👤mixmax🕑16y🔼43🗨️29

(Replying to PARENT post)

The article espouses a nice theory, but I can think of some pretty big holes, especially relating to differing cultures and indeed our own historical experience. Musicians were not always the revered gods they are today. Back in 16th century England, I can't imagine the neighbourhood bard being more of a chick-puller than, say, the rich merchant.

Culture plays a huge part too. I was speaking to one of my Chinese friends the other day and was struck by something she said about the popular boys in her school. I asked what made the boys popular - she replied that, amongst other desirable traits, they got good grades. Needless to say this does not apply in any western society I've been a member of. Rather the opposite, in fact.

In a society edging towards post-scarcity, perhaps the desirability of conspicuous displays of wasted energy, like being "cool" or whatever, move to the fore. But in a society still climbing the developmental ladder, I just don't see it. Not to say that the theory lacks any merit at all - the conspicuous waste thing could well be a big factor, like how people buy ridiculously expensive watches just to show they can. But I don't see how it "evolved" when even the west has been like this for only half a century or so.

A more likely explanation for the sexual allure of popular musicians is their perceived wealth, exciting and interesting lives, boasting rights over ones' friends, and over society in general. The same thing can be seen, mapped into a different context, in the Chinese experience - good grades at school = good university = good job = all of the above benefits. I would posit this is a more likely explanation than the "evolved waste" theory.

👤sho🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The initial premise is wrong. Charm, looks and money are more powerful in the mating game than what someone does for a living. Poor, ugly, and boring artists and musicians don't get laid very often, even if they are good at what they do. A hot, rich bank manager is going to pull more trim than any financially struggling, mediocre looking artist. The stark reality is that the counter groups he mentioned, engineers and programmers (I know nothing about bank managers) are comprised of people who often take pride in the fact that they aren't good looking or charming and can be quite deluded about their potential for becoming rich.

His other point, that the reprap is going to make manufacturing obsolete, is very wishful thinking. The current commercial 3-D printers aren't good enough to produce anything other than models. The materials also cost $25 per cubic inch. Printing out a replica of a thermos costs $700. Costs are going to have to plummet and someone is going to need to invent a magical material that can automatically scrub out all the striations in the printed surfaces.

👤menloparkbum🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I always thought some musicians were sexually magnetic because women felt an emotional connection with the musician, probably through their songs.

Some musicians can make music that makes people feel better. Music can affect us at the most powerful level, the emotional level.

I saw Adam Sandler play at my university once and you would not believe how many beautiful college women were coming up to him after the show, wanting just a fragment of a moment of his attention.

The Hanukkah song. His trademark. It was scary to see almost everyone cheer and sing along as loud as they could. People were connecting their lives to his maybe-not-so-silly song.

I witnessed similar things with "Hootie and the Blowfish" and the Dave Matthews Band. I never understood "Backstreet Boys" and NKOTB. But maybe musicians are a societally-accepted way for women to objectify and idealize men.

👤wallflower🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Peacock feathers do not equate to attractiveness for peafowls. It is an assumption that was accepted without testing. Does this relate to the HN posting about how hackers are horrible at statistics?

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/26/peacock-feathers-fe...

👤kingkawn🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Self-copying 3D printers will make it an order of magnitude cheaper again, and will finally kill the idea of intellectual property. But - just as with computers and music - they will also expand creativity, because people don't create things just to make money; the real reason they create things is to get noticed by other people with whom they want to have children...

Right, because large pharmaceutical companies spend millions in researching and developing drugs that increase the quality of peoples' lives just to impress chicks.

(Viagra aside...) :P

If you "kill intellectual property," you will kill many (not all, as the article writer so astutely mentioned, but many) incentives. Very few people or organizations are going to subsidize a few hundred million dollars worth of R&D on a drug or invention if it is just going to be given away...

👤discojesus🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

You know what kind of accounting is glamorous? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_accounting
👤sown🕑16y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Bah - selfish gene again. People give away ideas because we are social animals that survive through our ability to co-operate and recognise that it is advantageous to share. Except for those evil selfish Peter Chamberlen brothers of forceps fame.
👤j1o1h1n🕑16y🔼0🗨️0