Mix It Up

># Good artists copy; great artists steal > *Pablo Picasso* I don't know about this quote, as I don't think it is understood the way it was intended by Picasso. At least as I assume in my understanding of it. Firstly, I don't even think a good artist is one who copies these days, though it does take technical skill. A photocopier has the technical skill to copy, but it isn't an artist. And then the "great artists steal" portion seems to be taken these days to mean that someone steals the content of another, posts it, and attributes it to themselves. That is just theft, or plagiarism, not art. The stealing of a great artist might be in the idea, but the art comes in reinterpreting that idea in a way that no one else can. Lots of people have good ideas - very few of them have the art to develop them. ---  --- > Mix it up? The art that I have never liked, is the art where a host of images that are completely unrelated are crudely stuck together into the same image as a collage. It isn't imaginative, it isn't creative, it is just random pictures. Not great, not good, not very artful at all. A handful of stolen images, scattered across an image. Lame. > If you are going to steal, be artful. Not full of shit. It is good on Hive when people who might not have ideas, use ideas they find and create content from it, but if it doesn't bring in personal experience, it is just more stolen content. Art is art because of the personal journey that goes into its creation, which is why the AI content created from prompts that steal the artwork of others and mash it into some kind of collage, is so shit. It might look great, but it isn't art, because there is no personal journey in it. The only art in it comes from the art in the code that someone has written to be able to steal the thoughts of others. All it is, is a copy paste from a million other people's ideas, and mashed together. While many, many people will disagree with me, I believe we are becoming less creative as a species, because we are not only consuming from the same sources and having similar experiences, but also because we are becoming more reliant on the tools at our disposal that aren't increasing our capabilities, but replacing them. The technical term for the tools are *competitive cognitive artefacts.* and we are creating more and more of them until we get to the point that we can't do anything at all, and even our thinking will be severely limited. > Thoughtless consumers. Like cows being fed in the field, only to be milked or slaughtered. And a big reason for us to become reliant, is because it is easier and more convenient to use the tools, than to do the work ourselves. We are slaves to immediate convenience, even though it costs us long-term hardship. So much of what we do is in service to saving us time now, or making us feel good now, or making it easier now, with little thought to the future debt it creates. Debts in skill, debts in autonomy and freedom, and of course, financial debts. If you are going to have the gall to steal, make sure you do something creative with what you have stolen, otherwise it is just another tool that takes away your abilities. Generate something with what you have stolen and make it something you are proud of creating, rather than a reminder of how uncreative you actually are. > Own it. Whatever "it" is, make sure that as much as possible of what you do, is actually *yours.* When you look at whatever you post here on Hive, make sure that all of it is your own, even if the initial idea might have come from someone else, or somewhere else. >Be generative, not repetitive. But, I guess, it should come as no surprise how few people are actually generative, because as I said, I think we as a species are becoming less creative on average. So many people are reliant on the content they consume to trigger their imagination, that they have lost the ability to think for themselves. We have become amplifiers of inputs, rather than creators of outputs. So many people seem to believe that they are the ones thinking, when what they actually are, are thought thieves. Except what they have stolen, was left out with the intention to be stolen, and to shape the thoughts of the thief. > Don't think for yourself. It is too dangerous for those who have you under their control. Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ] --- **Be part of the Hive discussion.** - Comment on the topics of the article, and add your perspectives and experiences. - Read and discuss with others who comment and build your personal network - Engage well with me and others and put in effort **And you may be rewarded.** ---