Wisest of the crowds

Who you ask? Banksy is a UK based artist that has largely used the streets of London as his canvas. Yes, it is graffiti. But really it is so much more. His manifesto gets to the point. It is political and social satire simply executed. The process of having to create a piece of art in a handful of minutes means that the art has to be direct and to the point. Nothing is wasted or indulgent. Banksy is, I guess, reminding us about the state of things and the state of our humanity. Or he is just another opportunitist media whore and I am a sucker.

Banksy was the subject of an article in the New Yorker entitled “Banksy was here” by Lauren Collins. My favorite quote:

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked,” he once wrote. “Where the street was awash with a million colors and little phrases. . . . A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business.”

So the question is why am I saying be like Banksy? Well, his art is simply reminding us, if I may be so bold, to be ourselves again and to take back the world from the stories we are told by people we don’t care about. People, typically, that run crap brands that make promises like “eat me and you will be happy (but fat)” or “buy me and you will be beautiful (but poor)”. We own the world and we will think for ourselves. Bring a point of view and decide for yourself. Look around and see what is happening. Do you approve? Feels somehow like I am just waking up and feel like the one guy who wasn’t in on the joke.

Okay so I am not some lefty anarchist. In fact I am the opposite. I believe markets are an underutilized gift (clearly). I also believe certain institutions and government have a key role. But my hope is that the artificial value being extracted by incumbent businesses based on false promises - promises that most people have been brainwashed to believe in - are over. The internet is changing the way we do business and everyday people will benefit. Will you be a force of change or will you help enslave another generation of suckers?

Ardell DellaLoggia of the Rain City Guide pens one the best pieces I have seen regarding housing valuations at a hyper-local level. Entitled Home Valuation “Tools”, Ardell goes on to detail how to properly value a property and how to seperate the value of the land versus the value of the house…an important consideration, often overlooked, in expensive markets where most of the value is actually land (I am talking to you San Francisco!).  Her analysis is deep so get a pencil out but the basic takeaway is that if you can determine the cost of land, and make adjustments for slight differences, you should be able to determine which houses are overpriced and which ones are underpriced.  Ardell finds a home that was torn down after being purchased and so was able to get a solid market value for land. Getting everything apples to apples is critical - and not easy.
Her analysis is not only thorough, but also demonstrates that housing valuation is a highly complex problem that has variation from property to property. In other words, it is very difficult to model and so AVM’s will largely miss the nuances. Naturally we at My-Currency have built our site for this very reason - to enable the local experts to shine and to collect these nuances both in detail and as an aggregated value in our prediction technology we call CrowdValue.

People Magazine names Drew Barrymore as its most beautiful woman. What the bleeping $%^%$*!!! Unless People Magazine is looking beyond skin deep (which it should), this is absolutely off! (Drew, we love ya but come-on…)

Okay so this is a perfect example of why Wisdom of the Crowds is SOOOOOO much better than the “expert” paradigm that we are just starting to shake off. People Magazine probably has some complicated relationship with the various parts of the Hollywood ecosystems resulting in this warped beauty contest outcome.

Do I really care that what People Magazine thinks?? NO! This is just an example of why social media will persist - it is inherently democratic and therefore structurally superior in reflecting the current zeitgeist. We the People will decide for ourselves thank you very much.
People Magazine should either re-tune its pop culture antennae or consider changing its name. How does Studio Boss Magazine sound?

See the video at YouTube here