Old Pit Guy wrote:willyz wrote:...and y'all wonder why people come and go here.
I'll admit that I lurk from time to time, and appreciate when good discussion is had.
But the discussion quickly becomes so hostile...
...that being said:
I think we need to be thinking about what Vinnie says regarding the industry, what we're all saying about the industry- and think about how this all affects not just the guys on top but the the little guy and those in between. If the culture (or behavior as Paul mentioned) is diminished, rather the value of music (or any medium) is diminished (both in our day to day culture and in monetary terms), then that not only changes things for a serious pro like Vinnie, but that changes for the weekend warriors too.
I'm one of the 'come and go[ne]' guys.
I'll try not to offend anyone, but since I realize that the half-dozen or so denizens tend to take attitudes that break from established convention personally, I expect to fail miserably unless I govern myself like a mouse pissing on cotton to not wake the cat. And that just isn't going to happen.
I've read every post. Twice. And somewhere between the end, when the "190 IQ guy" opined that I must understand something to appreciate it, and further back with Jeppe's brutal honesty (which I do appreciate), I couldn't help but sense the missing irony of the Internet as the venue for the topic. And with that, I will offer the full .01 value of my opinion and return to purgatory.
In the other thread on this topic, old as it is now, I wrote about how people have to sincerely care before any of this changes, and how that was unlikely to happen. True to form, that received the requisite rebuke. Because, well, people obviously do care, right? Wrong. As much of this thread bears witness to, people tend to care mostly about themselves. Not that there's anything terribly wrong with that.
And so to flesh-out my first go at it, the problem as I see it, and it's way more than just with the music business, is that the Internet has democratized not just information, but most tenets of conventional wisdom and culture. It determines everything from elections to taste in music to what is or isn't news. And also what does and doesn’t amount to politically correct opinion. And so the people decide what is Trending and what is politically correct.
Well, I'm here to say that these are not good things to be based on a democratic model, because a democratic model enshrines mediocrity. And the Internet knows that all too well. And it’s easy to exploit. I don't know about you, but I prefer people who know a hell of a lot about something, and have the credentials and history to prove it, sitting around a table trying to determine the best course or two so the rest of us can choose one as we go about our business. Things tend to turn out better that way. This is nothing new; take a moment to explore what the Greeks had to say about Democracy.
However, because the Internet is bursting with mediocre thought — we have the Normal Curve to prove it — the result is elected politicians unfit for their jobs; "scientists" who write and publish their own books and decry peer review as laborious and unnecessary; millions who steal other people’s work and intellectual property, and others who don’t give a shit about any of it.
The way I see it this will not change until the model changes, because the Normal Curve doesn't change of its own accord. And if we're going to sit back and allow that big amorphous hump in the middle of the curve that is the Internet to determine important things, like whether people who spend their professional lives in the arts can make a living from it, those things are going to suffer, and we’re going to suffer right along with it because people who think critically aren’t going to take their place anytime soon.