[interlocutor2]

I'm not a collector.

I don't understand I don't understand paying a premium for a rare or old item that is easily replicated. The same goes for art forgeries. Why not buy a reproduction? There is no difference in the functional value of the item before and after this revelation. I assume these games are available for emulation. I'm sick of people bsing and scamming each other by turning fun things into investment vehicles.

[Fezzik]

A bit of a tangent… but we are rather dumb animals. If you watch an animal like a Bowerbird, that expends oodles of energy to stack petals in color-coordinated piles to attract a mate, and really think hard about all the stupid stuff we do, and what the underlying impulses are that cause us to act as we do, for the most part we are not much farther ahead of a Bowerbird intellectually. We just have flowery language to express our experiences.

Collecting antique crap falls in to that type of category, I think, no matter how much people try to gussy-up the behavior.

Edit, to add: there seems to be something more attractive about truly old things vs copies, just like certain petals are more enchanting to a Bower Bird. Why this is such a strong impulse I have no idea.

[hydrok9]

The thrill of owning something significant is the reason. It's like owning a piece of history.

[lupire]

It's more like owning an NFT...

The value of history is the story, which doesn't need to be attached to the object.

[yieldcrv]

One thing I find interesting about NFT collections is that the only reason it gets detractors attention is because it works …. so well? Like, we have no idea how much the baseball card issuing organization made, especially not in real time. We have no idea the total supply, or revenue or trading volume. In NFTs we have that instantly.

I think the NFT space just provides transparency into the size of the existing collectibles market.

Even the proxies we have for digital gaming stuff is just buried deep in quarterly reports of a few publicly traded companies.

Most of the facepalm worthy NFT headlines would be non-news if we even had the ability to compare it to the pre-existing collections market.

[still_grokking]

I could have all bored ape pictures and could reproduce them infinitely. What now? How does the NFT thingy stop me from doing that?

Actually, one can't even "verify" a NFT if the market side goes down. Because the actual DB isn't on the blockchain…

[yieldcrv]

> I could have all bored ape pictures and could reproduce them infinitely. What now? How does the NFT thingy stop me from doing that?

As the grandparent poster alluded to, the history is more important than the image - the same as the fine art and collections world, but technologically enforced in the NFT world. so the transaction hash from the collection contract is more important than the image it accesses, and is way more important than your indefinite reproductions because they won't be in the collection contract. An entry in the bored ape collection contract grants you access to a variety of goods and services. The "NFT thingy" doesn't try to stop you from defrauding undiscerning onlookers or consumers that don't look at the collection contract. The "NFT thingy" prevents you from having programmatic access to gated communities.

> Actually, one can't even "verify" a NFT if the market side goes down. Because the actual DB isn't on the blockchain…

What are you referring to? Did you mean the market site? You don't need OpenSea or any site to verify current possession, prior possession, or metadata. Some styles of NFT's store metadata on their own servers, which can go down. Some styles of NFT's store metadata on more resilient services like IPFS. Some styles of NFT's store metadata on the blockchain directly. All three styles use the blockchain directly for current possession and prior possession.

Which point did you think you were making? I only wrote all that because I didn't know what you were saying specifically.

[SlickNixon]

> a variety of goods and services

Which are?

[kube-system]

NFTs are like collecting beanie babies. When you designate something as a collectible at the start, you’re kind of jumping the gun on that whole “value of history” idea. Some of the most cherished collectibles are the things that nobody thought would be worth anything when they originated.

[ImPostingOnHN]

for me, the value is in staring at it, running your hands over it, knowing that decades ago, perhaps hundreds of years ago, this specific object was being seen and felt by another person, just like you

a relic in the right hands is both a time machine, and a constant reminder, via all our senses, of our fleeting existence, and of what we can do in that brief time, and what we can leave behind

it's also why I like old-growth forests, which don't really require purchase

buying something mass-produced last month doesn't give the same sort of visceral, emotional connection

[hydrok9]

But the object is the story. All the stories are about creating and playing those objects. It's hardly irrational to want to own one if you're excited about the subject matter.

[KaoruAoiShiho]

Some people will take this as an argument for NFTs rather than an argument against collecting in general.

[sumy23]

What if you could perfectly replicate a loved one. Would you consider the replica equivalent to the original person? At least to me, there is something special and important in knowing that the original person was a part of my personal history. It’s not about how they look or act, but it’s our common context that’s important.

[ManBlanket]

If they were indeed a perfect replica that fact wouldn't matter. They wouldn't know if they were a replica, you wouldn't, and only a 3rd party could ever tell you they weren't the person you love. At that point learning whether or not this person standing in front of you is a replica can only harm either party. Would you really subject yourselves to that information if it could only hurt someone you objectively love? It's not a light choice to be considered selfishly in a vacuum, because even if they are a replica they're still perfect and a person you genuinely do love. Why on earth would you want to learn something that would make you not love them, that would alienate them from their entire sense of self? Even if is the truth, nobody stands to gain from the information. So long as neither of you can tell the difference, the truth doesn't doesn't matter. Pretty sure this exact subject comes up in like 2 or 3 episodes of Rick and Morty.

[lupire]

The real risk with a replica is that you might later discover it is actually flawed in a functional way.

That's why Amazon.com counterfeits are bad.

But this risk doesn't really apply to video game boxes.

[scotty79]

> Would you consider the replica equivalent to the original person?

Yes. How could you not?

My loved one died. If there was perfect replica of her somewhere ready to spin up how could I not consider her equivalent to original person?

[sumy23]

Part of what makes loved ones special is that they’re unique. We give people names because they’re unique. We don’t name things like bananas because they’re fungible. Perhaps if you had the only one copy of a loved one, you could love that person as much as the original, but if loved ones could be copied arbitrarily, I think something would be lost.

[plasticchris]

I’m not even a perfect replica of myself from a few minutes ago.

[sjburt]

What if they are two? Or 100? With different experiences post replication?

[plasticchris]

Calvin and Hobbes have this deep philosophical question it’s best treatment imho

https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Duplicator

[CyanBird]

> Would you consider the replica equivalent to the original person?

Everyone would do this unless you believed in the intrinsic nature of soul

Humans are the sum of their lived experiences and epigenetics, so if you could replicate both, to you as an observer what would be the difference?

[netsharc]

I've wondered about the subjective experience of "being alive" and whether - if I clone myself and the original me perished - I would continue to experience life. Reading the word "observer" makes me I guess I would, the clone has all my life's experiences and memories, and he'd just observe the memories, thoughts and feelings, and it'd be identical to my memories, thoughts and feelings.

[InvertedRhodium]

How would you know which one was the replica, and which on you had special attachment to?

[sumy23]

You might not be able to tell. Just the existence of an indistinguishable copy could ruin your relationship with this person.

[stickfigure]

I hate to be the one to tell you but...

Every time your loved one respirates, ingests food, and defecates, a portion of their body is replaced. The material person you know now may be completely different from the person you fell in love with.

[sumy23]

It's not about the physical material, but rather the history, like the ship of Theseus.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

The whole idea of The Ship of Theseus is to show how silly this line of reasoning is. There is no Ship of Theseus, there is only our illusion of it.

[sumy23]

The Ship of Theseus is not a parable. It doesn't have a lesson you're supposed to take away from it. There are different of ways of looking at the problem. The "solution" that appeals to you is probably a reflection of how you think, but there isn't one "right" answer.

For example, one answer is to look at the ship as a 4-dimensional object (the three spatial dimensions + time). Yes, the material in the 3D slice at t0 is different than at tN, but you're still looking at slices of the same object.

[bombcar]

But that goes even deeper into a bit of the weird aspect of collecting. If I have my original 386 laying around, that is mine and is the one I used; if I get another one, even if it is the same make and model, it wasn't mine and so it's basically just a copy.

Part of it, of course, can be the "I couldn't get this when I was young, now I can" which drives up a lot of prices on old Lego sets, but there's more to it than just that, especially when collectors start buying items because they're rare, not because they once had them or wanted them.

[raspyberr]

And that's the reason I think copyright should be about 10 years. People value "authenticity" even when it doesn't make sense. There's just something about having the "original" or the "true" one. With that in mind, I think that writers would still be able to sell their books and sequels even after other writers get access to their characters and worlds. It's almost like fanfiction vs actual author. Anyone could write The Winds of Winter. Someone somewhere probably has. But if they were able to release it alongside G.R.R. Martin, I know who I'd bet on having more sales.

[ManBlanket]

I'd prefer if someone who knew how to finish story without killing off the protagonist wrote this novel he's never going to write. It worked ONCE, one time. When Ned Stark was executed it was genuinely surprising and that first book was good enough to inspire many to finish the whole saga. By the end second novel I got the impression he was just trying to recycle the same story, peppering-in bits he picked up from writing workshops. Trying desperately to make new characters people might care about after killing-off anyone interesting. He has no idea how to finish a story other than an abrupt death. Woah, but wait but now Caitlin's a zombie or some shit... Yeah, no. Last you'll ever hear of that. I didn't realize what was going on until I went to an open mic comedy night. There was a shocking number of comedians who could draw you into a joke with a compelling hook, but only precious who could follow up with a real joke. The thought occurred to me, "This is Martin. A comedian who can't figure out how a joke works." He wrote 1 good book but never grew as an author. Now he's rich and old and I don't blame him if couldn't be bothered to give a shit. Oy, what am I even talking about now? Eh, I think a spiritual successor could take GoT a lot further than he ever will.

[B1FF_PSUVM]

> could take GoT a lot further

Why would you want to do that? That horse is tired, that cow is milked, give it a rest.

But hey, I had David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr for training wheels ;-)

[lupire]

How could someone read 1,2, or more books of GoT -- one of the greatest literary works of realism in character and worldbuilding -- and presumably enjoy them, and think that a tidy, satisfying ending is something possible, or even desirable.

[NikolaNovak]

I tend to stay away from anything that's marketed as (Rare|Vintage|Antique|Original). It means there's a price premium, above and beyond functionality and use value, which I'm by default unwilling to pay (e.g. musical instruments, cameras, etc - when I pick up a new hobby, I tend to go through a fairly large number of things through Kijiji to try them out and get a feel, until I settle on something that works for me long term:)

That being said, I understand in principle that there's an extra emotion & joy to be had with something possessing one of those attributes. Perhaps I'd enjoy a book signed by Arthur C. Clarke or guitar used by Mark Knopfler - though I'd make a point to read/play them rather than hide and never touch. On any given day, I have higher priorities for my money. Others with more money or different priorities, however, will make different choices.

(This simplistic framework is complicated by the notion of "Value" of course; some people believe, or tell themselves, that this is an "Investment"; like many things, this then becomes a abstract tower built on mutual belief, and people become invested [har] in believing ever so strongly. This can lead to interesting conversations unless & until you realize you have different axiomatic principles / beliefs / value perception).

[8note]

For banjos at least, there are clear sound differences for prewar banjos vs post.

Unless you're pretty good at playing, you won't notice though

[danuker]

Not only is there no functional advantage to buying the real thing, there is no easy way to prove for certain that you have the real thing, so even speculation is difficult.

[mherdeg]

Dick goes into this in some detail in "The Man in the High Castle". I don't think he understands it either but he gives clear examples of the behavior:

> 'All afternoon assorted officials examined the alternatives,' Mr. Tagomi said. 'This is most authentic of dying old U.S. culture, a rare retained artifact carrying flavor of bygone halcyon day.'

> Mr. Baynes opened the box. In it lay a Mickey Mouse wristwatch on a pad of black velvet.

> Was Mr. Tagomi playing a joke on him? He raised his eyes, saw Mr. Tagomi's tense, concerned face. No, it was not a joke. 'Thank you very much,' Baynes said. 'This is indeed incredible.'

> 'Only few, perhaps ten, authentic 1938 Mickey Mouse watches in all world today,' Mr. Tagomi said, studying him, drinking in his reaction, his appreciation. 'No collector known to me has one, sir.'

Of course in his story something else is happening too:

> In fact, as far as he knew, it had never occurred to them to ask themselves if the so-called historic art objects for sale in West Coast shops were genuine. Perhaps someday they would . . . and then the bubble would burst, the market would collapse even for the authentic pieces. A Gresham's Law: the fakes would undermine the value of the real. And that no doubt was the motive for the failure to investigate; after all, everyone was happy. The factories, here and there in the various cities, which turned out the-pieces, they made their profits. The wholesalers passed them on, and the dealers displayed and advertised them. The collectors shelled out their money and carried their purchases happily home, to impress their associates, friends, and mistresses.

[kube-system]

Someone who simply wants to read an old book, play an old game, etc, may be satisfied by a replica.

Historical artifacts are not valued for their functionality. It is for the associated historical relevance. Many have more value even when their current functionality is worse than a replica.

[colechristensen]

Then don't collect :)

If replicas and copies of the thing make you happy, do that, other people do see value in originals, that's ok too.

[guardiangod]

>I don't understand I don't understand paying a premium for a rare or old item that is easily replicated.

I once worked at the library of a university. Part of my job was to check the catalogue against the actual bookshelves to make sure the books are physically present.

So I got to social science section. In particular the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

Now this is an national university with >170 years of history. The spreadsheet in my hand showed that there should be 9 copies of the 1908 edition on the shelf.

I found none.

Every copy has been stolen. The irony of this is just too much. Communism supporters stealing from the general public to satisfy their personal desire of collection.

Aside. A regret I have was not checking out 'The Hitler Youth' at the same time. Although I suspect the university might have removed them from the shelves.

[the_lonely_road]

Why must they be communism supporters? I would like a copy for my collection and am an avid proponent of capitalism.

[guardiangod]

Fine. People would make the altruistic decision for the good of the greater public by not stealing from the general public (the university library).

[anigbrowl]

Extremely relevant: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf

[lupire]

To each according to their needs == take the book if you need it.