Re: OT Econ 101: was RIAA sues student for $675,000

On Sun, 27 May 2012 11:55:34 -0500, Frank Stearns
<franks.pacifier.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Let's try this one more time. (I have removed parts of the thread and
done some re-sequencing for brevity and clarity.)

Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

A carpenter who builds houses before he finds buyers takes the
same risk, and this is not uncommon.

There are carpenters and general contractors; the latter generally
hires the former to do a specific portion of house building. But
fine, we can call them "carpenters."

A carpenter doing a spec house is indeed putting money at risk. But
he's not going to get too wild or unique in that design, because many
potential buyers aren't going to like that.

This means he or she is likely working from fairly run-of-the mill
plans that ANY competent builder could do. And remember, we have
thousands of builders, all capable of putting together a marketable
spec house.

Nothing terribly unique about it.

A carpenter doing a one-off, custom, unique house has very little at
risk. Progress payments are being made, either directly from the
customer or from the bank holding the construction loan. Plus, he or
she has a lien on the property until final payment is made.

An artist, unless he has a patron (rare these days), is in no similar
position. And let's say that artist's vision is truly something
individualistic, and is not dictated by some underlying well-defined
function, such as creating shelter.

The artist's work can be pure artistic expression -- and the artist
is out there, all alone, until (or even if) others find value in the
creation. Nothing at all like modern building, as outlined above.


Houses can easily be unique and one of a kind. In fact, that's
the norm, not the exception.

Guffaw! You haven't been in many subdivisions, have you?


You purchase a copy of the carpenter's creative efforts.

You're confusing what a carpenter does and what an architect does.

The carpenter better bloody well *not* be getting creative with a set
of approved plans. He'll likely have the customer's wrath, the wrath
of the structural engineer, and likely the wrath of whichever
government body issued building permits. The carpenter better stick
to the plans, done up long before the carpenter came onto the scene.
Otherwise, ANOTHER carpenter will be found.

Again, nothing unique about our carpenter.

But why is the architect special, and not the carpenter?

Only a small number of architects might be able to create dazzling plans,
while a much larger number of builders/carpenters can likely execute those plans,
or readily be replaced if they cannot.


I can find thousands of musicians to score a movie. I could even
learn
to do large parts of it myself.

You are seriously cracking me up. Even this somewhat more "commodity"
type of music takes an unprecedented and very rare set of skills and
out and out rare gifts, crossing many disciplines, particularly if
the composer is also conducting.

If you believe that, what's stopping you from heading on over to
Newman, Skywalker, Capital, Abbey Road, AIR, MGM, et al, and doing
the job? You should be a shoe-in. It's an easy course of study,
after all. Seeing your diploma, any film producer would of course hire
you on the spot.

--

The difficulty seems to be your inability -- intentional or not -- to
acknowledge that we are not all the same. We all want equal
opportunity, and that's what any decent society should strive to
provide. Some people will run with such opportunity as they are able,
others will not.

But you cannot force equal *outcome*, either in artistic success or
the rewards from it.

And you cannot equate that which is rare to that which is common. When
you do, you achieve only bleakness and the lowest common denominator
in art, music (and other segments of society), and even in your daily life.

You might not like it that someone with a unique gift is rewarded
more for the same amount of time a plumber or carpenter applies to
some task.

But if very few people -- or only one individual -- is able to
produce a unique piece of work, it is not equivalent to someone who
swings a hammer or works on a production line. Those are fine and
useful vocations, to be sure, but they are not unique and they are
not rare.

Moreover, you can generally teach those common skills to most people.
You can't teach someone to be a Monet, Bernstein, or even Michael
Jordan. You can only /at best/ help them discover the unique gifts
they possess. (And one could argue that many current schools do
*exactly the opposite* by suppressing individualism, because
individualism dares show the fallacy of "everyone is the same/should
be rewarded the same". But that's yet another topic.)

Personally, I celebrate individual achievement, and want to see the
gifted individual soar with the rewards his or her gifts and work
might bring, for as long as those results are valued by the rest of us.

I have no desire *at any time* to take from that individual and give
to the collective. It's a creepy way to run a society and when it has
been tried, people eventually wind up being slaughtered or starving.

Frank
Mobile Audio


Frank,

You realize that a fire hydrant would be more receptive to you than
this guy is, don't you?


Rick Ruskin
Lion Dog Music - Seattle WA
http://www.liondogmusic.com
.

Relevant Pages

  • OT Econ 101: was RIAA sues student for $675,000
    ... A carpenter doing a spec house is indeed putting money at risk. ... plans that ANY competent builder could do. ... An artist, unless he has a patron (rare these days), is in no similar ... individualism dares show the fallacy of "everyone is the same/should ...
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