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Comment by anonporridge | Hacker News Reader

Insanely heretical idea.

Win the bid, then publicly burn this copy of the Constitution, as an act of sacrifice to imbue it's original rarity into a digital representation (some kind of NFT) that an unbounded number of people can own shares of, thereby transmitting the memetic essence of the object into the hyperverse to be preserved and treasured for trillions of years, long after all physical copies have disintegrated away.

Despite being seen as an unconscionable and horrific act of destruction by the citizens of meatspace, it could in reality end up being the most powerful act of preservation we could ever do.

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This seems like a ridiculous idea borne of the fetishization of crypto/blockchains/nft/whatever nonsense.

There is fundamentally no act of preservation in destroying a physical object, you have to twist all logic and reality to think so.

Except that it's not destroyed.

It's ascended to a higher plane of existence, above the constraints of meatspace.

That's not a real thing.

I'm pretty sure they're joking.

I'm not

What is real?

How do you define "real"?

one definition is stuff that can still be detected after the power goes out. there are so many ways to frame it

How about only the stuff that stays around after culture and language collapses?

I can just imagine the weeping historians and archivists of the future learning that this happened. Digitized artifacts are not the same artifacts, even when photographed at incredible resolution. We keep finding more ways of understanding objects that rely on more than just their text or visual perception.

Interesting idea. But doesn't this rely on public acceptance of the "imbuing of the original object's essence into NFT?"

How do you encourage people to associate the act of destruction with an act of value transfer?

As a counterexample, an art vandal destroying a piece of art does not inherit the value of the art, even though the vandal and art interact in a culturally significant way such that the art ceases to exist after the interaction.

First, I think there's a fundamental difference between a vandal destroying something they don't own, and the owner intentionally choosing to destroy it as an act of sacrifice.

Having said that, there actually is some power in the self sacrifice of engaging in a destructive act giving a person's message more power and attention (see Unabomber Manifesto as a prime example).

Second, at least a subculture of people already do accept destruction of real world things as an act that imbues the a digital entity with the real world scarcity. It's called proof of work, and bitcoin is constantly 'sacrificing' real world energy which imbues the token with value in many people's minds. Enough so make it a trillion dollar asset class.

What you described seems much more like cult insanity than anything else.

Someone did this with a Banksy print a while back, bought it, burned it, sold it as an NFT. And the NFT sold for several times the value that the print would have. That was back in the NFT frenzy days of early-this-year though.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/17/burnt-banksys-...

The reaction to burning the constitution would be overwhelmingly negative. Maybe like KLF's burning a million quid it would ultimately shake out as a powerful statement, but I sort of doubt it.

The fact that the NFT sold for more than the original print after the act suggests to me that the "sacrifice-value-transfer" is not an exact 1:1 process, since the resulting NFT had a different value. Yes, the owner is probably delighted that the NFT is worth more, but then I'd argue that "uploading a physical object's value to the digital realm" is no longer the right way to think about this.

It's so original you're the third person in this threat to propose it. Congratulations! So smart!

Unfortunately, that sort of self-aggrandizing pseudo-clever cynicism is what's driving this whole fad. There were times when a generation thought free love and rock & roll were the answer. Their children knew weed wasn't the answer, but it tuned out those voices asking questions. Now, their children believe they'll strike it rich on the PGA Tour of buzzword-bingo, and while they wait for what they obviously deserve to materialize, they'll get started on the tacky simulations of what they believe the lifestyle of rich people to be a.k.a. Instagram. And when that doesn't work, they get frustrated, do the closest their fragile will allow them to get to therapy (Proud Boys telling each other they don't need women) and reach their final form once they've made up their mind if it's jews, liberals, women, or "the elite" that's screwed them out of the good life.

Someone already did this (create NFT of the permanent destruction of the original) with a Banksy original, so the art/shock value is spent.

>> the most powerful act of preservation

As if we don't already have scans / text of the constitution archived.

Information is more easily lost if there's no powerful incentive to preserve it.

By digitizing it AND minting an NFT around the information that is traded and valued as a piece of rare art, there is a strong monetary incentive to preserve the information, because it's an asset that can be bought and sold.

I think this is what kids these days would call "cursed"

blursed

The real crypto was the friends me made along the way.

the real way was the crypto we made along the friends

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