-- Median age in the U.S. was ⇐ 30 throughout the 20th century, until, roughly, the start of the 1980s. Today it’s 39. The median age of white Americans is now 44.5! Insofar as more music, advertising, and fiction is written with an older audience in mind, and insofar as people’s preferences tend to shift towards quiesence as they age, I think this would contribute to the “ambient cultural sense” of stagnation that you describe. (Of course, it’s also possible that a widespread belief that the future will be just like the present has made people have less kids, thus causing the median age to rise, but that seems likely to be a less sizeable causal channel than the other way around).
Some pretty important stuff has happened since the 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring, and the political rise of China were arguably bigger geopolitical deals than most 20th century events pre-WWI, in the interwar period, and during the Cold War. I’d argue it’s a change in the audience, not in the things happening, that’s made the changes these have had in our world seem relatively “subtler and easier to ignore”.
-- Somewhat relatedly, more financial power is in the hands of the geriatric. This paper has some fascinating data. In 1983, the mean net worth of Americans 75 and older was 5% greater than the mean for all Americans; in 2022 it was reportedly 58% greater… meanwhile, the relative amount of wealth in the belonging to young and middle-aged Americans fell precipitately; people aged 45-54 went from having an average net worth 53% above mean in 1983, to 9% below mean in 2022! (To be clear, the paper points to the elderly having higher-valued stock portfolios as a key cause of this wealth composition shift, and it’s possible there’s some incumbency advantage behind this which exists as part of the thing that’s made the world feel like it’s moving more slowly...).
An outsized amount of wealth in people well past the age of child-rearing might mean that political and financial power now caters more towards risk-averse, pro-status quo initiatives. (The elderly also participate far more in elections than young people [a truism of American politics that’s only slightly less true since the 2020 election], and the AARP has played a considerable role in sinking the political viability of reforms such as the implementation of a nationwide V.A.T.). There is already significant evidence to suggest that an increase in the fraction of elderly residents in a region is associated with less per-child education spending. It wouldn’t surprise me if a bunch of political incentives which originate from the center of power skewing older have additive effects, such that it ends up being outside the overton window to believe something like transformative AI is something worth paying serious attention or effort… (the undertaking of infrastructure investment and the meticulous setup of regulatory regimes are actions that tend disproportionately favor the young… also, by virtue of understanding technology better, the young are far more likely to recognize the need for these things).
To be clear, these intergenerational wealth dynamics may be particular to the United States (and perhaps Western Europe), but given the country’s outsized cultural power, I imagine the world is feeling the effects of this generational competition for cultural power in the U.S., in that the window for transformative technological change might seem as if it were in the past. (Even if the cultural ‘vibe’ feels much more youthful in parts of Eastern Europe and South Asia with still healthy economies, it’s probably the case those countries still look to the U.S. for leadership on matters of technology.)
Ironically, it may be that the amassing of cultural power in an older population, compelled by the greater financial weight in the hands of the 80-somethings who were probably the original audience for 1950s sci-fi, has been the anergy that’s dulled our cultural receptors from detecting the winds of change.
A couple of hypotheses as to why:
-- Median age in the U.S. was ⇐ 30 throughout the 20th century, until, roughly, the start of the 1980s. Today it’s 39. The median age of white Americans is now 44.5! Insofar as more music, advertising, and fiction is written with an older audience in mind, and insofar as people’s preferences tend to shift towards quiesence as they age, I think this would contribute to the “ambient cultural sense” of stagnation that you describe. (Of course, it’s also possible that a widespread belief that the future will be just like the present has made people have less kids, thus causing the median age to rise, but that seems likely to be a less sizeable causal channel than the other way around).
Some pretty important stuff has happened since the 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring, and the political rise of China were arguably bigger geopolitical deals than most 20th century events pre-WWI, in the interwar period, and during the Cold War. I’d argue it’s a change in the audience, not in the things happening, that’s made the changes these have had in our world seem relatively “subtler and easier to ignore”.
-- Somewhat relatedly, more financial power is in the hands of the geriatric. This paper has some fascinating data. In 1983, the mean net worth of Americans 75 and older was 5% greater than the mean for all Americans; in 2022 it was reportedly 58% greater… meanwhile, the relative amount of wealth in the belonging to young and middle-aged Americans fell precipitately; people aged 45-54 went from having an average net worth 53% above mean in 1983, to 9% below mean in 2022! (To be clear, the paper points to the elderly having higher-valued stock portfolios as a key cause of this wealth composition shift, and it’s possible there’s some incumbency advantage behind this which exists as part of the thing that’s made the world feel like it’s moving more slowly...).
An outsized amount of wealth in people well past the age of child-rearing might mean that political and financial power now caters more towards risk-averse, pro-status quo initiatives. (The elderly also participate far more in elections than young people [a truism of American politics that’s only slightly less true since the 2020 election], and the AARP has played a considerable role in sinking the political viability of reforms such as the implementation of a nationwide V.A.T.). There is already significant evidence to suggest that an increase in the fraction of elderly residents in a region is associated with less per-child education spending. It wouldn’t surprise me if a bunch of political incentives which originate from the center of power skewing older have additive effects, such that it ends up being outside the overton window to believe something like transformative AI is something worth paying serious attention or effort… (the undertaking of infrastructure investment and the meticulous setup of regulatory regimes are actions that tend disproportionately favor the young… also, by virtue of understanding technology better, the young are far more likely to recognize the need for these things).
To be clear, these intergenerational wealth dynamics may be particular to the United States (and perhaps Western Europe), but given the country’s outsized cultural power, I imagine the world is feeling the effects of this generational competition for cultural power in the U.S., in that the window for transformative technological change might seem as if it were in the past. (Even if the cultural ‘vibe’ feels much more youthful in parts of Eastern Europe and South Asia with still healthy economies, it’s probably the case those countries still look to the U.S. for leadership on matters of technology.)
Ironically, it may be that the amassing of cultural power in an older population, compelled by the greater financial weight in the hands of the 80-somethings who were probably the original audience for 1950s sci-fi, has been the anergy that’s dulled our cultural receptors from detecting the winds of change.