Why friction is necessary for growth

It is even more worrying that what is defined here as "growth", and in other contexts can be interpreted as "quality", when absent or reduced, leads to a vicious cycle of ever-decreasing quality over time.

Contemporary novels, especially those depicting modern times, are mostly terrible. I recently read a review of one such modern novel in the Financial Times—-the review was very promising—-and decided to buy and read it. Meanwhile, I am listening to audiobooks of classic, mostly forgotten novels from the last 100 years in my native language. What a difference! One could say that there is a selection effect at work, and that would be fair, but the prose, ideas, and creativity are of such superior quality in those classics compared to modern novels that I wonder how and why people read them. Some of the classics are certainly dated, but you can still understand their purpose, their vision.

I see the same phenomenon in music and movies, most of which are pseudo-creative works designed to make money in the short term. Movies and music that is quickly forgotten, shared on social media for a couple of weeks and then gone, forever. Although it may be natural to say “kids these days,” I have the impression that the easiest fruits to pick in terms of creativity have been picked in the last 100-150 years, during which more people have participated in creative fields, and in the end, there is not much else to say or experiment with. I mean, one of the most popular film genres today is the biopic, which often features people who are still alive or have recently passed away. In these films, screenwriters and directors sometimes feel the need to tweak certain facts and timelines to make the whole endeavor a little more creative.

I recently commented on a video in which one of today's most popular singers did not sing during their concert, but simply danced (badly, half-naked) with playback doing 90% of the work. Some were surprised by my astonishment, saying that this is how concerts by these new artists are today. That's the vicious circle: people don't even expect singers to sing anymore.

Technology, on the other hand, continues, at least for now, to push the boundaries.

You’re probably just reading / listening to the wrong stuff.

Go sit through a dozen escape artist podcast episodes, and find a top metal band in whatever subgenre you’re complaining about.

(Eg: swing/disco -> Diablo Swing Orchestra, classical/electronic -> igorrr, folk -> finntroll/faun, pop->poppy’s “I disagree”, musicals -> amaranthe, rock -> sumo cyco, variety -> babymetal, middle eastern -> bloodywood, etc.)

The comment is fairly condescending, and I don't think it is up to the standards of HN.

Of course, you may like whatever you want, but if you compare Pink Floyd and Zeppelin to the current landscape, I don't think we find an equivalent quality and vision today. And not because current musicians (outside the playback- and autotune-heavy artists of today) are bad, but because of the hanging fruit I was referring to.

Movies today? Books? I am not finding great quality, but it is possible that, compared to others, I have a more refined palate.

I always say that time is the best filter.

In the moment, you can be easily mistaken that something is good, or the best even if the marketing team of that something is really going hard at your wallet. But the only way, and they know it too well, to assess quality is to simply...wait and see later.

If you need a proof, here's one : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookshop_Memories The "it was better before" is not a recent phenomenon, I think.

In fact, I wrote about the selection effect, but that "it was better before" is not holding up in my example, at least the one I had in mind.

Some decades in the past were not particularly good in terms of literary output (I am very familiar with literature in my native language and know much more than average in two or three other languages), but the last decade has been incredibly poor. And I suspect that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find original ideas. As time goes by, the average technical competence of artists almost inevitably increases, but the same cannot necessarily be said for creativity, for example.

>And I suspect that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find original ideas. That is a bias in itself, as originality should naturally grow with the number of people alive. The best time to catch one in a million ideas should be when we are more and more billions, no ?

No, they are different things. Physicists of today are technically much better than those of 50 years ago; basketball players, soccer players, musicians, they are all better, on average, than their colleagues of decades ago, for obvious reasons.

I was imprecise when using the term "creativity"--what I wanted to say is that the human experience is varied but not infinite. How many more Mission Impossible, special agent, whatever, can be perceived as "original"? The interesting part of the James Bond movie is who is the next Bond, the costume, maybe the Bond-girl or the location, but the plot is of very little interest; it is all already watched.

I have seen 2,000 kidnappings in movies, one million people dying in all sorts of ways (and never seen a shooting irl), I don't know how many affairs, failed marriages, aliens coming and going I have watched; it becomes increasingly difficult over time to propose plots and ways of narrating that don't evoke a "already seen" feeling.

After the peplum films of the 1950s, there was a hiatus in terms of ancient Rome settings. Then came Gladiator, Rome, and Spartacus, which were exciting. Now, when you watch Gladiator 2, it feels like you've seen it before, at least to me. Maybe if they stopped making these films for a couple of decades, they would become novel again.