[ExI] it was the best times, it was the best of times

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Wed Oct 9 23:41:24 UTC 2013


On Oct 9, 2013 1:23 PM, "Tomasz Rola" <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> Judging by contents of contemporary movies, we are
> already in deep crisis - the mean density of intellectual content is
> dropping down like dead bird, at least this is how I see it. If what we
> see is really what people want to see, we are dead man walking.

This is a well known error in perception.  You see much crap today, yet the
surviving works of the past - and your memories of them - are generally not
crap, therefore the past must have been better, right?  Actually, wrong.

For the most part, the best of the past will be preserved, the rest
recycled and destroyed.  This leaves little evidence it was there.
Likewise, memories focus on the important - often including good or
personally bad (which movies rarely are) - and delete the (literally)
forgettable dross.  (Many children of the 1980s remember the Transformers.
How many remember the Gobots, especially without prompting?)

Further, as a person matures, the unsubtle storytelling techniques that
amused them in their youth wear out their novelty, and further works with
the same objective quality are subjectively perceived to be more mundane,
boring, et cetera.  (There are ways to fight this effect, but it takes
effort to pick out and potentially enjoy the novel components.)

See how each generation expresses an opinion that the one or two after it
have no taste in literature/music/culture, going back every generation to
ancient Greece.
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