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[zhamlau]

Actually I sometimes wonder how a basic economy would even work in 100 years. The notion of buying and selling stocks and bonds and instruments based on them is VERY 19th century. I would imagine in 100 years the very idea as to what an "economy" is will be vastly different then what we understand it as today.  It will have gone through so many changes to adapt/survive the upcoming conflicts between opposing economic viewpoints and regional markets it will be very alien to anything we know today, and because of that its going to be hard to force it to fit into our frame work of understanding.  It's like we are trying to predict the size of the strike zone in 100 years, when we don't even know if the game will still involve a batter and pitcher. Maybe in the end if a tool (which is all physical possession really is) helps you get food, find a mate/procreate, keep you warm, or keeps you from being robbed...it will have value. If it doesn't do any of those things its really just of passing value and eventually will fall to the wayside.

Edited October 16, 2017 by zhamlau

[PhilipB2k17]

1 hour ago, zhamlau said:

Actually I sometimes wonder how a basic economy would even work in 100 years. The notion of buying and selling stocks and bonds and instruments based on them is VERY 19th century. I would imagine in 100 years the very idea as to what an "economy" is will be vastly different then what we understand it as today.  It will have gone through so many changes to adapt/survive the upcoming conflicts between opposing economic viewpoints and regional markets it will be very alien to anything we know today, and because of that its going to be hard to force it to fit into our frame work of understanding.  It's like we are trying to predict the size of the strike zone in 100 years, when we don't even know if the game will still involve a batter and pitcher. Maybe in the end if a tool (which is all physical possession really is) helps you get food, find a mate/procreate, keep you warm, or keeps you from being robbed...it will have value. If it doesn't do any of those things its really just of passing value and eventually will fall to the wayside.

I agree. I think we may enter into more of a barter style economy, which becomes much more feasible in an interconnected world.

[SquareChaos]

2 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I agree. I think we may enter into more of a barter style economy, which becomes much more feasible in an interconnected world.

More complicated markets don't result in barter economies. What we'll be doing in 100 years... I obviously can't say for sure, but I'd be stunned if we went back to widespread bartering... assuming no Mad Max scenarios.

[cstojano]

I think all of this means the Acheulean hand axe is the best investment in the history of humans. 2500 a pop may not sound like a lot, but after a million years little else from that time still holds value (besides one's physical remains).

 

[tth2]

9 hours ago, delekkerste said:

My intention was to overcome that bias by asking people to imagine life in 2117.

I can easily imagine life in 2117.  After years of rule by the priests of the Temple of Syrinx, the Solar Federation has returned and assumed control.  People have brought out their old guitars and started to play music that was suppressed by the priests as "a waste of time".  That leads to the re-emergence of other things that had been considered a waste of time by the priests, including playing games on the computers that filled the halls of the temple, and children's pamphlets featuring brightly costumed people performing superhuman feats.  Soon, a bustling trade develops in said children's pamphlets, particularly those that looked as good in 2017 as as they did in 2077.

[Mmehdy]

On October 16, 2017 at 9:31 AM, delekkerste said:

I only mentioned 100 years to dispel the notion that what is popular today is going to remain so indefinitely, let alone for "even" just a century (how many people have posted here that Disney will keep all of Marvel in the spotlight forever?)  Most people only look ahead in small enough increments that their human nature/intuition linearly extrapolates little or no change.  My intention was to overcome that bias by asking people to imagine life in 2117.  If you accept that this is a long enough period for what is popular to change dramatically, then it's only a question of arguing when, not if this will occur.  Not unlike this old joke!

I think you and I are talking about different things when we reference "content".  I am not just talking about things that are tangibly collectible, but everything that can occupy share of mind and/or wallet (of which there are orders of magnitude more things today than a hundred years ago). 

I saw a wonderful Mucha exhibition in Liverpool this summer, including all the Bernhardt posters...great stuff.  Now you have me wondering where I put that Mucha print I brought back home.  

We have much better ways and access to out past thru ithe internet  then we did back in 1940's looking back to the 1920's. So we can "save" the info and items, plus its now a world-wide market thanks to the internet . Great art, great comic books will always survive 100 years from now, they just have a much better chance of not being forgotten given out technology  to preserve them.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Mmehdy

[delekkerste]

21 minutes ago, Mmehdy said:

We have much better ways and access to out past thru ithe internet  then we did back in 1940's looking back to the 1920's. So we can "save" the info and items, plus its now a world-wide market thanks to the internet . Great art, great comic books will always survive 100 years from now, they just have a much better chance of not being forgotten given out technology .

At the rate content is being created these days, it won't be enough to just have online access to things from the past, IMO.  Just look at how quickly things that were popular even a decade ago are already fading from memory.  Yeah, you can relive those TV shows and movies and comics and whatever else from 10 years ago with a few mouse clicks, but, who has time for that given how much new content is coming every second of every day?  As I mentioned recently, in the future, it will become increasingly more common for the younger generations not to have seen many of the classic films that people in their 40s or older take for granted (e.g., the original Star Wars trilogy), despite that material being more accessible and available than ever before.  

My guess is that peoples' interests, which have already hugely fractured over the past 20-25 years, will fracture even more going forward.  Maybe things won't fade away as completely as they used to, but, I wouldn't count on a lot of things that are considered great today standing the test of time over the long run.  The hours in a day remain constant, while the accumulated history of popular culture is expanding at an exponential rate.  It is inevitable, IMO, that more things than ever will fall by the wayside, even many things deemed "great" in the present day.   

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by delekkerste

[vodou]

5 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

At the rate content is being created these days, it won't be enough to just have online access to things from the past, IMO.  Just look at how quickly things that were popular even a decade ago are fading from memory.  Yeah, you can relive those TV shows and movies and comics and whatever else from 10 years ago with a few mouse clicks, but, who has time for that given how much new content is coming every second of every day?  As I mentioned recently, in the future, it will become increasingly more common for the younger generations not to have seen many of the classic films that people in their 40s or older take for granted (e.g., the original Star Wars trilogy), despite that material being more accessible and available than ever before.  

My guess is that peoples' interests, which have already hugely fractured over the past 20-25 years, will fracture even more going forward.  Maybe things won't fade away as completely as they used to, but, I wouldn't count on a lot of things that are considered great today standing the test of time over the long run.  The hours in a day remain constant, while the accumulated history of popular culture is expanding at an exponential rate.  It is inevitable, IMO, that more things than ever will fall by the wayside, even many things deemed "great" in the present day.   

 

Gene you are depending above on the same linear thinking that you criticize when you extrapolate out from our fragmented present and recent past to an even more fragmented future. I prefer the Eastern cyclical view of everything and suspect we're in the fall or winter of technology driven fragmentation and there's a spring ahead of...??? who knows, but not a straight line out from where we are today.

[delekkerste]

13 minutes ago, vodou said:

Gene you are depending above on the same linear thinking that you criticize when you extrapolate out from our fragmented present and recent past to an even more fragmented future. I prefer the Eastern cyclical view of everything and suspect we're in the fall or winter of technology driven fragmentation and there's a spring ahead of...??? who knows, but not a straight line out from where we are today.

No, it is linear extrapolation to think that what has been/is popular now will remain popular going forward.  What you see as a linear extrapolation of the fragmentation of interests post-1995 or thereabouts is actually an understanding that the lifecycle of popularity in pop culture has secularly shortened due to the exponential growth of content in this age of cheap communications, computing power & technology (along with the abundance of easy money & capital formation and globalization).

Could we see a rationalization at some point of the current content oversaturation?  Sure - I fully expect (and hope!) this will happen at some point.  Will it be enough to derail the broader dynamics that I am describing?  Almost surely not.   

 

Edited October 17, 2017 by delekkerste

[vodou]

1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

No, it is linear extrapolation to think that what has been/is popular now will remain popular going forward.

I agree. Which does not validate the first word of your response, "No"

[cstojano]

5 hours ago, delekkerste said:

No, it is linear extrapolation to think that what has been/is popular now will remain popular going forward.  What you see as a linear extrapolation of the fragmentation of interests post-1995 or thereabouts is actually an understanding that the lifecycle of popularity in pop culture has secularly shortened due to the exponential growth of content in this age of cheap communications, computing power & technology (along with the abundance of easy money & capital formation and globalization).

Could we see a rationalization at some point of the current content oversaturation?  Sure - I fully expect (and hope!) this will happen at some point.  Will it be enough to derail the broader dynamics that I am describing?  Almost surely not.   

 

I always remember my childhood as a time of major cultural events, the true blockbusters. That really doesn't seem to happen anymore for reasons you point out - short shelf life. It will be interesting to see what happens with Harry Potterdom because that seems to be the closest equivalent to a generation wide milestone for millennials, much like Star Wars was for the kids of the 70s.

[vodou]

3 minutes ago, cstojano said:

It will be interesting to see what happens with Harry Potterdom...

Hmm. Good one.

[Junkdrawer]

100 years ago there were antique shops selling antiques. Today there are antique shops selling antiques and in 100 years from now I bet there will be still antique shops. It would be interesting to visit that shop in 100 years and see the Home Depot bucket selling for $50 and my grand son my be telling his grandson about the one I passed down to him through my son.

[cstojano]

23 hours ago, Junkdrawer said:

100 years ago there were antique shops selling antiques. Today there are antique shops selling antiques and in 100 years from now I bet there will be still antique shops. It would be interesting to visit that shop in 100 years and see the Home Depot bucket selling for $50 and my grand son my be telling his grandson about the one I passed down to him through my son.

Many "antique" shops seem to offer the wine bottle the owner (or some consignor) just polished off last week, so the HD bucket could well be Americana some day.

[vodou]

9 hours ago, cstojano said:

...so the HD bucket could well be Americana some day.

Replace HD bucket with whatever the future comes to agree identifies and defines the late 20th and/or early 21st centuries with. Not just in America, but each separate region or country and as a global aggregate too. Surely one of us will have a kid that's the next Edgar Church, right? Good luck trying to figure out what that will be and correctly position yourself and your heirs to cash in though

[ESeffinga]

Home Depot bucket... gets used for it's intended purpose and then thrown away. Very few survive in displayable condition. Most are trashed long term.

Sounds familiar.

On the flip side, all these comic originals, new comics, action figures, statues, limited edition this and thats... all treated like masterpieces of antiquity. White glove service and archival treatments for all.

... my money's on the bucket!

 

[Pete Marino]

8 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

Home Depot bucket... gets used for it's intended purpose and then thrown away. Very few survive in displayable condition. Most are trashed long term.

Sounds familiar.

On the flip side, all these comic originals, new comics, action figures, statues, limited edition this and thats... all treated like masterpieces of antiquity. White glove service and archival treatments for all.

... my money's on the bucket!

 

My money is on New In Box, never assembled Ikea furniture.

 

Nothing is going to really show off our current "throw away culture" like that stuff.

[delekkerste]

27 minutes ago, Pete Marino said:

My money is on New In Box, never assembled Ikea furniture.

 

Nothing is going to really show off our current "throw away culture" like that stuff.

Everybody in 2047 will want a new-in-box BILLY bookcase to relive the times when they actually owned paper books.  

[ESeffinga]

Hah. Right?

Kind of like hipsters and new band have been all about audio cassette tapes right now.
Gotta have those old book thingies to show your brain game is on fleek.

Edited October 19, 2017 by ESeffinga

[cstojano]

I wondered if Y2K stuff would one day be collectible.

In addition, I wish I had started (well not really) buying pumpkin spice everything five years ago and saving it in mint condition. I think we are near peak pumpkin spice.