Gregory's ServerHumans invented art 40,000 years before we invented money
Weโve never needed monetary motivation to do beautiful things
and we never will
|
20 comments
 I've invented a lot of things that I wasn't the first inventor of. Gives me some confidence that I'm not totally insane, from time to time.  @robinhood I don't need money to motivate me to do art. I need money to pay rent so I can keep doing art.  @ShimmeringSpectrum @robinhood me too, that's why I get so annoyed at the "but if we had UBI no one would ever do anything!" crowd. I don't make very much money off my art (usually none), so how much art I can do is limited. If I didn't need to struggle to survive, I'd be making so much art! Hell, I'd dabble in engineering if I could afford the materials! @robinhood *495,000 years before the invention of currency @robinhood for those who will ask: @mousefriend @robinhood yeah, economist types really love severely overstating how long money has existed Sure, there's a long history of items that were probably used as some kind of voucher or token. But I don't think there's any evidence of them being used in any way that would resemble a currency. Also the idea of bartering as a precursor to money isn't real either. Zero evidence for it, just something some guy made up. The closest you get is the general concept of owing someone a favor. And yet even back then they were expected to work for exposure, by which I mean if nobody liked their art they were abandoned in the woods to die. Art world's tough.  @pascoda
@Robin Hood Good thinking, but still artists need to be paid for their art to be able to support themselves... :winking_face_with_tongue:  @robinhood itโs posts like this that make me wish there was such a thing as a super boost so more people can see important points like this  @robinhood to be fair, "money" is a useful concept to have in order to facilitate the exchange of goods capitalism on the other hand? that's a whole different story. @robinhood oh wait, you're talking more about the motivational side of it yeah, people don't need to be motivated by money to produce art @robinhood Not only do humans make art when there is no chance of receiving money for doing so, they make art when it is literally *illegal* to do so. Humans will risk jail or even death to keep making art. @robinhood or doing deliberately ugly and meaningless things no one could pay for even in the presence of money! |
@robinhood solid point, but bold to assume humans invented art.