[ExI] outing myself

spike at rainier66.com spike at rainier66.com
Wed Oct 28 20:40:14 UTC 2020


 

 

From: …> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] outing myself

 

>…What even was the original post that prompt this thread?  Will

 

Will, thanks for that question.  I missed it too.  I read it and it never occurred to me that the comments were parody or that they would even be controversial (ja I realize that rasslin is fake.)

 

I do invite BillW to repost at his discretion.

 

We can direct the discussion toward what I think is the interesting part: hyper-subjectivity.  Engineers and scientists generally don’t like it but artists and literature scholars do.  OK then.  Here’s one for ya.

 

I had some neighbors who became friends of mine for no particular reason: I walked past their house a lot, we got to talking.  Older couple in their 80s, both with good jobs, never had any children or family around.  It was just the two of them, plenty of money, no obligations.  They were showing me some of the stuff they had collected on their world travels, art they had acquired, various things, but everything in their home had a story behind it, something that gave that particular artwork or item special value, plenty of items with special historic interest, lots of WW2 stuff.

 

I hadn’t even heard but both passed on within a few weeks of each other.  I didn’t even find out until the estate people were out there packing and hauling away their collectibles.  It occurred to me that these valuable items lost most of their value if separated from the context.  If you owned the sidearm Eisenhower carried when he came ashore on D-Day plus one for instance (and could prove it) but you didn’t, then you suddenly perish, that sidearm of unknown (but huge) historic value goes to about 50 bucks.  That piece is separated from the context that makes it valuable.  Subjectivity makes that particular sidearm a museum piece vs something you can find at the local pawn shop.  The value lost when that couple passed on will never be known.

 

spike 

 

 

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