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I agree it is more about this kind of raising the bar than "lack of free time". I can't even stand watching college-level sports anymore because the quality of

I agree it is more about this kind of raising the bar than "lack of free time". I can't even stand watching college-level sports anymore because the quality of play is so low compared to getting the best 500 or 1000 people on the planet together in a professional league. That said, I think there's also room for a new kind of very-local active-not-passive activity to spring up. We already see the beginning of this with mass tourism and the rise of mass-amateur photography thanks to digital cameras and cell phones. Does anyone really think their picture of the Grand Canyon taken on their iPhone is better than the thousands of professional photos already taken of it? Yet people (me included!) continue to take pictures. I'm not really sure exactly what form it will take but that kind of "sure but I haven't personally experienced it" take feels like it might re-open the doors that were slammed shut by the kind of mass media effect you describe. Compound that with a kind of long-tail niche of hyperlocal activities and there's more scope for hope in the future. Sure things like theater and music have been are a lost cause. But maybe birdwatching in a nearby national park? Or groups that handle beach cleanup or beach erosion? Maybe we're just in the middle of a (long) transition toward those kind of things.

burntoutfire 6y ago
The photos of Grand Canyon require literally no time investment into building a skill. I think this is about as much (i.e. zero) as most people are willing to invest into totally non-productive hobbies right now. For instance, many people are still gardening - not only because they like it, but also because the product, a beautiful garden, makes the effort worth it for them. I doubt many people would still garden if we could just display an equivalent garden in their AR glasses - similarly to how almost no one plays the instrument now because we've got recordings of music.

burntoutfire 6y ago

The photos of Grand Canyon require literally no time investment into building a skill. I think this is about as much (i.e. zero) as most people are willing to invest into totally non-productive hobbies right now. For instance, many people are still gardening - not only because they like it, but also because the product, a beautiful garden, makes the effort worth it for them. I doubt many people would still garden if we could just display an equivalent garden in their AR glasses - similarly to how almost no one plays the instrument now because we've got recordings of music.