you don't like the culture, don't buy in. My gripe is that the majority being sold are tasteless. I don't think NFTs have a bad name because of what they are, they have a bad name because they perfectly encapsulate our materialistic culture and have the corresponding societal malaise that comes with it. So if you want to cast a stone, I would look inward first, because we all play a part in how our culture mutates.
They're "fine" to the extent that the vacuum is fine - they are complete non-entities with zero worth beyond what grifters and idiots attribute to them.
I will cast a hail of stones on the concept of copyright gone (even more) batshit insane with absolutely no hesitation.
I will cast a hail of stones on the concept of copyright gone (even more) batshit insane with absolutely no hesitation.
> I will cast a hail of stones on the concept of copyright gone (even more) batshit insane with absolutely no hesitation.
I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but DRM had pirates, and NFTs have right-clickers. The problem with DRM, particularly on games, is that it restricted access. Most NFTs are still just images and basic media and don't have any impediments to distribution. I think someone getting sued because they used someone's NFT as a twitter DP will probably happen. What comes of that will be interesting to say the least.
edit: oxymoron correction
I dislike DRM as much as the next guy, but DRM had pirates, and NFTs have right-clickers. The problem with DRM, particularly on games, is that it restricted access. Most NFTs are still just images and basic media and don't have any impediments to distribution. I think someone getting sued because they used someone's NFT as a twitter DP will probably happen. What comes of that will be interesting to say the least.
edit: oxymoron correction
The right-clickers aren't thinking ahead, or alternatively, NFT backers are thinking too far ahead. The endgame is, inside a metaverse you don't get to view the media you haven't bought a license to - Fortnite is a unique world in that they can license IP from Marvel, Star Wars, DC. The shinyness of the Ready Player One universe owes itself to that mixture of nostalgia of all different properties. I don't know that an open-source / pirate-friendly platform will be allowed to exist.
The NFT backers are placing their bets that intellectual property will be more rigidly enforced in the future. Basically conferring "First-sale Doctrine" to digital assets. The right-clickers think nothing will change and that platforms without "Right click -> Save As" will fail to catch on.
Maybe NFTs have a future, but as Richard says in Silicon Valley S03E09, "being too early is the same as being wrong"
The NFT backers are placing their bets that intellectual property will be more rigidly enforced in the future. Basically conferring "First-sale Doctrine" to digital assets. The right-clickers think nothing will change and that platforms without "Right click -> Save As" will fail to catch on.
Maybe NFTs have a future, but as Richard says in Silicon Valley S03E09, "being too early is the same as being wrong"
Do any NFTs right now give you ownership over the pic or what have you? I haven’t seen any that have. I also haven’t looked too deeply.
Do most NFTs even actually claim to represent a legally actionable copyright transfer or license, or is that all implied? I was under the impression that it was the latter.
My impression is that it's just provable ownership. Although they could probably encode copyright semantics, I suspect it's largely all implied.
That's exactly why I'm throwing the stones. Most corporations are still merely observing NFT's from a distance but if it gets any traction and more companies start embracing it, the next step will be to legislate this fantasy into legal reality.
It's everything wrong with late stage capitalism consolidated into one and we all know that the people with power will salivate at the prospect of more money for less tangible value.
It's everything wrong with late stage capitalism consolidated into one and we all know that the people with power will salivate at the prospect of more money for less tangible value.