Uniqueness: Difference between revisions

}}The [[Blockchain]]’s unique selling point is ''[[uniqueness]]'': a single entry on the ledger is there, it is fixed, it is unique for all time and uneditable, without editing every node on the [[distributed ledger]]. Encoded into its design is a uniqueness of each digital quite alien to the engineering of the internet, which is predicated, more or less, on copying as a means of transmission. Where the regular internet not only allows lossless copying, but encourages — is ''predicated'' on — it: that’s at the heart of its [[End-to-end principle|end-to-end]] architecture — it suffers from the conceptual issue that any digital copy of an original digital artefact is, to every intent and purpose, the equal of the original, a ''copy'' of an entry on the distributed ledger is, [[ontologically]], not. By its code, it is unique. Tokens on a blockchain are to documents on the internet as Millenials are to Boomers: digitally native. They exist in, and are of, the digital realm.  

You could recreate the regular internet on the blockchain, but it would be — well, ''different''.

But — and maybe walled-in social media platforms on the internet, structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation|DAO]]s are different; the JC doesn’t yet really understand them — mostly, a blockchain is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system. It is made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''.  

This is great if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, inverting urinals and signing them — or even more so writing music or literature — whose artwork “natively” lives outside a [[distributed ledger]], or whose [[value]] does not subsist in its [[substrate]], but rather in the abstract information the [[substrate]] carries (such as a book or a score) — having your artwork encoded on a [[blockchain]], in a unique [[substrate]] doesn’t really help you.

If you import a "canonical" “real world” artwork, then the ''blockchain representation'' is the one that is certifiably, ontologically ''inferior:'' it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work.  

Ironically, putting a real artwork ''on [[blockchain]]'' makes your [[non-fungible token]] ''worse'' than an straight digital copy.

The rampant copy-ability of anything everything in Web 2.0 no doubt prompted the stampede to non-fungibility. ''Authenticity'' is in deep demand: no-one trusts experts anymore. ''Everything'' is ripped off. ''Everything'' is fake. Indubitability — [[certainty]] — is some kind of holy grail.<ref>But see our essay as to why [[doubt]] is no bad thing.</ref>  But is uniqueness, in the abstract, of any value, ''in and of itself''?

We say, “no,” all the above [[Notwithstanding anything to the contrary|notwithstanding]].

The [[JC]] has a small commonplace book of poems he composed, as a moleish adolescent.<ref>Adrian Mole-ish, or Wind-in-the-Willows Mole-ish, it doesn’t really make a difference.</ref> It exists in single copy, in fountain pen ink on cartridge paper, rendered in his youthful, spidery left-handed scrawl. Make no mistake: these are some of the worst poems composed in the history of civilisation.<ref>They would give Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings a run for her money.</ref> Not one  has been committed to any other format and nor, if the JC has any say in the matter, will they ever be. They are, thus, utterly unique.  

Do they have an iota of ''[[value]]''? Outside their extortion potential, they do not. Does their ''uniqueness'' change this? It does not.  

Why does he keep them? It is impossible to say.