Expensive Metaphors

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Felix
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by Felix »

Here a good book about this very subject, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: http://ow.ly/wJ5I30aG6qo
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
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Sy Borg
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by Sy Borg »

Lark_Truth wrote:Oh, nice examples! :)

Is what you are saying that humans are willing to spend more on entertainment than knowledge and discovery?
I hadn't thought of it that way. It certainly shines a light on how essential the supposed "non essentials" of life are to us.

Really, we are prepared to spend on everything more than knowledge and discovery - lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, developers, shopkeepers - they all earn far more than even principal research scientists (I was in HR at in a scientific institution and by the time I retired as an HR data analyst at a large organisation I was earning a little less than senior research scientists at smaller organisations. I probably has about a 20th as much useful stuff in my head as them, but what I did was simply more in demand.

Part of the issue is that any vocation that is also a passion - science, the arts, design - is paid poorly thanks to supply and demand. For instance, to get a graphic design job - which is not paid well - one needs to be skilful on numerous complex software packages and understand how the varying file formats relate and convert, and that's before considering physical skill and creativity! Superb musicians capable of playing serious art music who in another age would have been thought to be virtuosos are now routinely making the best living they can playing clichéd covers for drunks in bars and teaching music on the side to make up for lousy musician pay and irregular work. Only the creme de la creme (along with a few lucky and/or gimmicky artists) make any kind of living playing art music.

However, as a child you don't dream of doing HR work, so there's fewer people applying for jobs, requiring a higher salary to attract good ones. It's all supply and demand, and the question is then what drives each.
Steve3007
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by Steve3007 »

I used to want to write computer games for a living but then realised that so did loads of other people for roughly the same reasons, meaning that I was competing with people who were willing to work long hours for low pay. So I decided to work on less fun things.

The ideal is if you're passionate about something that is in high demand but that everyone else finds dull as ditch-water. That's the key to career happiness.

-- Updated Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:25 pm to add the following --

I used to want to write computer games for a living but then realised that so did loads of other people for roughly the same reasons, meaning that I was competing with people who were willing to work long hours for low pay. So I decided to work on less fun things.

The ideal is if you're passionate about something that is in high demand but that everyone else finds dull as ditch-water. That's the key to career happiness.

-- Updated Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:26 pm to add the following --

I hate those accidental double-posts. Makes it look like I'm much keener for people to read my pointless thoughts than I really am.
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LuckyR
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by LuckyR »

Art and sports represent two completely different issues at play. Modern sports compensation is a by-product of modern media. If a sports star brings $0.10 of value to 100 million fans he brings in 10 million dollars. If a surgeon brings 5 thousand times as much value to a single patient, he gets $500 for the care of that patient and ends up making a small fraction of the sports star's salary.

Inflated art prices are a different issue, namely manufactured scarcity and demand. No living artist commands extravagant prices without marketing. Dead artists have real scarcity and many have real demand, their estates can have marketing but many don't need it.
"As usual... it depends."
Dolphin42
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by Dolphin42 »

Presumably once the inflated price has been reached then it is self-sustaining. If I have it on good authority that a piece of art (or anything else) will fetch $2 million and I see it on sale for $1 million then obviously (if I can afford it) I'm going to buy it. I don't care if it's "really" worth that. I don't care about its aesthetic beauty. All I know is that I'm looking at a 100% profit. Ker-ching.

Similarly, bottles of wine that are hundreds of years old can be a good investment despite the fact that they will never be drunk and if they were would probably be horrible. Their intrinsic value as a consumer product has become irrelevant.
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3uGH7D4MLj
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Re: Expensive Metaphors

Post by 3uGH7D4MLj »

Steve3007 wrote: April 7th, 2017, 10:13 am To repeat Greta's question from post #2: what paintings and artists are you referring to?
I agree, at least give us an example. Who is this single line artist who insists on metaphoric significance?
fair to say
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