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I don't think that the author has fully outlined the case for cultural anorexia. If I was going to try and prove the premise: that people are now shedding a wi

I don't think that the author has fully outlined the case for cultural anorexia. If I was going to try and prove the premise: that people are now shedding a wide cultural "diet" for one consisting of a few mass produced, single sourced things. But I don't see evidence of that. If anything its the reverse. What I will concede is that locality of the cultural "sources" have gone. You're not going to find your next life changing art exhibit at the local gallery, you'll find it online, and then seek it out in person.

lkrubner 5y ago
"for one consisting of a few mass produced, single sourced things." Clay Shirky made the point that something like the Internet expands the total number of offerings available to one person while decreasing the total number of offerings available overall. He hints at this in his essay on powerlaws: https://web.archive.org/web/20060208093032/http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060208093032/http://www.shirky... He went into greater detail in a later essay, but that later essay now seems to be offline.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > Internet expands the total number of offerings available to one person while decreasing the total number of offerings available overall. This argument makes much more sense to me, and I like that the author has actual plotted their idea using some sort of data, which is much more convincing than hand waving.
paulcole 5y ago
> You're not going to find your next life changing art exhibit at the local gallery, you'll find it online, and then seek it out in person. But in the past the only reason you ever found your next life changing art exhibit at the local gallery was because the local gallery was your only option.