These sorts of headline sales are occurring with greater frequency. This one is obviously a case of a "flash loan", but all of these major NFT sales are being instrumentalized as part of a long-running industry scheme.<p>Many will have realized that art nowadays, crypto or not, has no intrinsic value whatsoever. This was an intentional objective of the very wealthy over a century ago: the propagandized destruction of technique/beauty/vision in art, centralizing tastemaking with a wealthy few. This removed the agency of the artist, and the capacity to make works that challenge power or speak truth in any real way.<p>The long-term goal of this scheme was to reduce artists to puppets. But even better would be to remove artists entirely, and replace them with corporations or algorithms. They can produce more work, do not complain, and will never have anything real to say. So long as the wealthy can "tastemake", manufacturing consensus through rigged sales, they can direct attention in the art market and choose who succeeds.<p>It is no coincidence that Sotheby's and co. are propping up work produced by an enterprise, or that "generative art" is all the rage. If the work is arbitrary, the value is arbitrary. And this makes manipulating the price incredibly easy, so long as you have manufactured enough consensus that this is the way art works. Arbitrary art cannot threaten the powers that be, so they love it. Arbitrary art cannot express anything about the human condition.<p>People are being led to accept the removal of humans from the generation of culture. To accept "AI art", utterly lacking in heart, soul, or vision. To accept that value is determined only by whatever the rich are pumping at the moment, and that anything else is "old-fashioned".<p>Many here are troubled by the effects of culture selected by algorithms. Wait until you see what happens when algorithms are <i>making</i> it. [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://8.guru/the-nft-delusion/" rel="nofollow">https://8.guru/the-nft-delusion/</a>