Hacker News Reader

Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

It's what the market wants, apparently. The digging will continue while the market exists. I thinks it's brilliant performance art and provides some introspection to a part of capitalism.

CAH's black Friday stunts have consistently shown that people will spend money on stupid shit they don't need. Maybe there's a deeper lesson in there on the nature of people?

View on HN

Looks more like a critique to government spending money on unproductive shit as a measure to "improve the economy". The difference is that you are forced to finance that through taxation, whereas the hole digging is voluntary.

I don't know how people are making connections to government of all things. Because there are excavators there?

Anyway, judging by the history of CAH Black Friday stunts, I'd say it's definitely a critique of consumerism - of people spending money to buy stupid shit. The difference between CAH and all other Black Friday sales is that CAH tells you up-front you're buying stupid shit (at one occasion, they literally sold bull shit).

I don't personally think it's a commentary on government, but it's a reasonable conclusion. It was John Maynard Keynes who famously said (talking about government stimulus) that the government should "pay people to dig holes and fill them in again". As a result, a hole is the classic example of a useless government make work project.

This isn't paid for by the government in any way, so no, that's not a reasonable conclusion.

You misinterpreted me. I was saying that digging a hole is the classic _useless_ project.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com