Make some movies, and everybody loses it when you die.

Save a billion lives (literally), and nobody knows your name.

Indeed. One caveat out of respect for the departed. There are movies, and then there is the perfection of Groundhog Day, which has provided soul food for many, many people.

Thank you, Norman Borlaug.

A lot of people remember what they were doing when they heard Kennedy died.
I remember what I was doing when I heard that Norman Borlaug died.

Make some movies, and everybody loses it when you die.

Save a billion lives (literally), and nobody knows your name.

Thank you, Norman Borlaug.

A lot of people remember what they were doing when they heard Kennedy died.
I remember what I was doing when I heard that Norman Borlaug died.

Well, no, of course not. :P My point is that there isn't enough to go around, and we use money as a way to arrange that scarcity.

At least far as I can tell. I should clarify that I'm a layman just wondering aloud.

EDIT: which isn't too say I'm trying to back away from the conversation, just establishing a baseline.

Take it from me, the scarcity in our food supply is due to the roadblocks in delivery. If we can waste arable land on ridiculous fads like corn ethanol or organic foods, we're definitely growing more than enough.

My point is that there isn't enough to go around, and we use money as a way to arrange that scarcity.

I thought you were going to go in a direction about how our money system creates imbalanced food distribution.

Food scarcity isn't necessarily "the big" issue with famine. In the modern, highly connected world, there's a lot of food to go around that simply doesn't go around for various socioeconomic reasons.

At least far as I can tell. I should clarify that I'm a layman just wondering aloud.

EDIT: which isn't too say I'm trying to back away from the conversation, just establishing a baseline.

Money is just an abstraction, a solution to the primitive question of "how do we feed everyone?". Use of money does not make one any more impoverished then using a pen makes one illiterate. One is literate regardless of the instrument used to write, just as one can be impoverished without regard to the amount of paper they possess.

My point still stands. It's proof we haven't figured out how to feed everyone.

So, money is going to disappear the very moment everyone has access to at least 1500 calories of food per day? Vanish into thin air?

Money is just an abstraction, a solution to the primitive question of "how do we feed everyone?". Use of money does not make one any more impoverished then using a pen makes one illiterate. One is literate regardless of the instrument used to write, just as one can be impoverished without regard to the amount of paper they possess.

My point still stands. It's proof we haven't figured out how to feed everyone.

I don't think this is a comment on "games" or the "gaming industry".

I don't know what you mean by that except that yes, the rules of economics apply to everyone. You basically fleshed out what I think, too, and yes, there were be plenty of games, and even AAA titles, but the latter may be fewer and less ambitious in terms of trying something new. You could say that's already the case.

Kinda out of left field, but it's been on my mind latey that the surest sign of our poverty is our use of money.

There's a lot of ego in art that doesn't translate as art becomes higher.

Do we hold up folks like Ken Levine because they are actually awesome or because they are good enough to be idolized, and therefore provide our egos with a deperately desired facade of artistic respectibility?

Or, in other words, games are art cause Bioshock lolz.

Maybe Bioshock is just pretty good, and Ken Levine is a realtively talented asshole who just used the closure of his studio, and the distruptions to the lives of 100s of people, as cover for his new sexy artistic boner inducing project?

I don't necessarily disagree with your point of originals and duplications - but why throw in all these condemning generalizations about people you don't even know to try and help prove your point?

I don't know, because that's what drives 'high art' nowadays? Is it true of all rich folks who buy art? No. Is it true of all young people living in Silverlake? No. But the state of 'high art' is largely driven by what I describe.

That type of logic is what props up a lot of generalizations even worse than the ones Leviathan described...

I don't think it's so much logic as in describing what he sees based on the knowledge and facts he's collected.

I don't necessarily disagree with your point of originals and duplications - but why throw in all these condemning generalizations about people you don't even know to try and help prove your point?

I don't know, because that's what drives 'high art' nowadays? Is it true of all rich folks who buy art? No. Is it true of all young people living in Silverlake? No. But the state of 'high art' is largely driven by what I describe.

That type of logic is what props up a lot of generalizations even worse than the ones Leviathan described...

I don't necessarily disagree with your point of originals and duplications - but why throw in all these condemning generalizations about people you don't even know to try and help prove your point?

I don't know, because that's what drives 'high art' nowadays? Is it true of all rich folks who buy art? No. Is it true of all young people living in Silverlake? No. But the state of 'high art' is largely driven by what I describe.

This is why rich people pay tons of money for shitty abstract art - it signifies that they are of a higher class and able to afford it. This is also why Hipsters like obscure shitty art - it gives them a unique identity.

Most normal people just buy what they like.

That phrase causes my right eye to twitch and my brain to make this sound: "Gvvvgh-arrrgghh-haaargghh."

I don't necessarily disagree with your point of originals and duplications - but why throw in all these condemning generalizations about people you don't even know to try and help prove your point?

I've been called "hipster" once or twice before in a derogatory manner by folks who've never even talked to me. Just like I was called geek or nerd in middle school by bullies who couldn't fucking fathom people different from themselves and had to over-simplify a person's character to fit within some label they've created to diminish and shrink the world to match their opinions.

Part of the problem is still focusing on the sign value of art. There's prestige in owning an original Picasso, since it's utterly unique, and the man himself laid hands on it. There's no prestige in owning a copy of a film or video game, yet we still cling to that idea by attaching a creator's name. So "A Hideo Kojima Game" has more sign value than "A Shinji Mikami game", even though the latter is better art :-p

Could you please expand on your idea of sign value? Do you mean strictly dollar-conversion of a developer's name on a game, or something more? We here sure put a lot of sign value on Bungie's name as an organization, don't we?

It relates to the value of art as a signifier. Imagine you have a perfect forgery of a Renoir. It is identical to that of a real Renoir. Well, given that it should be equally valuable right? It's not. A real Renoir is seen as more valuable, since it is old and rare, which is irrespective of the actual quality of the work. The forger might have cranked out 50 last month.

So you can see having a particular artist to give praise to can help enhance a work's sign value.

This is why rich people pay tons of money for shitty abstract art - it signifies that they are of a higher class and able to afford it. This is also why Hipsters like obscure shitty art - it gives them a unique identity.

Most normal people just buy what they like.