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Uniqueness: Difference between revisions
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Thus, tokens on a [[blockchain]] are to data packets on the internet as Millennials are to Boomers: digitally native, preternaturally wise, immune to the foolish notions of yesteryear. They exist in, and are of, the digital realm. In this way, a [[blockchain]] and the regular internet are ''[[incommensurable]]'': [[Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life|non-overlapping magisteria]]. It is as if the internet were some flawed Boomer notion that, like so many other flawed Boomer notions, the kids have re-rendered in the language of tomorrow. | Thus, tokens on a [[blockchain]] are to data packets on the internet as Millennials are to Boomers: digitally native, preternaturally wise, immune to the foolish notions of yesteryear. They exist in, and are of, the digital realm. In this way, a [[blockchain]] and the regular internet are ''[[incommensurable]]'': [[Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life|non-overlapping magisteria]]. It is as if the internet were some flawed Boomer notion that, like so many other flawed Boomer notions, the kids have re-rendered in the language of tomorrow. | ||
The paradigm case of “a token on a blockchain” is, of course, cryptocurrency. Say what you like about [[bitcoin]] — and the [[JC]] has plenty to say [[Bitcoin|elsewhere]] — but it ''is'' “[[blockchain | The paradigm case of “a token on a blockchain” is, of course, cryptocurrency. Say what you like about [[bitcoin]] — and the [[JC]] has plenty to say [[Bitcoin|elsewhere]] — but it ''is'' “[[blockchain]] native”: it exists in, of and only ''within'' the blockchain. Bitcoins are therefore ''intrinsically, certifiably, unique''. You absolutely can’t rip them off. That is about their one true advantage. The only one, maybe, but it is an advantage. | ||
And if you create your artwork ''on'' the [[blockchain]], you get that same native uniqueness: any facsimiles of the artwork that exist ''off blockchain'' — copies floating around on the internet, hanging in fashionable galleries and so on — are, certifiably, [[ontologically]] ''inferior'' to the one on the ledger. That one is the real deal. | And if you create your artwork ''on'' the [[blockchain]], you get that same native uniqueness: any facsimiles of the artwork that exist ''off blockchain'' — copies floating around on the internet, hanging in fashionable galleries and so on — are, certifiably, [[ontologically]] ''inferior'' to the one on the ledger. That one is the real deal. | ||
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===The metaverse, the dying analog world, and pixellated pop-tarts=== | ===The metaverse, the dying analog world, and pixellated pop-tarts=== | ||
Now maybe walled-in media platforms structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation]]s are different, but mostly, a [[blockchain]] is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system: a fancy ownership register, made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''. Great, if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, finding bicycle wheels, 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, film or score) — having your artwork encoded on a [[blockchain]], in a unique [[substrate]] doesn’t really help you. It’s one thing for David Hockney to do all his painting on an iPad: but the history of art would have been quite different, and quite a lot less fun, were Caravaggio or Duchamp obliged to restrict themselves to Nyan Cats in a cashbook. | Now maybe walled-in media platforms structured as [[decentralised autonomous organisation]]s are different, but mostly, a [[blockchain]] is a crappy place to create art. It’s a ledger system: a fancy ownership register, made of cryptographically-hashed code. That is, artistically, ''limiting''. Great, if pixellated rainbow cat-poptarts are your thing, but for anyone making art the old-fashioned way — paint and paper, sand and glue, finding bicycle wheels, inverting urinals and signing them — or even more so writing music or literature, whose ''value'' as artwork “natively” lives outside a [[distributed ledger]], or whose [[value]] does not subsist in its [[substrate]] at all, but rather in the abstract information the [[substrate]] carries (such as a book, film or score) — having your artwork encoded on a [[blockchain]], in a unique [[substrate]] doesn’t really help you. It’s one thing for David Hockney to do all his painting on an iPad: but the history of art would have been quite different, and quite a lot less fun, were Caravaggio or Duchamp obliged to restrict themselves to designing Nyan Cats in a cashbook. | ||
So here’s the irony of the blockchain: if you aren’t quite ready for permanent immersion in the Metaverse: if you are not yet ready let the analogue world go, then not only does the blockchain not help: it makes things worse. To mint a token of a canonical “real world” artwork, is to create a non-fungible ''representation'' of it — a non-copy — the one that is certifiably, [[ontologically]] inferior ''to every other ripped-off copy:'' unlike a digital copy, it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | So here’s the irony of the [[blockchain]]: if you aren’t quite ready for permanent immersion in the Metaverse: if you are not yet ready let the analogue world go, then not only does the blockchain not help: it makes things worse. To mint a token of a canonical “real world” artwork, is to create a non-fungible ''representation'' of it — a non-copy — the one that is certifiably, [[ontologically]] inferior ''to every other ripped-off copy:'' unlike a digital copy, it is uniquely, definitively ''not'' the original work. | ||
===The JC’s adolescent [[peotry]] as the case against the intrinsic value of uniqueness=== | ===The JC’s adolescent [[peotry]] as the case against the intrinsic value of uniqueness=== | ||