Hacker News Reader

Comment by techbio | Hacker News Reader

I'm no tax expert, and it's certainly counter to current political powers at nearly every level of government, but if one looks at inputs into a robot's operating costs as income, and taxes the operator as an employer obligated to pay their share of income and FICA taxes, we could likely see higher long-term employment and training of workers as well as continued solvency for social safety net programs.

Edit: Of course, at some uncalculated cost to high-growth innovation investment opportunities. Because greater-good is a tricky balance.

View on HN

What do robots have to do with outsider artists?

Finding money to support the disenfranchised.

Edit: My original answer was unclear and too brief for someone.

A clearer answer is that outsider artists, as generally identified by profound social marginalization, typically resulting from mental illnesses, are statistically almost never able to support themselves on art-making.

Programs exist for the mentally ill, yet it would be a hard case to make that these are sufficient for creating quality of life such that everyone suffering in that category, and who would rather be making art as a primary occupation, can support themselves and live independently (provided that is a goal) on art making income.

But like many causes, money for this cause is harder to come by than it could be in the wealthiest nation in the world.

Extracting money, not currently available, from the least creative of workers to support creative work and fulfilling lives for "outsider artists" and all others on the margins of the modern economy seems to me a kind of fair play.

This is a bad thing for art?

This is not achieved by the rare "outsider art" sale. I'm not sure why you have a problem with my original post, or if you even read it.

I can't understand most of it, to be honest. My perspective is art can sometimes take centuries to make sense from the creator to the person that it's right for, so it doesn't make sense to expect a functioning, mechanized economy to provide for it.

That's the point of art. To tell an idea to someone who needs it. If you tax it and expect it to work like everything else does, it can't do that.

> That's the point of art. To tell an idea to someone who needs it.

Maybe for some people, but art for me has always been about expressing myself. I've never created anything for someone else's enjoyment. If someone happens to enjoy it, okay then, but it's my feelings on the canvas, not my interpretation of what you need to see on the canvas.

I understand that sentiment. I also understand the other.

Your trouble understanding may be that my phrase in the original post "a stipend for materials" really isn't saying what I meant to say, which in fact is simply "a stipend."

But it's too late for me to edit now.

My trouble stems from your judgement of art you don't seem actively involved in creating, therefore, art you don't understand. I assume you aren't involved in creating it because you are very negative about it. That said, if you want to create it, being able to find resources to create it can continuously be a challenging problem, and this is especially difficult if that's what your survival depends on.

Very few people who would be artists make any money at it. I am one of them. You have gotten me almost entirely wrong. I'm sure for your own reasons, but it's gotten insulting.

Edit: Removed "RTFA"

Yes, I project my own issues frequently because I've explained my art to psychologists, counselors and therapists to the point that I realised all my art was doing was trying to explain my feelings to people around me about my mental illness everyone else thought I had with them lacking the awareness of realizing how their active involvement in all of that affected me mentally. I just assumed they understood and still cared about me, which they do.

Now (just kidding, I have always done this) I take my dumb dumb issues out on the internet at strangers based on the salience of their perspectives which seems to be diametrically opposite to the conclusions I've come to, clearly this is a selection bias in information and I'm making too many assumptions about you.

The last piece of art I made was a picture of a body that was supposed to be me understanding myself. Clearly this has been challenging for me as I find myself completely unable to create new art, besides code, which requires me to think clearly and logically and simply about everything.

Not to mention the consequences of how understanding myself may affect others. Having empathy for the feelings of those around you is really hard when you have to think about yourself first.

Obviously I am terrible at doing this on the internet because I don't know who I'm talking to. We all project our issues through our personal experiences and beliefs we hold onto. Sometimes that changes my mind, sometimes it changes yours. Art, everything, yay, the world is still boring because I am a boring person with no magic or mystery in my life, sparse connections that bind me to individuals through concrete understandings.

I don't need to RTFA. There don't have to be rules on the internet. If I need to RTFA you need to read everything that came before the article that created the article. But you don't, because you are replying to the article, and the author may be here, but you wouldn't be aware of that, so you operate on the assumption that you don't have to read everything that led up to the article, just the article itself, perpetuating dogmatic ideologies that secure your world view.

That's insulting to me, so sorry! I have opinions on stuff sometimes!

Some people have talent and aren't as lucky as you. Don't squash them like bugs just because its disruptive. Maybe you need therapy.

Wyatt Cenac has a good piece on culture clash.

@s-shellfish, In a sibling reply here, you wrote:

> The last piece of art I made was a picture of a body that was supposed to be me understanding myself.

I hope you didn't kill somebody and photograph them, but it's not entirely clear you aren't a serial killer from your description, and I thought I'd just put this here in case anything happens to me. Again, you read me wrong. We have a lot more in common than you seem to think.

No, I just had an eating disorder, which could have killed me, but didn't. Art, yay. Starving tortured artist, intentionally? I don't know, honestly.

My apologies if I read you wrong, that was not my intention. Words like robot to describe artists, mental illness, disenfranchisement, etc. Connections. We all have buttons. Easier to just call it aspergers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com