[ExI] outing myself

[BillK]

On Wed, 28 Oct 2020 at 20:47, spike jones via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
<snip>
> 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
> _______________________________________________


I have never appreciated that subjective value idea. To me a sidearm
is just a sidearm, identical to thousands of other sidearms. The one
owned by Eisenhower is no different to the one owned by Joe Smith down
the road. You could put any one in the museum and label it as
Eisenhower's and nobody would see any difference.

If I owned the actual Biro that King John used to sign the Magna
Carta, it would still just be another identical Biro, like all the rest.
I see no added value.



BillK