Waste of resources?

[dasmoth]

If you enjoy woodturning, is there any chance at all you can use these classes to try your hand at throwing pots on a wheel?  Conceptually quite similar to a lathe, except that you're working with a plastic material.  And perhaps more likely to yield something you'd like to eat your breakfast out of  .

In any case, I'd rate pottery as a pretty important step in the development of humans as a technological species.  Perhaps not quite up there with metallurgy, but not so very far behind.  There's something to be said for experiencing such a fundamental technological innovation yourself (or so my inner geek says, anyway!).

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

No that would be pointless aswell. I already know that
I think you could be taught to relax more and take on whats said. Not everything you read or that you think you should think is fact.
Its people with a different thought pattern to other people that make the world better and different.

You appear to think that just because something is your opinion, it's fact. You're wrong. Now, I have more important worries in my life at the moment than teaching a pretentious and patronising teenager the difference between fact and opinion, so forgive me if I bow out of this conversation, but before I go, I suggest you do some reading about the theory behind occupational therapy and occupational deprivation - you might learn something.

[John Henry]

You appear to think that just because something is your opinion, it's fact.

Ahh, teenagers... gawd bless 'em.

I wish I knew as much now as I did then.

[giropaul]

No that would be pointless aswell. I already know that
I think you could be taught to relax more and take on whats said. Not everything you read or that you think you should think is fact.
Its people with a different thought pattern to other people that make the world better and different.

You appear to think that just because something is your opinion, it's fact. You're wrong. Now, I have more important worries in my life at the moment than teaching a pretentious and patronising teenager the difference between fact and opinion, so forgive me if I bow out of this conversation, but before I go, I suggest you do some reading about the theory behind occupational therapy and occupational deprivation - you might learn something.

Actually, on reflection, I think I personally had the purest ideas when I was a 6th former.

Then life polluted my perceptions and values.

Kirst - I guess you had idealistic views of, e.g. occupational therapy, when you decided that this was the thing you were going to dedicate your life to? Are these views still as uncluttered? Has a world of targets, budgets and "resource management" changed you.

I think that maybe teenage certainty is a delicate flower to be admired and nurtured before the bindweed of life suffocates it.

[Butterfly]

1Gear, why are you studying art? I largely agree with you, but (this is the crucial bit) I didn't study art! There is something to be said for those who are going to inflict their creations upon us getting some practice in, but you clearly don't get it, so why not study something that you do get? Drama, childcare, PE, home economics (this really isn't pointless!), music... there are so many things that could be more your thing . It's never too late to decide to do something you enjoy. I've spent my life doing what I like - I have few qualifications, but a job at which I excel, but that will never make me rich. There are very few days when I don't want to go to work - I love my job . However, I started at around your age choosing to do what I wanted rather than what would get me ahead. Happy is better than any qualifications. Do what makes you happy. Studying things that don't make you happy is a waste of resources.

[Euan Uzami]

Ben, if i was at a place where i didnt have a maker of fancy pots, and needed a pot id make a pot. There would be a point to making that pot, because i needed one.
Some, and quite a few of the pots and other clay work ive seen is pointless. There is no point to it.
Same with sculptures just dumped in a field.
Whats the point in that? Whats the point in a sculpture? Gets made with loads of material and hard work. Transported with heavy machinary, which pollutes the world more, to get it to some field. Then it gets surrounded by loads of sheep and sheep shit.

OK, right - if you don't understand anything else, just try to follow this:
The pot that you made is pointless *in the current situation*. But if the situation changed and there WASN'T a maker of fancy pots available round the corner (e.g. asda  ), then it WOULDN'T be pointless. So therefore, it's pointlessness is *conditional* on there being a better alternative available.
So it could be true to say that it is pointless at the moment, but it is not always pointless.
Therefore, it isn't pointless by its very nature, it is only pointless as a consequence of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Do you see that?

Could be worse. Could be surrounded by cows. Another pointless thing.

So at least it has an animal with a use surrounding the pointless work

cows aren't really pointless, only their heads are pointless. If someone could invent (read: genetically modify) a double-arsed cow, then they'd be onto a winner, they'd be a millionaire without even having to bother going on dragon's den, the dragons would be beating a path to their door.

[Julian]

Jaded do you think theres no use to pottery aswell?
I do have more english lessons then what i do with 3D lessons, so its ok.
Hard to beleive i do English Language isnt it? Mon petite pois

Keep taking those English lessons, you'll pass the Eleven Plus eventually. 

[Charlotte]

Hello 1gear, my name's Charlotte.  I'd just like to tell you that I'm enjoying this thread hugely 

This is my bike:





What do you think of it?  Do you like it?

[Wowbagger]

Can we have a new thread called "Pots of the Day?"

I'm amazed that this thread has reached page 6 without someone quoting Oscar Wilde. What's the matter with you all? Where's your education?

All art is quite useless

There, that's better.

Charlotte, I think your bike is pants. Or should that be "I think your bike are pants"?

Ackshully, I like it, it is good.

[Moloko]

Nice bike. The tree is totally pointless, as well as the grass, and all of the sky.
Oh, and the camera is pointless too, as well as my opinion.

[rogerzilla]

Bars are a bit high 

[Jaded]

Nice bike. The tree is totally pointless, as well as the grass and all of the sky.
Oh, and the camera is pointless too, as well as my opinion.

and is there cow poo still for tea?

[John Henry]

Chain's a bit pointless.

I like those lugs. They're both pointless and pointed (see what I did there?). And the pointless two-tone paint job is a beaut.

[andrewc]

Charlotte has a beautiful frame..... 

[1gear]

You are taking the pointless thing to the extreme now!
Ben, your wrong.
If you need something, like a pot, and you make it yourself instead of going and buying one, there is a point to it. You have made something that YOU need, so its not pointless. Not to you anyway.
Charllotte, im on my mobile so cant see your picture just yet. Ill judge it when i get onto a computer later.
Cows are quite pointless though. They create so much methane(40 party balloons a day) that they are polluting the world. Their fault for global warming maybe?
And we dont eat dairy cows do we?
Althought not all are pointless, the ones in Hoveringham that are pretty much kept as pets ARE pointless. They dont produce milk(they are big bad ass bulls. Some long haired flavour of cow. Highland maybe?) and dont get eaten.
Whats the point in that.
And goats?
My god, one thing just leads onto another

[Rig of Jarkness]

The Highland coos that are kept near us have a point, in fact they have two very sharp ones each 

[Tim Hall]

Late to this thread.

Two things:

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." - Mark Twain.

And Mseries' post on page 3 nearly caused me to wet myself.

[Moloko]

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Maybe we should just make a list of what's not pointless and get 1gear to check it for us.

[dasmoth]

These appear to be pretty-much pointless.

[redshift]

  Snort!

Ben, your wrong.

Your wrong what?

Cows are quite pointless though. They create so much methane(40 party balloons a day) that they are polluting the world. Their fault for global warming maybe?

The party balloon being the internationally recognised SI unit of variable volume, perhaps? a bit like the area of Wales being the SI unit of lost forest? or units of bigness equivalent to London buses?*

My god, one thing just leads onto another

Yup, keep going - you'll get the joke eventually...   


*Ah, but which London buses?  is that yer good-old-fashioned double decker or yer new-fangled bendybus? enquiring minds need to know.

[1gear]

Hello 1gear, my name's Charlotte.  I'd just like to tell you that I'm enjoying this thread hugely 

This is my bike:





What do you think of it?  Do you like it?

Lovely bike.
Its got a point. Hang it on your wall and it could be art with a point
Good to look at, and you can take it down and ride it

[Moloko]

Lovely bike.
Its got a point. Hang it on your wall and it could be art with a point
Good to look at, and you can take it down and ride it

You may have gone from zero to hero in just one day.  

[tonycollinet]

All art is quite useless

But not necessarily pointless 

Actually this thread has fascinated me. Like much I read here, it has challenged my own (pre?)conceptions and behaviours. Specifically, in this case, how I, as an old git (And I am increasingly reaching the conclusion that that is what I am) react and relate to the young.

And 1gear, before you misinterpret, and get all big headed about it - it is not what you have written that has challenged me, but what others have written that challenge my reaction to what you have written.   

[tonycollinet]

Lovely bike.
Its got a point. Hang it on your wall and it could be art with a point
Good to look at, and you can take it down and ride it

1gear - I am genuinely interested. Looking at the lugwork on the bike - do you see a point (apart from the obvious), or do you see it as pointless, and a waste of resources (extra metal, and extra work) to create lugs which are decorative rather than just being purely functional?