I expect any tests to show unambiguously that it’s “not being replaced at all and citations[/mentions] chaotically swirling”. If I understand Evans correctly, these were all random eminent figures he picked, not selected to be falling out of fashion—and they do seem to be a pretty broad sample of the “old prestigious standard names” space.
The stand mixer is a clever analogy; I didn’t previously have experience with the separation thing.
I presume you’ve seen Is Clickbait Destroying Our General Intelligence?, and probably Hanson’s cultural evolution / cultural drift frame. I wonder if you’re familiar with Callard’s Distant Signals paradigm [ transcript available on episode page ], which I think is the most illuminating of the three.
I expect any tests to show unambiguously that it’s “not being replaced at all and citations[/mentions] chaotically swirling”. If I understand Evans correctly, these were all random eminent figures he picked, not selected to be falling out of fashion—and they do seem to be a pretty broad sample of the “old prestigious standard names” space.
The stand mixer is a clever analogy; I didn’t previously have experience with the separation thing.
I presume you’ve seen Is Clickbait Destroying Our General Intelligence?, and probably Hanson’s cultural evolution / cultural drift frame. I wonder if you’re familiar with Callard’s Distant Signals paradigm [ transcript available on episode page ], which I think is the most illuminating of the three.
Besides just the cost of ~instantaneous ~omnicast communication dropping to ~zero, I see a role for the fall of the gold standard in all this. See e.g. U.S. per capita energy usage since ~1970, international fertility since ~1970. My theory [ which I really need to make a more legible graphic for ] is that when people don’t “own their money” and have to track the effects of distant inflation-adjusts from the Fed, inflation volatility [ the destructive macroeconomic thing this OP on /r/badeconomics is saying couldn’t possibly be happening due to the fall of the gold standard ] goes way up. Incentives in the market for ideas are ultimately material [yes, virtual status goods influence material wealth, but it also goes the other way around], so the market for materials influences the market for ideas, and vice versa, in a vicious spiral of decline. Is the theory.