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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

>Why should non-creatives go along with this?

We shouldn't. Art has historically been vastly overvalued and I like that its perceived/demanded value has been sharply declining over the past several decades and especially now with the advent of "AI".

I'm sorry if anyone reading this is an artist and I just twisted your pantaloons, but artists don't serve any valuable role in society. Artists exist strictly because society can afford to waste surplus time and resources on frivolous occupations, art is an intangible luxury.

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"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."

- John Adams, 2nd US President

I'd read this but I'm too busy playing video games. I'll read it after I watch this movie.

Just a clarification, art has never been overvalued historically.

In point of fact, artisans and musicians were considered a fairly lower class as a mere trade within the medieval time period outside of a few rockstars such as Beethoven and Liszt (later in the 18th and 19th centuries).

artists were not lower class compared to the vast majority of the population and that generally remains true.

There is no value in music, books, movies, video games? Or did you just think about paintings?

I'd add all software to video games; despite all the optimization and mechanization it remains a creative endeavor.

Programming is only art when the goal is creativity, like in creative mechanics for video games. It isn't art when it is just to make a product work, just like most people don't consider designers artists. There is an aspect of art to it, but there is an aspect of art to most engineering and development things, programming is as much an art as pretty much any other white collar job.

>There is no value in music, books, movies, video games?

No.

When push comes to shove and society can't afford luxuries for one reason or another, they are among the first things thrown out for a greater (valuable) cause with no tangible losses sustained.

I think it's not that it has historically been overvalued, so much as the valuation wired into us hasn't fully accounted for the consequences of mass reproduction.

Before the printing press, a poet was valued and valuable; today, the feeling of valuation remains, but instead of each village of 160 looking after their own poets and bards, it's a power-law distribution where Taylor Swift and J. K. Rowling are worth hundreds of millions to billions while the person at the end of the top 100 best-seller lists absolutely needs a second job.

I think you would enjoy reading this which seems to agree with you somewhat. https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1cCymY7GRLn-PDwh948WC...

Refreshing. Where can I find more -- do you know who the author is and title of this work?

Edit: Found it. The Principles of Art by Robin George Collingwood

> artists don't serve any valuable role in society

I assume then that you don't listen to any music, don't watch TV or movies, don't read any books, don't have any pictures on your walls, live in a concrete box with no artistic design applied, and so on? In other words, that you get no value from art in any form?

>In other words, that you get no value from art in any form?

No value I could not do without, no.

Art is a luxury, it's not strictly necessary for living. As such, the real inherent value of art will always be extremely low.

> No value I could not do without

You're quibbling. If you aren't doing without it, then it has value.

> Art is a luxury, it's not strictly necessary for living.

Neither is the conversation we're having now, nor the medium in which we are having it. Yet I don't think anyone would say the Internet, or even this website, has no value.

The vast majority of the wealth currently on this planet is "not strictly necessary for living". But "living" is more than just bare subsistence. People value quality of life, and art is a major contribution to many people's quality of life. That's why people are willing to pay significant amounts of money for it.

>You're quibbling. If you aren't doing without it, then it has value.

I never said there is no value, I'm saying art has low value (and thus no value I couldn't do without) compared to actually tangible, important things and that it has been overvalued to an extreme until recent decades when more supply (more artists) and better efficiency (digital technologies, "AI") finally started to slash perceived value.

>Neither is the conversation we're having now, nor the medium in which we are having it. Yet I don't think anyone would say the Internet, or even this website, has no value.

Plenty of people think the internet as it exists today is actually a net negative for humanity, let alone low value. While I don't agree to that extent, I do agree with a general notion that the internet is overvalued. Though not quite to what art has been, since the internet is still a communication tool with practical purposes.

> I never said there is no value

You said "artists don't serve any valuable role in society".

> Plenty of people think the internet as it exists today is actually a net negative for humanity

I've never seen anyone say that. To me it's obviously false; the Internet has enabled huge wealth creation.

>You said "artists don't serve any valuable role in society".

Just because artists don't serve any valuable role doesn't mean they have no value. A cheap keyboard or a free piece of software isn't valuable, but they nonetheless have some value.

>I've never seen anyone say that. To me it's obviously false; the Internet has enabled huge wealth creation.

Most of the sentiment is based around the ever increasingly "cable TV" nature of the internet as well as the scientifically demonstrated negative effects of social media.

> A cheap keyboard or a free piece of software isn't valuable, but they nonetheless have some value.

I find your use of language here very confusing.

> the ever increasingly "cable TV" nature of the internet

But you don't have to use those particular Internet channels in order to use the Internet. The Internet carries lots of other traffic. One of the nice things about the Internet as compared with previous communication media is how easy it is to just ignore what you don't like.

> as well as the scientifically demonstrated negative effects of social media

Those effects have been around as long as humans have, and pandering to the worst instincts of people has always been a way for cheap grifters to gain money and notoriety. But it only works because people choose to give in to those worst instincts. You can't fix human nature by discarding useful tools because some people misuse them.

>I find your use of language here very confusing.

"Valuable" as in how most people use the word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/valuable

>a : having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities; valuable friendships

>b : of great use or service; valuable advice

Artists do not provide valuable work, but doesn't mean their work has no value. Not providing valuable work simply means their work is of (very) low value.

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>But you don't have to use those particular Internet channels in order to use the Internet.

There has been a substantial centralization and consolidation of the internet to varying degrees and for better or worse, both on the front and backends. The frontend centralization in particular is not being received well in recent times.

>Those effects have been around as long as humans have, ... You can't fix human nature by discarding useful tools because some people misuse them.

I agree.

> how most people use the word

I don't know about "most". The very first meaning (1 a) in your reference is "having monetary value", which is how I have been using the word.

> Artists do not provide valuable work...their work is of (very) low value

Maybe not in your subjective judgment (and both of the definitions you cited for "valuable" are subjective), but other people's subjective judgment might differ from yours. Many people pay significant sums of money for the work of artists. Maybe that doesn't make the art "valuable" in your eyes, but it apparently does in theirs.

In any case, if you're going to talk about "society" as a whole, you can't just help yourself to your subjective judgment. The definition I just cited above of "valuable" is objective: people pay money for it. And people do pay money--in many cases significant sums, as I noted above--for art in our society, so I don't think you can say artists "do not provide valuable work" for society as a whole.

Yes, if push comes to shove, people will stop buying art before they will stop buying, say, food, clothing, and shelter. But in such a hypothetical, society is much poorer, so people are forced to focus on bare subsistence. But I don't think anyone would say such a society had a lot of valuable things in it--indeed, it's precisely the fact that such a society doesn't have a lot of valuable things in it that makes it poor. A rich society has many more valuable things in it than just what is needed for bare subsistence; that's what makes it rich. And people generally prefer a rich society to a poor one. Art is one of those valuable things that people in rich societies like to have. Not everyone, but people's tastes differ, and one of the nice things about rich societies is that it's much easier for people to satisfy their particular tastes, even if they're not common.

You keep on insisting I said art has no value and implying people don't pay. Please show me when and where I said that. I said art has a low real value and that its perceived value has historically been vastly overblown.

Yes, people pay money for art (including me), but the pricing has been steadily falling due to increasing supply (more artists) and efficiency (digital technologies). "AI" in particular is likely going to slash the perceived value lower than humanity has ever seen by making the creation of art dramatically more democratic, thereby reflecting the low real value better.

I consume a lot of art just like most other people, and also realize that I probably pay far too much for it all too because art just doesn't serve any of life's needs other than perhaps killing boredom and flaunting social status.

> the pricing has been steadily falling due to increasing supply (more artists)

The average price has because the increase in supply (which, as you say, is being dramatically facilitated by digital technologies and will be even more so by AI) drastically increases the variability in quality.

I think your categorical statements don't take into account that large variability.

> art just doesn't serve any of life's needs

I have already explained why I disagree with this. I think your concept of what has value is too narrow. I don't disagree that there is much "art" produced that has little or no value--and I don't spend any money on it. But that doesn't mean I think all art has little or no value. Some works of art--the ones I've spent significant money on--have had a great deal of value for me, and for many other people.

Indeed. To a large extent, art was a means of displaying your social status, a way of demonstrating your wealth and buffing your ego. It was used as a justification for colonialism and imperialism. Our society is so advanced; look at the art it produces; obviously we're superior so we should dictate what others do.

Right, right, nobody but the social elites ever wanted to decorate anything, be entertained, or engage in cultural practices for mere enjoyment. Folk music? Dancing? mere impositions of social organization. These people think they're having fun, but that's because they lack true consciousness.

If art has little value, why is the annual revenue for the global entertainment industry over $2 trillion? No one is being forced to pay for a Netflix subscription. The markets have spoken and have assigned it a large value. Whether you view art as frivolous is subjective, the numbers aren't on your side.

May I propose that you find out why you're wrong about the usefulness of art, by looking for the talk by Brian Eno where he explains it?

https://youtu.be/GvHY5BFgniw?si=-JbjYVjY38uYQpog

I don't think you realize what a hellscape the world without art would be.

We’d go outside? Derive pleasure from being around people near us instead of seeking external validation and watching shows crafted by Hollywood midwits? Maybe we’d have more hobbies and do sports?

Art isn’t keeping you inside, actually technology has made our lives more comfortable indoors, not that it’s always a bad thing. A world without art would be an industrial world where things only have utility and what the look like does not matter. Think everything being painted the same drab color because it’s efficient and cheap. Buildings having the same architecture, think people wearing the same clothes, same colors even because who would care about esthetics?

Humans create art like snails exude slime. Not getting paid for art doesn't mean no art is gonna get made.

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