Plumbata
Posts: 74
Joined: 12/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: lobeycat
Waaaa some busboy is digging a hole that I dreamed about last week, waaaaaaaa
Hahaha, funny and poignant, certainly, but the issue is deeper than that. If a show presented bottles in a way that would captivate the masses, then the message would surely be distorted, and this would likely happen:
Some people would trespass, dig holes in town without filling them, or tear up protected land in search of "treasure". It happens all the time now, and the authorities are starting to get more uptight as a result. If damages caused by dishonorable diggers get statewide or national attention ever, and the media portrays these diggers as grave robbers who leave shard filled booby traps for kids to fall into(which they would), then the hobby will not get any easier, to say the least. We don't need to allow precedents to be set that serve to mediocritize this hobby.
The competition would increase, and people searching for good places to dig would resort to leeching off of others, or just the downright rape of spots that others paid the full dues to find. This would make the good people less trusting, and the bad people would blend in with the crowd. This forum seems to be following that trend. Good diggers would keep more to themselves rather than risk sharing the joys of digging with someone who might totally screw them over. It is lame enough presently, and something like this would make it rather likely that someone dishonest in your area will come to the hobby and try to start exploiting you somehow. Anyone who has EVER in some subversive manner dug someone else's spot because they weren't skilled enough to find their own should not be considered a true digger. It is petty, stupid, and does not make the hobby more enjoyable as a whole. Way to go, losers. For the bulk of the diggers here though, such a shift would suck much of the joy and life out of digging.
And granted, many people would give up, but what about those who found some good stuff in their first hole? They would learn about bottles only as a requisite to getting the most profit, and they would be the ones who ransack areas, leave important shards, and make other diggers look bad.
As mentioned by others earlier, permissions would be denied more readily because of the schema these people would have of diggers. They would think that it's largely about the money, and they would feel insulted that you want to take advantage of them by taking their bottles without giving them satisfactory compensation. If, however, they knew what a pain it is to dig a 10 foot hole, and knew that the historical implications of some potential finds represent the true value and reason ya want to dig in their yard, then things would be better for those who dig privys. The owners might feel like they are a part of preserving history rather than just a free source of valuables to be exploited by diggers. All this depends upon how it is represented.
A benefit from the show would be increased demand for rare bottles you may own, and increased customers of all your duplicates and non-focus crap. The same would likely happen if the hobby was represented more tastefully though, and better people would start collecting, not people who just see the dollaz.
See, if you have someone who goes to church and believes in God because he feels it is the right thing, then that person, just like a digger who digs for a good reason, is a far better asset to the church than someone who attends because of the promise of a candybar or beer afterwards, which is analogous to the digger who digs solely for the money and not for the enjoyment of the process or the history. It would be cool if everyone dug, but not if they didn't try to appreciate the web of implications surrounding their finds. If a class of digger emerges that is only about the profits, then it will be a sad development, as they have no business in a hobby like this. They are exploiting the hard work of those in the 50s-70s who laid the groundwork and did the research which instilled in these things a history-rich life for us to appreciate. Profiteers would never waste their time trying to preserve history.
Neither I nor anyone else carries the selfish wish to have all the spots for ourselves; we are more worried about the condition of this hobby and its digger society. If the gov starts cracking down more, the diggers increase, the permissions decrease, and the dumps keep getting built over, then competition will alter the way newer diggers go about interacting with fellow hobbyists, in a decidedly negative way. Sooner or later the effective demise of the digging hobby will occur, but I can tell you that going the route you propose, lobey, will guarantee that it is sooner. I hear ya on not worrying about what might have been when you can enjoy what you have in the present, but what if you need to sense the past possibilities in order to enjoy the present manifestation? What if you can't enjoy the present when you can sense that what will follow it in the future may be degenerate and cheapened? I say don't fool yourself with the idea that the present is the only worthwhile reality. Life is too short to spend entirely within that narrow frame of mind. It took a broad and deep foundation of interactions at all levels in the past to make the present look the way it does to our senses, which is barely the tip of the tip of the iceberg of reality. Likewise, the present is the foundation for the future, and it should be our job to make sure that we build it strong and deep, and not disregard all of this so we can comfortably place our minds within, and experience the egocentric world of the present. What does our temporary happiness matter if our grandchildren can never know what it was like, nor what it meant to us and why it was important?
Whatever floats your boat, though. It is just a stupid TV show and in all likelihood it won't get much coverage and won't be replayed too often. People will forget about it or think they don't have what it takes, and probably not much will happen. The problem will occur when some producer makes a gripping show about bottle profits and gets it aired all over the US, but even then I'd just be better off digging than wasting everyone's time complaining about it on the internet. The world is going to hell and nothing I can do will slow down its downward spiral, so we might as well enjoy the ride, eh?
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Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest.
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RE: TV production company looking for real 'diggers' - 
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