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Comment by gooseus | Hacker News Reader

https://ia801604.us.archive.org/27/items/everything-is-bulls...

> We exchange diamond rings as part of the engagement process because the diamond company De Beers decided in 1938 that it would like us to. Prior to a stunningly successful marketing campaign, Americans occasionally exchanged engagement rings, but it wasn’t pervasive. Not only is the demand for diamonds a marketing invention, but diamonds aren’t actually that rare. Only by carefully restricting the supply has De Beers kept the price of a diamond high.

Imho, that "soul" you describe is an artifact of human sentimentality and a very successful marketing campaign by a bunch of Afrikaner colonialists.

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Which, coincidentally, is exactly the same soul that appears in art.

Walter Benjamin called it "aura" - something a physical original has, but a reproduction doesn't.

It explains why collectors pay $$$$$ for a guitar played by [famous musician], even though they can't play.

There's no objective way to look at any one guitar and divine its history. Without provenance or physical customisation, any Rickenbacker or Les Paul is indistinguishable from any other of the same production run.

But we believe in sympathetic magic. Objects are charged with mysterious non-physical manna through proximity to wealth and status. Owning these special objects confers that manna on us, and perhaps our fortune will increase.

It's the logic of witchcraft lurking at the heart of capitalism.

One of the fun things about AI is that it deconstructs this while reinforcing it. Huge collections of high status manna are now inside a machine, and available for free, or near as.

Do we still believe in magic, or not?

> It explains why collectors pay $$$$$ for a guitar played by [famous musician], even though they can't play.

They do that so, when they get together, they have a story to tell to other famous people. If that guitar were to be replaced, nobody would be able to tell the difference.

The aura is just our minds comprehending the context of the original. Its rarity, the complexity or simplicity of its construction, our respect for the creator, etc.

Actually soul is Christian concept that inherits it from greeks that applies to living humans spirits only.

We can talk about "anima", in latin, the same inside "animal" or "animation" to apply it to a wider concept of living beings.

We can go further in time to the greek concept "daimon", devils, allude to supernatural powers or spirits to start applying it to things.

Then we could apply De Boers sociopaths concept that goes back to using the Christian concept to rocks again.

The only "soul" those rocks have is the one of the millions of African people that died in wars, the women that were raped and the kids that were traumatised being forced to kill their family members so a woman can look at beautiful iridescence in her finger.

Disclaimer: I have worked as a volunteer helping refugees, mostly from Congo, so I am biased a lot.

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