Why is the world losing color?

It's not "losing" color.

At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments.

But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone.

Modern taste is more about more neutral-colored foundations with color accents. Don't paint a whole room green -- have a gorgeous green plant that stands out all the more against its neutral background. Don't paint a whole wall orange -- have a beautiful orange-hued piece of art on the wall. It's just more tasteful to use color as one element, along with size, shape, texture, and so forth. Making it the main element in everything is just overdoing it. It's bad design.

I don't want constant "riotous color", as the article puts it, in my home, or my workplace, or while I'm driving. It's visually exhausting.

> But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone.

This is meaningless.

"When many things are different, everything is the same".

Its a sentence that seems meaningful, but actually is not. It's just abstraction without generalizing.

"000000000000000000000000000" is a sequence just as something as "H90F3iJsjo$(4Opla1zSKX@)!2k" because in the second sequence they're different and in the first they're all the same? Great, you just discovered sets and the axiom of choice.

We are literally discussing the difference within the sets! Obviously the second sequence is more diverse.

First, I thought your argument was going somewhere but then it took this turn.

I would agree with the first part and then argue that before the synthetics-revolution things were mostly just shades of browns(which is a type of dark unsaturated orange). Except for the upper classes who could afford the expensive colors. Now that color is cheap and normalized, it lost (some) of its allure. Not being able to signal your wealth anymore.

Now adding just a conjecture of mine; Now that 'clean' is still somewhat more expensive(upper classes still being able to afford more cleanliness by using other peoples labor), minimal textures(not literal textures but design-wise) are more attractive because it displays your wealth. Plain-white being the easiest to see blemishes on. With black being easier look unblemished. Also, 'tasteful' color arrangements will still signal your class somewhat due to requiring cultural knowledge.

I'm going to change your first example. Can you see what stands out?

"00000000qq000000000I0000000"

Now I'm going to change your second example, also by three characters. Can you see what stands out?

"H90F3iJsjo$(4ORma1sSKX@)!2k"

Is that a clearer example of what I'm trying to say? In the second example, because every symbol stands out, no symbol stands out. Or to put it more technically, noise has overwhelmed any signal.

But you're contrasting chaotic use of many different colors with neutrality, and arguing for environments with very little color rather than well-coordinated color; you argued above that color was just one element along with size, shape, texture etc., as if these qualities were mutually exclusive and design should only emphasize one at any given time.