@jon_5912,
"I’m personally disgusted by conspicuous consumption and vanity products and that’s all this is. It has no redeeming qualities. The 27k for paint is just an especially egregious example of it. I think it’s something we should all avoid. Almost anyone can feel good by having something others can’t. Even if you’re just the homeless crackhead with the fanciest pipe. It’s not that the pipe somehow performs better, it’s that the other crackheads in your group can’t afford it, and you make yourself feel superior by being better than them. There’s no higher level goal like a better crack high. It’s the most base instinct. Moving up in the pecking order, like a chicken."
Good points. I totally agree a 27k paintjob is something any decent human being should try to avoid, but perhaps it’s a little bit strong to feel disgusted?
For sure ostentatiousness via possessions doesn’t really help anyone in the end. Not when you’ve long passed the point of any detectable (sonic) improvement.
I guess you might still inspire envy, gain some hollow attention but you still get old, you still get sick, you still going to die.
Like it or not we are still a competitive lot, aren’t we? I’ve got working-class cousins who are semi literate but who still seem to live their lives by the labels they flash around, Hugo Boss, iPhone 11, Timberlands etc.
I guess such things must give some kind of meaning, comfort, feeling of one-upmanship. A feeling of aspiration, of belonging to some superior group, or of attaining some desirable hegemony perhaps. At least for a short while.
Perhaps in a similar way that owning good Hi-Fi might give us?
No it can’t be that, we’re in it for the right reasons, we’re in it for the sound quality alone.
Aren’t we?
"I’m personally disgusted by conspicuous consumption and vanity products and that’s all this is. It has no redeeming qualities. The 27k for paint is just an especially egregious example of it. I think it’s something we should all avoid. Almost anyone can feel good by having something others can’t. Even if you’re just the homeless crackhead with the fanciest pipe. It’s not that the pipe somehow performs better, it’s that the other crackheads in your group can’t afford it, and you make yourself feel superior by being better than them. There’s no higher level goal like a better crack high. It’s the most base instinct. Moving up in the pecking order, like a chicken."
Good points. I totally agree a 27k paintjob is something any decent human being should try to avoid, but perhaps it’s a little bit strong to feel disgusted?
For sure ostentatiousness via possessions doesn’t really help anyone in the end. Not when you’ve long passed the point of any detectable (sonic) improvement.
I guess you might still inspire envy, gain some hollow attention but you still get old, you still get sick, you still going to die.
Like it or not we are still a competitive lot, aren’t we? I’ve got working-class cousins who are semi literate but who still seem to live their lives by the labels they flash around, Hugo Boss, iPhone 11, Timberlands etc.
I guess such things must give some kind of meaning, comfort, feeling of one-upmanship. A feeling of aspiration, of belonging to some superior group, or of attaining some desirable hegemony perhaps. At least for a short while.
Perhaps in a similar way that owning good Hi-Fi might give us?
No it can’t be that, we’re in it for the right reasons, we’re in it for the sound quality alone.
Aren’t we?