
Authenticity in the Age of the Fake - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/authenticity-in-the-age-of-the-fake
======
threatworking
reminds me of the story about Han van Meegeren, a Dutch painter and
portraitist considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th
century.

In May 1945, Van Meegeren was arrested, charged with collaborating with the
enemy and imprisoned. His name had been traced to the sale made during WW II
of what was then believed to be an authentic painting Vermeer to Nazi Field-
Marshal Hermann Goering. Shortly after, to general disbelief, Van Meegeren
came up with a very original defense against the accusation of collaboration,
then punishable by death. He claimed that the painting, The Woman Taken in
Adultery, was not a Vermeer but rather a forgery by his own hand. Moreover,
since he had traded the false Vermeer for 200 original Dutch paintings seized
by Goering in the beginning of he war, Van Meegeren believed that he was a
national hero rather than a Nazi collaborator. He also claimed to have painted
five other "Vermeers" as well as two "Pieter de Hoochs" all of which had
surfaced on the art market since 1937.

~~~
tomjen3
For those of you too lazy to google: he was convicted of fraud, but sentenced
to only one year. Unfortunately he died in prison.

~~~
greeseproof
What kind of fraud?

~~~
theoh
Passing his work off as that of more famous painters?

~~~
Chris2048
Illegal to sell art to the Nazis, but also illegal to defraud the Nazis?

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77pt77
> But the disdain expressed toward the garish colors that Perkin’s purple, and
> related dyes such as magenta, made accessible to the general public from the
> 1860s had within it a clear distaste for the arriviste. Now that simply
> anyone can wear what once marked you out as a person of consequence meant
> that new ways were needed to arbitrate social distinction

A similar thing happened to lobster. It used to be considered poor people's
food because of how abundant it was. Prisoners used to eat it.

A good source for this is: [https://psmag.com/how-lobster-got-fancy-
dab39dcf688a](https://psmag.com/how-lobster-got-fancy-dab39dcf688a)

~~~
tunap
Fun Thanksgiving fact: the Mayflower colonists were starving next to a
bay/coast full of "mud bugs" when the locals, overlooking earlier
transgressions that depleted their winter stores, took pity on their starving
"guests".

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dredmorbius
The ghost of Thorstein Veblen, and the concept of Veblen goods -- those which
exist and function to signal the social status of their bearers -- is all over
this article, though never once mentioned.

In a world in which any good may be synthesised or fabricated cheaply, it is
expense itself which is distinctive. "Story" or "provenance" cannot be
fabricated, and so, despite the fact that it's irrelevant to the functional
characteristics of a product or good, the immaterial becomes material and
significant.

Closely related: Trevor Noah's observation on language:

 _Language and accents govern so much of how people think about other people.
It 's been happening since the beginning of time. Even now in America, you
know when people say they "hate immigrants," they're not referring to a
Canadian immigrant, they're not referring to somebody who has an accent [that]
is slightly different to theirs — it's often that voice that throws you off.
... When you hear somebody speaking in an accent, it's almost like they're
invading your language while they're speaking to you. Because if you hear
someone speak another language, you almost don't care, but when they speak
your language with an accent it feels like an invasion of something that
belongs to you. ..._

[http://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/503009220/trevor-noah-looks-
ba...](http://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/503009220/trevor-noah-looks-back-on-
childhood-in-the-shadow-of-a-giant-his-mom)

Language, as with manners, etiquette, and deep cultural familiarity, is an
expensive and deep signifier of class and status.

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devoply
I think it says more about our culture and its value of the imaginary
difference and individualism, where in the real world the difference is very
limited, than it does about individuals. If you take a different culture, it
may hate individuality and difference.

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return0
It's a good thing that there is no equivalent of this in the information age.
A digital copy is just as good as any original.

~~~
pjc50
Authenticity just means something slightly different. What about "fake news"?
What about phishing sites? Isn't the reddit/spez controversy entirely about
authenticity and attribution?

~~~
csydas
I appreciate the idea here, but it's really not what the article is
discussing.

The article is talking about items only previously obtainable via harvesting
naturally occurring items, for example, diamonds. Then suddenly because some
smart people worked on it for a bit, we had lab made diamonds. Or how purple
dye used to be a challenge.

Despite the prevalence and usefulness of artifical otions for many formerly
naturally occurring items, there are still huge pushes and even social stigmas
for not having "authentic" versions of these materials.

I understand how you're making the comparison here, but you're conflating the
topics. This isn't about verifying authenticity in the case of the materials,
it's whether or not a diamond made in the ground is intrinsically worth more
than one made in a lab, and why so many people feel better about the one from
out of the ground.

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out_of_protocol
Strong crypto to rescue. Just make it user-friendly. If
%agency%/%publicperson℅ is spreading fake news you can proof it even if
article/tweet/etc was deleted

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ObeyTheGuts
There are difference between natural and fake diamonds, natural diamonds have
some impurities which make detection of artificial ones possible. I think
those impurities give "character" to natural diamonds and make em more
valuable. Same all stuff u get when u eat fruit like fiber, slows down
vitamine absorbtion and we are adapted to that, thats why sintetic vitamines
must be taken with food.

~~~
nailer
> There are difference between natural and fake diamonds

Synthetic diamonds are not fake or unnatural. The distinction is between
'mined' vs 'made'

> I think those impurities give "character" to natural diamonds and make em
> more valuable.

I think they make mined diamonds more impure. And I think mined diamond
companies use them to exploit men through artificial scarcity.

~~~
ObeyTheGuts
How its artificial scarcity if it is possible to tell man made vs natre made
diamond, they are two different this then!

Purity of man made stuff is why it sucks, pure iron will rust the fuck away, u
need add carbon and some metals to make good steel, same pure diamonds dont
break light passing trough in such beautiful way as natural diamonds, and
those impurities so far were not recreated by man.

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FakeNewsBot
You've heard of Neilson ratings... How about a Trust Rating?

How about a third party that certifies the facts and guarantees that the
opinion in which they are expressed by is not slanted past a certain degree.
Perhaps give a slant rating. Also, These third party could give a balance
rating to a company on a certain issue or candidate. Out of X number of news
stories, how many (positive and negative stories) did a given outlet run on
each side? The third party could have internal peer reviews and other checks
and balances (who watches the watchers?)

Can you imagine what these numbers would look like this election season? One
last thing. How about each story has the author name at the bottom, but the
link to their profile includes their voting record and party affiliation.

Now that would be transparency.

How about a startup for a news aggregation that somehow did this in an open
and transparent way. They would disclose the reasons for all their decisions
to keep things honest. Finally a one stop shop to get a balance of stories and
opinions, both sides of the story, the actual truth about what is going on.
There are so many misinformed people today.

~~~
fao_
Voting record? Nope (At least not in the UK. I've heard it's the same for the
US, too). You can only get who they _say_ they voted for. Anything else is a
gross breach of several data protection laws.

Party affiliation could be faked in some way, but isn't an absolute thing any
way. I could easily see ~alt-right~ fascist journalists donating $1 to many
different left-wing parties to get a record of affiliation, and then undoing
those donations by writing opinionated articles against those parties.

~~~
throwanem
Party affiliation is a matter of public record in the US, as are the dates and
amounts of donations to political campaigns and action committees.

I haven't heard of any case in which anyone claiming affiliation with the
"alt-right" has used any of this information in order to attack anyone.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said on all sides; Brendan Eich's
politically motivated ouster from Mozilla, for example, tends to crop up
fairly regularly in discussions of such matters, as a good example of the sort
of behavior considered entirely apropos and indeed quite virtuous among
progressive _biens-pensants_.

~~~
fao_
I didn't say that _party affiliation_ isn't a matter of public record, I said
that _voting record_ isn't =/

I wouldn't label them as right wing ('biens-pensants'), but as post-left[0]

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-
left_anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy)

~~~
throwanem
You talked about faking party affiliation, though, so the point seemed
relevant.

If I read you correctly, you're describing the alt-right as post-left
anarchists. I think many who favor the label might quibble somewhat with that
analysis. At the very least, I'd be interested to see some elaboration on it.

~~~
fao_
The a̶l̶t̶-̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ fascist-right (This conversion is well supported by
comparing the two ideologies) generally support figures like Brendan Eich,
because he shares their viewpoints. He has a history of financing right-wing
parties.

After some more research, I was incorrect with the label 'post-left', however
you were extremely incorrect about the label 'a̶l̶t̶-̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ fascist-
right'.

The push to get Brendan Eich out of Mozilla was not done by people who use the
a̶l̶t̶-̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ fascist-right label, but rather by people in the LGBT sub-
community of left-wing (At least, as I understand it that was their overlap).
i.e. people who think that it was inappropriate for him to fund anti-
progressive legislation with money acquired from the open source movement.

~~~
throwanem
I can see that you feel strongly about the equation of "alt-right" with
"fascist", but beyond that I'm having some trouble grasping the point you're
trying to make. Are you taking me to mean "right-wing" by _bien-pensant_? The
term refers to orthodoxy of thought, not to any specific political tendency.

~~~
fao_
> I can see that you feel strongly about the equation of "alt-right" with
> "fascist",

It is not that I _feel_ strongly about it, it is that the 'alternative right'
ideology is close enough to various fascist ideologies to make the difference
almost none. The effort to get them known as 'alt-right' is political effort
to try and legitimise their various causes.

I _think_ that the philosophies are so old, and have been fought again, and
again, and again by people who persue freedom[0] enough to make the whole
argument ridiculously obsolete.

I was taking you to mean 'right-wing' by 'bien-pensant', because I was not
aware of the nuance in meaning.

[0]: Yes, I am aware of the various disparities in meaning of the word
'freedom'. In this sense I mean that isolating the rights of people based on
various characteristics of them (Say, their religion, sexuality, etc.) is
very, very wrong -- and the people who support this are against the very
tenets of personal freedom.

