Join gaming leaders, alongside GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming, for their 2nd Annual GamesBeat & Facebook Gaming Summit | GamesBeat: Into the Metaverse 2 this upcoming January 25-27, 2022. Learn more about the event.
In 2008, the economy collapsed. This is the prologue to both our current reality and to Line Goes Up — The Problem with NFTs, which is the most recent video essay from YouTube creator Dan “Folding Ideas” Olson. This feature-length video is a thoroughly researched biopsy of crypto and non-fungible tokens. And, in a sane world, it would stop the technology dead in its tracks.
Of course, in 2008 the economy collapsed and made it clear to everyone that we do not live in a sane world. Olson skips over some of that evidence. Like, for example, AIG paying bonuses to executives using taxpayer bailout money. Or how about the government neglecting to prosecute anyone for knowingly selling toxic assets to pension funds? My personal favorite is, after bailing out the banks, the Obama White House returned approximately $200 billion in Toxic Asset Relief Program funds instead of using that to stop home foreclosures (there were millions).
What does this have to do with NFTs? Well, it’s the same thing that it has to do with GameStop meme stock rally from January 2021. The U.S. government, no matter who is in charge, has repeatedly taught us the lesson that we are on our own. They will save banks and billionaires, but if you want to get yours, you’re going to have to take it from some other sucker.
As a defense mechanism, the only responses to an environment like this is nihilism or apathy. But the apathetic create a space for the nihilistic to take what they want using new, mutant grifts. Because if there are no consequences
Read more on venturebeat.com