I'm reading "More Than 20 Report Burning Eyes After NFT Festival in Hong Kong/Bored Ape Yacht Club, the collective that hosted the three-day event, said it was investigating possible causes, including UV lights used at a party on Saturday night" (NYT)
Without the burning eyes, would anyone care about "ApeFest, a three-day event hosted by Bored Ape Yacht Club, a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts who own unique digital images of primates that cost tens of thousands of dollars apiece."
The eye problem might have to do with fluorescent paint splattered on toilets in one of the photo op places or maybe just the UV light.
"The price of the least expensive Bored Apes had fallen to just over $50,000 in July, according to CoinDesk, an online publication that focuses on digital currencies. Just last year, the cheapest Bored Apes were selling for more than $400,000."
I tried looking for other recent articles about NFTs. I found, from last week, "Silicon Valley Shrugs Off Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial/Tech investors lauded Mr. Bankman-Fried and helped fund his FTX crypto exchange. The tech industry has since done what it does best: move on" (boldface added):
The industry hasn’t fixated on Mr. Bankman-Fried’s fate because it is no longer fixated on crypto — or web3, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs and other crypto-fied buzzwords that signified the cutting edge just two years ago. They may come back around in a few years. But for now, they are out of style and therefore irrelevant.
Posts
40 comments:
"The tech industry has since done what it does best: move on"
"Move on" is more NewAge* lingo. Sigh. It's unending.
*New Age is establishing itself as the ideology of global capitalism. (Zizek, 2001)
NFT's are the concept of monetizable uniqueness, without the art nor the artist.
The art is inconsequential to NFTs, that's why even the most highly priced collections just run a program to generate thousands of bad procedural variation of an ugly drawing.
What is the worth of a unique string of numbers on one of thousands of blockchains? Zero. You can have countless billion billions of such unique strings of numbers, making their marginal utility exactly zero.
NFT were priced above 0$ just due to irrational market dynamics. Most of the market already corrected price -99%, closer to the actual value.
Oh, never mind me.
I’m trying to stay safe over here on the Oregon Trail.
Crack- you forgot “new normal”.
Big Clive is a seemingly competent electrician who releases all kinds of device tear-down videos. He has addressed the eye burning issue (below), and similar problems with Asian sourced party / club lighting. He says it follows from using clear glass "black lights" rather than safe dark tinted black lights. The users don't know that the pretty blue and purple colored radiation is extremely harmful.
The NFT and crypto crowd has little sense of danger or risk versus reward in any context. They surely must touch a few hot stoves or stare at the sun before they'll learn what burns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DlfLthx89E
I think of the term "move on" in connection with the 2000 Presidential election and some on the left starting up moveon.org to mobilize and strategize. It had some buzz for awhile, I think, but not so much anymore, I don't hear about it anyway. But then I don't travel in those circles. Nor do I invest or trade in crypto or NFTs so I was never in the loop to begin with on that stuff either.
So what else is hot and buzz-y now that I don't know is happening and won't find out what I missed out on until after it's over and I'm reading about it on the Althouse blog?
""Move on" is more NewAge* lingo. Sigh. It's unending."
It's unending, subjectively, for you, because you are obsessed.
How could you come up with the idea that "move on" is New Age lingo?
The OED gives us some great authors in the historical quotes for "move on" (and perhaps these will help *you* move on):
1690
Where nothing hinders, (as beyond the utmost bounds of all Bodies,) a Body put into motion may move on.
J. Locke, Essay Humane Understanding ii. xiii. 80Citation details for J. Locke, Essay Humane Understanding
1746
Tis allowed [by all] that a Body IA, moving with a Velocity IC, and [a Force I]F, striking another Body IA at Rest, they [will after]wards move on together.
B. Franklin, Letter 16 October in Papers
1816
Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife. ‘We had better move on, Mr Weston,’ said she, ‘we are detaining the girls.’
J. Austen, Emma vol. II. v. 78Citation details for J. Austen, Emma
1820
Then the tale Shall move on soberly.
J. Keats, Isabella in Lamia & Other Poems 59Citation details for J. Keats, Isabella
1874
Gabriel and Coggan began to move on.
T. Hardy, Far from Madding Crowd xxxv
More recently "move on" had a very conspicuous political use: "MoveOn started in 1998 as an e-mail group, MoveOn.org, created by software entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, the married cofounders of Berkeley Systems. They started by passing around a petition asking Congress to "Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation", as opposed to impeaching him.The one-sentence petition, passed around by email, gathered half a million signatures, making it one of the first "viral" email-based petitions. It did not manage to dissuade the House of Representatives from impeaching the President. The couple went on to start similar campaigns calling for arms inspections rather than an invasion of Iraq, and campaign finance reform." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoveOn
NFTs were the flavor of the week, now that week is over.
They're too ephemeral, too speculative, too prone to fraud. It's not clear what you're getting when you buy one. It's not surprising that once the newness wore off, people lost interest.
Ann Althouse said...
"It's unending, subjectively, for you, because you are obsessed."
Aware and obsessed are two different things. It is so weird how it can be the fastest growing religion in America but, somehow, I'm mistaken to be seeing it everywhere.
"How could you come up with the idea that "move on" is New Age lingo?"
Because I understand NewAge, and, unlike you, know it's not dependent on something being "new" but on whether or not it's adopted by followers, and how they use it. Next you'll be telling me homeopathy's not a part of NewAge merely because it's over 200 years old.
You guys challenging me on this - when I've been looking at this subject for over 15 years - is really tiring. Do I challenge you on the law? Asking me why or how I come to my conclusions is fine, but challenging me and suggesting I'm obsessed and don't know what I'm talking about? That's fucked-up, Ann. You were one of the first people to tell me cults weren't a cultural fact when I got here. Now they dominate almost everything, or at least, are a major part of our conversation in a way they weren't when I got here. You should be more humble. I was right and you were wrong, in a very, very big way. I think if you as a Law Professor, and l give you the benefit of the doubt on that. You need to start extending the same courtesy. I know NewAge inside and out. And I know I know it better than you.
The tech industry is moving on to their next way to scam rubes. It’s what they do best.
"More recently "move on" had a very conspicuous political use: "MoveOn started in 1998 as an e-mail group, MoveOn.org, created by software entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, the married cofounders of Berkeley Systems."
BTW - thanks for telling me about moveon.org.
I had no idea.
Aren't these things just for money laundering?
I mean, I "own" a good bit of virtual content (meaning I don't own it at all, I know), but I don't understand why - except for money laundering - anyone would want exclusive access to, say, a digital copy of a book or something.
Crack, you been corrected, and how. You have no point to make in response except to hear your own voice. Why can't you just move the fuck on?
Ann,
While, of course, I've always known about moveon.org, you did remind me that I've never investigated them - knowing they have that name AND they're from Berkeley - AND, And, and that they began by trying to get Republicans to take the heat off of the very-culty Bill Clinton, over Monica. Who else was doing that but people who wanted more NewAge whack jobs in government? (A former member of the Rajneesh cult, featured in the Netflix documentary "Wild, Wild Country," is in that list,....)
According to Wikipedia, 'Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, "praised" MoveOn for "10 years of making even people who agree with you cringe."' That's enough that they should've gotten my antenna up enough to scratch beyond the surface. I mean, I looked into the Daily Kos, and they turned out to have "started out as an astrological tabloid, forcasting the ups and downs of the stock market based upon the stars." MoveOn.org are two Berkeley, California tech millionaires.
What do you think I'd find if I started looking into their "spiritual" proclivities?
Old and slow said...
"Why can't you just move the fuck on?"
You keep following me around this blog, and commenting on me when I say nothing to you, and you're asking how I can't move the fuck on?
This, Ann, is called obsession. These people who have to call out my name. How many times have you seen me come on this blog and start talking about Drago's/Old and slow's/whoever's comments, out of the blue? Think about it: I may call out somebody who said something racist, but, other than that, you never hear me comment about anybody here. But every day, it's a free-for-all when it comes to me. They just feel they gotta say it.
It's weird to see so many "conservatives" who claim to hate cancel culture but don't know what it means to leave people alone.
Old and slow said @ 7:27 AM...
"Hear! Hear!"
I suppose Crack will now try to tell us that's a New Age phrase, too.
I'm not following you around Crack. You are ever present these days. Also, you take yourself much too seriously.
Elon musk mentioned NFT's on his recent JRE appearance. As I recall, mister musk claimed that nfts were just a simple URL of a JPEG that anyone could access and so they were there for non-unique non scarce. As everyone knows a path to wealth is to own scarcity.
I get the point of Althouse's OED examples, but granularly I agree with Crack. Joan Blade and Wes Boyd are, mystico-politically, firmly located at the grotesque San Francisco intersection of Zizek's New Age tech anarcho-capitalism feigning "progressivism" and the fentanyl-hobbled screeching addicts on the streets below, manifested together only through the most "open-minded" political shaman such billionaires can buy, and are culturally stupid enough to do so, and thus impose on the less billionarish. See, for example, Bob Lee.
I once did a Press Club event with anti-New Age writer Constance Cumbey. In my view, she goes a bit far in linking New Age directly to specific events, but not to the larger political underpinnings of, very specifically, the Bill/Hillary/MoveOn DNC. People besides Crack do make these connections.
New Age culture is also the shambolic intersection of the Herpes era with the HIV/HPV era, both driven by the official DNC cultural trajectory. First they fuck up your head, but you're old enough to get by; then they quietly infect everyone under Sixty; then they literally kill your kids.
"You guys challenging me on this - when I've been looking at this subject for over 15 years - is really tiring. Do I challenge you on the law?"
Unlike you, I have paper credentials of expertise — a law degree and many years of paid employment as a law professor and publications in prestigious journals. But it is you who are demanding deference to your authority, your say-so. And I don't do that. I don't just make announcements about law and expect people to accept that because I'm an authority.
"Asking me why or how I come to my conclusions is fine, but challenging me and suggesting I'm obsessed and don't know what I'm talking about?"
I asked you to prove something you are merely asserting and you go into a huff because you think you should be believed just because you say something. Your objecting to that seems like an evasion. Declining to support your assertions, ironically, sounds like something a cultist would do -- insist on belief and act all offended if you don't get it.
"That's fucked-up, Ann. You were one of the first people to tell me cults weren't a cultural fact when I got here."
Link to that. It doesn't sound right and I doubt very much that I could have said anything like that. Prove it.
"Now they dominate almost everything, or at least, are a major part of our conversation in a way they weren't when I got here. You should be more humble. I was right and you were wrong, in a very, very big way."
Quote what I said that you believe is wrong so I can check my work. I have no idea what you are talking about and frankly you sound childish.
"I think if you as a Law Professor, and l give you the benefit of the doubt on that. You need to start extending the same courtesy. I know NewAge inside and out. And I know I know it better than you."
Support your actual statements. That's what experts do. I asked for support for something specific. It is not professional to claim authority to make assertions that then must be believed.
Old and slow said...
"I'm not following you around Crack. You are ever present these days."
I made the first comment on this thread. The proprietor of the blog called me out. I answered her. Then you called me out. Now everyone has a comment about either me or New Age or my knowledge of New Age. Do you see how this happens? Do I ignore them all? But in your case, why can't you just BE AN ADULT and ignore my posts? Unless you call me out, I ignore yours.
"Also, you take yourself much too seriously."
And you're the shrinking violet who's appointed yourself to reign in my personality? You must be pretty full of shit yourself to conjured that level of hypocrisy.
Ann Althouse said...
"Unlike you, I have paper credentials of expertise — a law degree and many years of paid employment as a law professor and publications in prestigious journals. But it is you who are demanding deference to your authority, your say-so. And I don't do that. I don't just make announcements about law and expect people to accept that because I'm an authority."
I'm demanding you acknowledge when I'm right. Which you also don't do.
"I asked you to prove something you are merely asserting and you go into a huff because you think you should be believed just because you say something."
You did not ask me to prove anything. You asked how I knew something, which I answered, and said I didn't mind. I minded you calling me obsessed, and implying I didn't know what I was talking about.
"Your objecting to that seems like an evasion."
There was no evasion. I gave you the example of homeopathy, to counter your example of how long people have been using the phrase "move on."
"Declining to support your assertions, ironically, sounds like something a cultist would do -- insist on belief and act all offended if you don't get it."
Again, I replied with the example of homeopathy. Now, how many times is someone on this blog going to imply that I'm trying to run a cult, or acting like a cultist, or running a grift, or some other cheap trick like that, when - you all know - that's the last thing I'm into?
"Link to that. It doesn't sound right and I doubt very much that I could have said anything like that. Prove it."
If you demand it. I'll have to go back a while, so you'll have to give me a little bit of time.
"Support your actual statements. That's what experts do. I asked for support for something specific. It is not professional to claim authority to make assertions that then must be believed."
For the third time. You gave me examples of how long people have been using "move on." I I said age has nothing to do with it, and gave you the example of homeopathy being 200 years hold and an integral part of NewAge. Wait a minute - are you seriously expecting me to show you a preponderance of NewAgers saying the words "move on" to prove it's part of the movement's vernacular? Or maybe whip out a NewAge dictionary of all their favorite words and phrases? Get Deepak Chopra to co-sign my posts? Come on, Ann.
""The price of the least expensive Bored Apes had fallen to just over $50,000 in July"
I'm waiting 'til it goes under 50 cents. That's when I make my move!
"Quote what I said that you believe is wrong so I can check my work. I have no idea what you are talking about and frankly you sound childish."
Hey, Look. At least he's not on about "reparations". We may hope that he has -- eh, never mind.
Tina Trent said...
"I once did a Press Club event with anti-New Age writer Constance Cumbey. In my view, she goes a bit far in linking New Age directly to specific events, but not to the larger political underpinnings of, very specifically, the Bill/Hillary/MoveOn DNC. People besides Crack do make these connections."
I know Constance Cumbey, and even been on her podcast a couple of times. We lost touch after she got into some kind of a scrape or another and disappeared on me. I'm going to have to look her up.
"New Age culture is also the shambolic intersection of the Herpes era with the HIV/HPV era, both driven by the official DNC cultural trajectory. First they fuck up your head, but you're old enough to get by; then they quietly infect everyone under Sixty; then they literally kill your kids."
People denying its existence, its reach, and its power, are the biggest detriments to society doing anything about it. It, and it's promoters - from the Maharishit onward - appear too flaky and ephemeral to be a threat, much less real. That's why you get websites like What's The Harm? People have compared anti-cultism to trying to empty the ocean with a paper cup, or trying to catch smoke in a bottle. I don't exactly have the temperament for it, but, thanks to my wife, I'm in it whether I like it or not. I didn't join anything, and I have no beliefs beyond good 'ol American values, but this nightmare is now mine. Expecting anyone to make it any easier is probably a big mistake.
This is not the first trendy event in China to stupidly use unshielded UVC light for "atmosphere".
Big Clive has yet another video explaining
https://youtu.be/6DlfLthx89E
You are right Crack. I should just ignore your bleating. You are singularly annoying though. I'll try harder.
OTOH, it's just irony that fools who paid 100K for a special crypto coin rapidly crumbling in value then got corneal burns from the fluorescent/ultraviolet "toilet art installation" at the party -- that they had to buy a 100K trinket to gain access to.
Injury by conceptual art. And crypto peddlers. That's definitely the third most ridiculous art happening described in the Times today.
Ann,
I have been looking over a lot of things from the past, but, unfortunately, I've found I usually acknowledged when we agreed, like when you saw the cult around Obama. That stood out because it was unusual and you're not often that direct about saying you see cultism. But I did run across some interesting "finds" none-the-less.
Like here's a post of yours on "hippie psychobabble" that had taken over golf writing - specifically called "New Age golf writing" - indicating you're aware of the phrasing I see, like "move on," it just bugs you when I see it, or the extent that I see it.
Or how about this post where you say Deepak Chopra's advice on how to disagree is "so coldly corporate" - which fits perfectly with my Zizek quote: "New Age is establishing itself as the ideology of global capitalism." As does this one on "Why Corporations Want You to Shut Up and Meditate/Ron Purser’s new book McMindfulness examines how spiritual practices and self-care became tools for corporate compliance." Why the grief when that's all I said?
Here's a post of yours where someone is quoted as saying “In L.A., you’ve always said, ‘My therapist says’ — that’s not a weird thing to say,...But now name-dropping a shaman is normal.” I would think that would've indicated to you, as I've been saying, that NewAge is growing over the passage of time. You even share some of my outrage at "professional therapists using utter junk in their practice." You just don't share it with me whenever I bring it up. I stay isolated, and you claim obsessed. Tell me, are these people obsessed - or you - when y'all find and see this stuff?
You've even got a post saying "The 'spiritual but not religious' of now is not the old New Age. What I have been seeing is that this version has much more depth. It has a lot of substance." It even talks about how even fucking NPR is a vehicle for NewAge belief. But I'm the crazy one for always bringing it up, just because I knew all this shit about a decade earlier.
Considering what I did find, and the things I can prove - even using your own posts - I would think you would be more supportive, rather than trying to act like I don't know what I'm talking about. No, I don't have credentials, and no one's ever paid me to save them from NewAge, but to say I have no credibility on this subject is untrue and unfair. And everyone comes to their expertise through school.
NFTs were the flavor of the week, now that week is over.
=========
if 'investors' hope to /funge/ it at another time/place why call them NFT
That's definitely the third most ridiculous art happening
=====
where does Israeli Peace rave fit in the order of ridiculous art happenings
People denying its existence, its reach, and its power, are the biggest detriments to society doing anything about it.
I haven't heard anyone here denying that New Age stuff exists, or that it's far-reaching. (Your statement above doesn't directly say that people here are among those great detriments, but you've gone to some lengths to imply it in various places.)
The questions, I think, are twofold: 1. Where's the harm? I mean that seriously, not just as a callback to your link. Confirmation bias alone, plus your personal experience, can give you - specifically you - the impression that a whole lot more people would forgo regular medical treatment for homeopathy than actually do. And putting drops of very expensive plain water under your tongue (of course I agree with you entirely about the ridiculousness of homeopathy) for most ailments is not harmful, just ineffective.
And from there, the rest of the "where's the harm" question becomes "where is the greatest harm?" You bundle a lot of things into this package and appear to demand that we all see all of it as equally dangerous. But is a seance as dangerous as a cult? Is cupping as dangerous as homeopathy?
2. What's the policy prescription? What do you propose society do about it, whatever "it" is and however far "it" reaches, and - arising from this question, two more: a. Where do you, or we, or whoever, draw the line (for instance, is mainstream Mormonism enough like a cult to warrant its prohibition? What about Christian Science, and Lord, what do you expect can be done about that bag of weirdness?)? And b. What if you, or we, turn out to have been wrong about something valuable? Once we've labeled this collection of eccentricities "New Age" and then prohibited all of it, how do we then carve out any little piece that turns out to have merit?
Look at what the COVID "vaccine" has done for vaccines generally. Look at what the COVID strategy has done for public trust in epidemiologists and public health policymakers. We are screwed if the next epidemic is more deadly than and as fast-spreading as COVID. And that's a direct result of employing current societal "best practices" arrogantly, out of the assumption that of course we're right.
I'm just saying, your call for Althouse to be more humble ought to be echoing in your ears too, if your aim is the betterment of human society.
You can rent extremely powerful, theatrical, UV lighting fixtures. And UV is very damaging to the eyes.
Once, they asked me to put eight 400 watt HMI UV floodlights at the main gate for Halloween. I told them that if we did that, we would have to provide UV blocking safety glasses and sunblock to all the employees who were working there.
My grandfather was a welder for the Union Pacific railroad for fifty years. When he eventually retired, they gave him and his wife lifetime passes to the railroad. But they couldn't really use them because the UV from the welding had made him blind as a bat.
Don't mess with powerful UV. It's dangerous. (It can cause burns, cataracts and cancer.)
Enigma said...
"Big Clive is a seemingly competent electrician who releases all kinds of device tear-down videos. He has addressed the eye burning issue (below), and similar problems with Asian sourced party / club lighting. He says it follows from using clear glass "black lights" rather than safe dark tinted black lights. The users don't know that the pretty blue and purple colored radiation is extremely harmful."
The problem is that you don't get the UV effect on the UV paint if the UV is filtered out. Actual UV is invisible to the naked eye until it hits a UV pigment painted object that then erupts into bright color. (The purple, visible, light these fixtures produce is just a useless by product.) Just check out Wildfire Lighting.
Meta-rhetoric is boring.
Just last year, the cheapest Bored Apes were selling for more than $400,000.
More interesting is that Bored Apes were being bought for more than $400,000.
Jamie said...
"Where is the greatest harm?" You bundle a lot of things into this package and appear to demand that we all see all of it as equally dangerous. But is a seance as dangerous as a cult? Is cupping as dangerous as homeopathy?"
Yes. Anywhere we're deliberately deceiving each other, and causing unnecessary distress, is the greatest harm. Because it just gets worse. As I find myself continually reminding people, we're ARGUING over it. Notice: I didn't start this argument - Ann did. I merely made a comment about the words "move on," which was enough for her to start a fight. That's NewAge, and all that it is good for.
"What's the policy prescription?"
Start rolling back unsupportable ridiculousness. Put some parameters around reality, and quit leaving us floating in a world defined by "mysteries of the unknown." I've said it over and over again: y'all are waaay too comfortable living with lies.
"Look at what the COVID "vaccine" has done for vaccines generally."
I have watched that, but I don't see it the same way you guys do because, as usual, I was on top of it when you guys weren't worried about it. Where is any discussion of Andrew Wakefield in the cold in the current vaccine conversation? Jenny McCarthy was on top of this way before anybody else in the United States, why isn't she part of this discussion now? Because she hurts everyone's argument who wants to claim that being anti-vaccine is a smart thing to be. It wasn't when she was out there by herself. Now that they keep her tucked away, and not heard from, now it's the smart thing to be. Bullshit. We've all been victims of vaccine propaganda.
"I'm just saying, your call for Althouse to be more humble ought to be echoing in your ears too, if your aim is the betterment of human society."
I've been here for over 10 years and, upon today's review, especially on this, I think I've got a pretty good track record. I admit and apologize when I'm wrong. That's all I owe anyone. I expect to be acknowledged when I'm right. I think I deserve that. Ann usually does neither - it's not her style for some reason. Which puts me in the vulnerable spot. That's humbling enough.
Jamie,
"I'm just saying, your call for Althouse to be more humble ought to be echoing in your ears too"
This reminds me of Ann saying "sounds like something a cultist would do -- insist on belief and act all offended if you don't get it."
You guys keep trying to turn my criticisms around on me. If I demand somebody be humble, then you demand I be humble. If I say somebody got something wrong, then you insist that I have to admit I got something wrong. And I'm always acting like the cultists I hate. It's just an evasion so that you never have to admit when you're wrong. You just stay focused on me, and keep the pressure on. You're full of shit. You guys remind me of what the Indians had to put up with when the white people arrived. It's just a never ending series of lies, and evasion, and pressure. But never any self reflection. Never any admittance of guilt. Never any relief. If a person wants a fair shake from you guys, they'll only get it by staying far away from you.
Because you never just say "you're right."
You are right Crack. I should just ignore your bleating. You are singularly annoying though. I'll try harder.
Just scroll on by. The avatar makes it quick and easy.
NFT's got SBF'd
"NFT's got SBF'd" and now he's a NPC.
I know who won't be getting a Ouija Board from me this Christmas.
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