AI

Once upon a time, there was a profession that thrived. Highly valued professionals provided essential services that nobody else could, and charged for them accordingly. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, something new appeared, and things changed. People who devoted many years to perfecting their craft found themselves limited to few, mostly mundane things. The value of their work plummeted. So did their numbers. Nowadays, you can only do it if you either branch out and have other sources of income (or rich parents) or you actually want to be that starving artist.

This profession is called blacksmithing.

Before the industrial revolution, a smithy was the centre of every town and village that had one. A good sword cost a fortune; a chainmail shirt required months of producing tiny rings, then linking them by hand with tiny rivets. Today, there’s very little need for blacksmiths. A few get jobs at movie sets. Some become specialised at producing expensive, intricate swords or knives for collectors. There are still farriers who shoe horses, although mostly the horseshoes come from China. Very few are actually so good and educated that in the blacksmithing world they’re basically Gods, and can amass, oooh, up to 0.001% followers on Instagram than a Kardashian can. But really, who cares if my gate is one out of 50 thousand identical ones, when it costs me $500 rather than $5000? It’s not like anybody can tell.

Look at this guy. Holy monopoly, I so would.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t exist. What exists is “wide portrait of a young tattooed man in Iceland on a rainy day, wearing open leather biker jacket, longhaired, bearded, blonde; muscular, handsome, resting on a tough day, profile picture, stormy seas, documentary, oscar winning; perfect face, anatomy, eyes; skin detail, wrinkles, 8k; sharpened; high resolution, denoise”

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