Full quote, from the above link:
"Wussup normal peeps and 14 year old environmental hypocrite trolls that use gasoline in the cars they drive and the planes they fly and throw away double AA batteries every other month! "
H then goes on to hawk the link to some stupid CGI "art" bullshit that would be inoffensive and whatever, if not for the fact that creating it is ghoulishly greedy and selfish, given it's helping propagate/perpetuate a needless act that's destroying the environment further.
• using gasoline to drive to my job so i dont starve to death
• constantly running several computers near to their melting point for a 128x128 jpeg of tv static.
He's selling it, for profit, and keeping the money, while using an unnecessarily exploitative and harmful system, while further setting the precident that said system should be encouraged and not criticized. He's even made a second NFT as of this week that is also for sale.
Whether he's doing it all ironically or not, it's still shitty. Someone could yell a slur at a marginalized person "as a bit," but it still can hurt the marginalized person regardless. Doesn't matter if this is a bit, it's still ideologically and ethically shitty.
You know one of the major running gags of his show is harassing random people in the streets of new york right? Like be mad if you want to be mad but how is this the crossing the line moment for you?
His street segments are him doing weird shit and grossing people out/confusing them/being annoying. He's never been outwardly hostile or malicious to anyone, except the shitty rich and reactionary celebrities on the show.
Suddenly being a vocal supporter for a capitalism mode of profit and exchange is much different to me than absurdist pranks.
goddammit I misspelled opposed. How the fuck do you misspell opposed.
No, I will leave it. As a lesson to all those who would be as careless to post without a reverence to grammar as I.
Putting my crypto fedora on. Most criticisms of NFT's energy consumption are rooted in a deep misunderstanding of blockchains and specifically Ehtereum, and follow the exact same logic as other reactionary arguments putting focus on individual actions over systemic changes ala vegetarianism, turning your lights off, recycling, buying a hybrid etc.
Ethereum has about the same carbon footprint as Youtube yet you don't see 10,000 word think-pieces by genX luddites about how it's warming the planet. Actually you see the exact opposite and it's quite interesting to see. The same people who say (correctly) it's wrong to shame people for watching Youtube/Netflix despite their massive energy consumption and resulting emissions - are the same who criticize artists use of blockchain to sell NFT's. And you're lying if you say Youtube serves some higher purpose than blockchain - literally burning through a propane tank worth of CO2 to watch PragerU and twerking TikTok compilations.
If you're talking about Bitcoin then sure, that's an actual criticism given its massive footprint, POW system, and literal zero technical functionality other than a speculative currency. But most leftists don't understand the difference between the blockchains and come off as old man yells at cloud, all while libertarian weirdos take control of a pretty revolutionary technology. Ethereum is at least transparently moving towards a POS system that drastically reduces its energy use whereas Youtube does the opposite and is owned by Google who donates to republicans, works with ICE/DOD, you know the works.
The truth of the matter is both are dumb. Both Youtube and ETH are a microcosm of our overall global energy consumption - however the world is powered is how the internet is powered and right now that's fossil fuels. This criticism is literally telling people to use less straws when they drive their escalades to the starbucks down the street. Let the artists get their bag and go kidnap an oil exec.
Does ethereum provide entertainment/education similar to YouTube? One is significantly more worthless
Also rich people selling air to someone, can literally draw a dick and sign it.
Like for the sake of thought experiment, what would change if eth went poof or youtube went poof?
There literally exists a decentralized Youtube built on Ethereum. Meaning not owned and operated by the ghouls over at Google who know & exploit your personal data for profit, work with intelligence agencies and military contractors, and frivolously demonetize leftist creators.
Like for the sake of thought experiment, what would change if eth went poof or youtube went poof?
Please read the last part of my original post because that's my entire point. It's all dumb. Not only would nothing of much value change if YT/ETH went poof - but also the exponentially growing carbon emissions released into our atmosphere primarily by 100 companies wouldn't change at all
My criticism wasn't about the current usage of NFT''s by artists - that's debatably very dumb. My criticism is about the lefts (lack of) understanding of blockchain and its pearl clutching about carbon emissions when it's the same logical argument as using less straws instead parroted by the same people who (correctly) criticize those arguments.
Getting gassed up about carbon emissions from NFT's is boomer shit. In the context of leftist criticism, it is 99% of the time rooted in general technological ignorance of blockchain and crypto in general.
I’m not annoyed about nft emission per se, but cool let’s go there: current ethereum hash rate is what, 500 th? That means 10 millions of gpus with 50 mh rate, which are destined to be worthless. Does your mystical 100 companies include nvidia, fedex, Amazon and some maritime shipping?
Lol "Mystical 100 companies". Read for yourself . And no - those companies you noted aren't one of the 100.
Didn’t know oil companies burned oil at some altar to bring apocalypse, oh well.
it's mostly rich people doing both those things, so it really isn't.
Damn - crazy none of these things have ever happened with regular monies.
Youtube is free to watch/open access for anyone to post (YouTube's shitty copywrite system and moderation notwithstanding)
Ehtereum, unless I'm mistaken, is literally a form of currency - decentralized, but, with prices/the current system how they are, it's effecivaly the same as owning stock.
Partaking in the proliferation of an alternative, completely unnecessary, but equally exploitative and status quo maintaining currency, on which capitalism is further supported, is much worse, to me, than a free system of millions of hours of entertainment/education, which allows for personal creative expression as well. No one has to partake in Ehtereum; it's not like normal currency in which, yes, we must gain and use it to literally avoid dying and starving. Ehtereum is completely superfluous, and a luxury, which offers nothing, or next to nothing, comparatively.
So because I do not waist what little money I have on meaningless internet money that somehow invalidates what I said?
Ehtereum, unless I’m mistaken, is literally a form of currency - decentralized, but, with prices/the current system how they are, it’s effecivaly the same as owning stock
That's the thing - and one of my main points in my post - is that you are completely mistaken and you're getting Ethereum confused with Bitcoin from a functionality standpoint. Ethereum - nor blockchain - isn't just a currency and critiquing it as such is wrong. ETH is the currency used on Ethereum which is a decentralized platform that developers build decentralized applications with smart contracts. It's essentially a massive decentralized super computer - or internet - that isn't owned or maintained by a single party. This is good given Azure/GCP/AWS's growing monopoly on cloud computing and their bloodlust for working with intelligence agencies and military contractors.
Here's a really cool post-capitalist productive network project called Basis built on Ethereum.
It sounds like your concerns are rooted in not understanding blockchain which is understandable given it's a super complex nascent technology whose information is primarily disseminated through libertarian weirdos.
EDIT: Also yeah, saying Youtube is "free" to watch/access is a bit naive and just overlooks just about everything understood about privacy, intrusive ads, locational content blocking, demonetizations of left youtubers and more.
Are you on basis github (which is interesting, and exactly kind of shit crypto can be good at)? I think it’s good, but ip/creative work is increasingly easy to solve in crypto space
Youtube is free to watch/open access for anyone to post (YouTube’s shitty copywrite system and moderation notwithstanding)
So I agree with your criticisms overall and I'd rather take the anti-blockchain side of the debate I personally think waiving the "YT/Internet is FREE" flag specifically is very much a horrible take.
Claiming the internet is "free" like many liberals and everyone else realy resorts to defend capitalism benefits/advancements, and it is usually us socialists that have to point out that "free" if you don't include, the actual cost of your device, the cost of energy required to power your device, the actual cost of internet access(free WI-Fi is not omnipresent in the vast majority of the world) etc. Even when these costs are low to the consumer, say a cheap phone, they are already externalized, you know how much does it realy cost a society to mass produce cheap smartphones?
For people creating content well you are not going anywhere in terms of popularity without a proper microphone and a proper camera, or maybe you'd be limited to some other platform then YT.
pretty revolutionary technology
Explain the "revolutionary" part please. Blockchain is mildly neat to me from a computer nerd point of view, but that's about it. Doesn't seem like the invetion of blockchain's changed anyone's relationship to labor, changed war, changed our understanding of the world, or allowed the use of some new resource... none of the things that have historically marked technological innovations as "revolutionary".
I think it's shortsighted and a bit dumb to expect a nascent technology that's not even old enough to drive and (unfortunately) immediately adopted by libertarian goobers to have already solved labor relations, war, and resource use.
Blockchain, like any technology or resource, is as powerful and beneficial as those who build on it - and right now we're letting a technology with potential be built by the doge coin diaper wearing Elon Musks of the world because leftists think iPhones are confusing.
I highly suggest checking out some dope socialist blockchain projects that are trying to do exactly what you brought up. Also theres a really good socialist blockchain podcast that have really smart and thoughtful topics and interviewers.
Didn't say it had to do all of those things (I used "or" for a reason), just at least something to that effect to at least a small extent, but I really have not seen that. I'll look at those links though.
I fully agree that criticisms at the system level are warranted. I do think getting in your feelings because your fav comedian you've developed a parasocial relationship with wants to make a bag off some waning fad is for babies.
I mean, I don't think any of us are?
I feel like every remotely popular post on this comm inevitably receives a comment along the lines of the one you just made, which always promts the response: yes, we agree, but that's not what we're doing here. This is a comm to post people saying/doing things we think is dunk worthy. If doing so is somehow parasocial or "too online" we should just get rid of the comm.
I guess I just find it hard to take a dunk seriously when its rooted in some stupid culture war grievance about a technology you don't understand. This dunk requires you to believe that NFT's are some like conscious and inherently reactionary phenomenon (they aren't). Eric Andre donates thousands of $$ to left leaning organizations and phonebanked/canvassed/advocated for Sanders in 2020. He's good.
I think a key part of what OP is complaining about is the fact that Eric Andre has a platform and an audience. He isn't merely participating in NFT society, he's actively giving it a wider reach.
First, "NFT society" isn't a real thing. Saying he's "giving it a wider reach" is goofy as if he's like saying everyone should vote for Prop 22 or sharing PragerU videos on race science. In the context of global carbon emissions which as we know 70% of are caused by 100 companies - NFT's don't even match up to the farts from cows in cattle production. This again, if you care to learn more, will be negligible even further when Ethereum moves to POS.
It's a pointless twitter cultural grievance distraction that makes leftists look like luddites and pushes us to make arguments we don't really even agree with (don't use straws) because we hate the people behind the technology.
The only thing I want to say here is that "particpate in NFT society" was a reference to the :improve-society: :very-intelligent: comic/meme.
Unironically though we need a form of socialism that can prove that people can have a decent life on one-planet living.
