# Do useless activities/objects have a value?



## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

I'm writing an essay for my philosophy class. I'd like to talk about it to make my ideas clearer.

Questions to add to debate :
-Does art have a value?
-Does the efficiency create the value? Therefore, do non-efficient humans have a value? Is human dignity more important that efficiency?


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## kunz (Apr 14, 2010)

art is hardly useless you do know peole make a living doing it right? 

as for people every one has some value


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## dillonbladez (Apr 14, 2010)

i guess you got stuck on that, eh?


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## miniGOINGS (Apr 14, 2010)

Do *useless *activities/objects have a *value*? 

If they're truly useless, they have no value.


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## Rinfiyks (Apr 14, 2010)

Define value.


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## 4Chan (Apr 14, 2010)

I like the Utilitarian point of view.

If it promotes happiness, and it has utility , then yes.

Otherwise, no.. the value of those other things aren't the same.


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## kunz (Apr 14, 2010)

now that i think of it define useless and value because if your talking about monetary value it would make a big difference


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

Really old people have no value at all.
Hadicapped people too. Yet, we keep them alive as a burden to our society. We give value to who is unefficient and useless.

Art IS useless. It has no use, does not fallow a purpose that it will reach.
But, it has a value.

The question is not simple, if you give a simple answer, it will most likely be wrong or incomplete. I would not be there if the answer would be as simple as : useless = no value.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

kunz said:


> art is hardly useless you do know peole make a living doing it right?
> 
> *as for people every one has some value*


Nobody said you cannot make money from useless things.

As for ''everybody have a value'', it is a quite new way of thinking in our society. You must think larger that now. Slavery is the perfect counter-argument for that.


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## Rinfiyks (Apr 14, 2010)

DaijoCube said:


> Nobody said you cannot make money from useless things.



When someone says "that thing is useless", most of the time they mean that it's useless for the goal that they are trying to achieve.

When you can make money from something, it is no longer useless in a broad sense. Almost everything has _some_ kind of use.


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## teller (Apr 14, 2010)

DaijoCube said:


> Art IS useless. It has no use, does not fallow a purpose that it will reach.
> But, it has a value.




Art serves to inspire, to provoke thought, or to decorate. How is this useless?

Without some clear definitions, you are going to include and exclude all kinds of weird things in a foggy soup of ideas.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

teller said:


> DaijoCube said:
> 
> 
> > Art IS useless. It has no use, does not fallow a purpose that it will reach.
> ...



The thing is there is no real definition for those...
I doubt the artist, when making a sculpture is thinking about how this kind of curves will provoke people.

That's what it does, but that's not the purpose of it.

It's very confusing, I know


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## 4Chan (Apr 14, 2010)

Sounds like sophistry to me.

Since the philosophy thread has shown, Mister Teller has experience with philosophy. =/


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## Thomas09 (Apr 14, 2010)

I beleive that there are no useless activites or objects in the first place. One man's garbage is another's treasure.


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## CubesOfTheWorld (Apr 14, 2010)

Art SUCKS! The only time it matters is when Chris Bird is doing it. I give art a 1/10.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

Thomas09 said:


> I beleive that there are no useless activites or objects in the first place. One man's garbage is another's treasure.



That is a part of the conclusion. Since value is something that human give to things, it changes with location, personality and time.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

CubesOfTheWorld said:


> Art SUCKS! The only time it matters is when Chris Bird is doing it. I give art a 1/10.



You don't know art, or art is not what you see when you think you see art.


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## 4Chan (Apr 14, 2010)

>the conclusion. Since value is something that human give to things, it changes with location, personality and time.

Sounds like you've got your essay.

@cubesoftheworld, stop that, you're being ignorant and a nub.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 14, 2010)

4Chan said:


> >the conclusion. Since value is something that human give to things, it changes with location, personality and time.
> 
> Sounds like you've got your essay.
> 
> @cubesoftheworld, stop that, you're being ignorant and a nub.



I already have 1300 words  Yep, that is the part where I justify the coexistence of the two answers created by the ''problem'' of the question.

(Even though I'm not that bad in english, I find it very hard to talk philo in english )


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## 4Chan (Apr 14, 2010)

Ooooh, sounds like a good essay, mister DaijoCube.~


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## kprox1994 (Apr 15, 2010)

DaijoCube said:


> Really old people have no value at all.
> *Hadicapped* people too. Yet, we keep them alive as a burden to our society. We give value to who is unefficient and useless.


Do you have any idea how ignorant and rood you are being? What if you said that in from of your grandparents? Do you think they have no value? Just because someone is old doesn't mean they aren't valuable. What if they happen be very intelligent. Same thing with *HANDICAPPED*, sure some of them can't do much, but they still offer something to society, they give people something more to explore the wonders of the word and how they act. And many handicapped people can do many other things, just because you are handicapped doesn't mean you can't do anything, there are many handicapped people that have offered a lot to society.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 15, 2010)

kprox1994 said:


> DaijoCube said:
> 
> 
> > Really old people have no value at all.
> ...



You wanted to find a problem in what I said.

I said really old people. The ones that can't eat by themselves anymore. The ones that are prisoners of their bodies.

As for the handicapped people, I'm not saying the ones that can talk and have a missing arm. I mean REALLY handicapped persons that are almost vegetables.


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## DT546 (Apr 15, 2010)

art has value if it provokes feelings and emotions in other, because in many examples, photography has the power to start movements and possibly make a big, if not huge difference on goverment and/or society. 
while i agree that some old people are of little value to society as a whole, they are important and sometimes essential to raising the next generation, could you honestly say that your own grandparents have never taught you anything about later life, or inspired to be passionate about something.
also, stephen hawking can donothing for himself, he is essentialy a vegetable, but he has made some of the biggest contributions to our understanding of blackholes, although he has been wrong on the odd occasion, but that's a whole other disscusion. if a soldier comes back from war severly wounded, wouldn't he be a living embodiment of all that is wrong with war, and maybe even get more people tojoin anti-war campaigns and play some part in making peace, surely bettering society in a positive way has value, so by that reasoning the only people who have no value are those that are jobless by choice, or comatose, or as you said prisoners to their own body


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## koreancuber (Apr 15, 2010)

No, the Bump thread has no value.


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## Feryll (Apr 15, 2010)

DaijoCube said:


> kprox1994 said:
> 
> 
> > DaijoCube said:
> ...


That belongs in the euthanasia thread 

But if they don't want to die, it's because they have done enough usefulness to earn some years of retirement and being useless.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 15, 2010)

DT546 said:


> art has value if it provokes feelings and emotions in other, because in many examples, photography has the power to start movements and possibly make a big, if not huge difference on goverment and/or society.
> while i agree that some old people are of little value to society as a whole, they are important and sometimes essential to raising the next generation, could you honestly say that your own grandparents have never taught you anything about later life, or inspired to be passionate about something.



I could honestly say they did not. But, that is not the point. I'm talking about really old people. I, personally, would not want to become this old, only eat potatoes, not be able to remember a thing...
A photo is not necessarily art.


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## DaijoCube (Apr 15, 2010)

Feryll said:


> DaijoCube said:
> 
> 
> > kprox1994 said:
> ...


At the point that I'm talking about, it's when they are not able to tell you if they want to die or not.


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## Chapuunka (Apr 15, 2010)

I think the biggest problem with this question is that value is relative, depending on the person. This has already been mentioned, but I agree 100%.

As for the "old people have no value," they can teach and lead others, even if not physically. "Vegetable" people can have some value, depending on how you interpret it: people who take care of them have a job and are making money off them, and some people may be inspired to work against "vegetable" diseases, giving them another goal to work for (and possible monetary value).

Though this is really low value to most people, I'd think most people could see _some_ value.


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