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Originally posted by I_Forgot
All culture comes from waste. The money blown to support non-industrially productive artists is money that could have made/bought a tractor for use by some poor schlub trying to scratch a living out of a rocky field in some god-forsaken third world country. Without the ability to choose to waste money on art, architecture, gasoline, and etc., where would we all be? We'd be a bunch of commies!
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I don't believe culture comes from waste. Culture comes from common values. What we call "art" is a reaffirmation and expression of those common values. For example, when early hominids gathered shells and stones, they were creating "art", but this art was the glue that helped their culture to form and bond. It was a survival strategy unique to hominids. Perhaps these shells could have been used as something else, so could be called waste. But the function the shells served was important to the formation of early hominid society and culture, far more so than the impact on their environment, so was not waste.
But in the United States today common values and culture does not mean one prescribed by the government, a la communism. Rather, it's expressed in many different ways. One (sub)culture, for example, might be your church group: a group bonded by a common religious belief and a common geography. Another, for example, might be a Linux programming group. Another may be a group of gothic kids, who wear black and listen to a certain kind of music. Many varied subcultures that express themselves in many different ways (through clothes, music, reading canon, beliefs, etc). But these cultures do not necessarily need to create their bonds in wasteful ways. For example, a book club interested in Shakespeare does not need much more than the books to read and a venue in which to meet.
As for audio, there are many different subcultures, as well. There are tube enthusiasts, solid-state "muscle amp" enthusiasts, ESL speaker enthusiasts, horn speaker enthusiasts, diy enthusiasts, etc. The choice to view audio gear as status objects is one way to approach the hobby. The choice to pursue a value-based, high performance-to-cost ratio approach is another choice. All are personal choices which we are all free to make in this country.
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High end audio, too, is all about waste and pretentiousness. You want people to design high end audio stuff with a mind towards reducing waste? That's like saying you want a Ferrari or Hummer that gets 100 miles per gallon of fuel.
Waste is what makes high end audio high end. It wouldn't be high end without it....
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I would argue that "High end audio," as I think you're describing it is all about attaining status. There may be pretentiousness involved in that, sure. There may be waste involved, sure. But waste is not endemic to attaining high status. What is it that the "high end" subculture looks for in its hi-fi? Good sound that brings pleasure to the listener and his friends and family? Fine craftsmanship and nice materials? Unique design that pleases the eye? These things can be had without being unnecessarily wasteful.
Or is it the weight of the amp, where heavier is better? Is it having insanely more power than the system would realistically need, and having bragging rights about having the hottest running amp? Is it about having the thickest faceplate? If these requirements are the priorities, then one has to question if the values these resources are supporting are worth cost to our world, and if it is, indeed, too wasteful. Then one has to decide whether to buy in to or out of this view.
As for wanting people to design high end audio gear with a mind towards reducing waste? What I proposed doesn't lobby anyone to design audio gear toward this end. It simply proposes creating an audio system built around currently existing gear which happen to sound good: small class-d amps like the Charlize or 41Hz, non-active TVC volume control units, and low powered non-OS dacs, like the Monica II or Scott Nixon DacKit. The only invention that I called for was for the solar panel or windmill system for charging the batteries. And in my view, this isn't a Ferarri. No way. Rather, it's like a very efficient hybrid car but with great performance. This isn't the choice for everyone, but the performance should be good enough that I'm sure a lot of folks would be more than happy with it, and at a very favorable energy impact, too. No, not everyone can or wants to drive a Ferarri (though they are very cool cars, for sure
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The folks who can afford high end audio are the same who drive "high-performance" vehicles and live in 10,000 sq ft houses. They are entitled to consume more resources than others do by virtue of their financial ability to do so. If they weren't good people, living the right way, they wouldn't have all that wealth, right?
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Sure, folks with wealth are "enabled" to consume more by virtue of their financial ability to do so. In fact, anyone is "entitled" to use what resources they require within the legal limits so long they have the ability to pay for it. But that's just the economy of it. Why be wasteful just because you can? What kind of person is that?
As for your assertion that wealthy people live the right way, one of my best friends is a millionaire, and she and her husband are two of the most decent people I could ever hope to know. But I also know a lot of wealthy folks who are petty, trite, mean-spirited, selfish, and not worth knowing at all. I also know a lot of good folks and terrible folks who earn average incomes.
The ONLY thing I can say about wealthy folks with 100% certainty is this: either they are very good at making money, they are very close to someone who is good at making money, or they've been blessed with a unexpected (or expected) windfall of money. Wealth is no predictor of a person's "goodness" or badness whatsoever, in my experience.
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Look at it this way: high end audio is helping to usher in the era of alternative energy by more rapidly increasing the scarcity of cheap sources so that nontraditional sources become cost-competitive with them. In a few years you will be able to pat yourself on the back because your penchant for high end audio helped spur the development of fuel cells, solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal power.
Now doesn't that make you feel better? It does me...
I_F
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There are consequences to the depletion of traditional resources beyond their simple disappearance: poisoned water, ozone holes, melting polar caps, disappearance of animal species.... I'm no environmentalist or activist, but it should be clear to anyone who can reason that throwing our ecosystem so severely out of balance cannot be good in the near or far future. No, it doesn't make me feel better, not in the least.
Best,
KT
Solutions for saving enerygy, money, and the world
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