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> And very little of what has been published in the past 15 years has been worthwhile. I'd say that's survivor bias. Take any 15 year time period and 98% of wh
by nottorp 3mo ago
> And very little of what has been published in the past 15 years has been worthwhile.
I'd say that's survivor bias. Take any 15 year time period and 98% of what has been published in any form will be crap.
We just remember only the 2%.
I might agree that the shift from art and entertainment to content creation has reduced that 2% to 1-1.5% though.
- devilbunny 3mo agoOne major shift has been the death of newspapers. When that was the primary way to get information about the world around you, it wasn’t just readers who benefited - it created a steady stream of capable, workmanlike writers. They weren’t literary geniuses, but they were capable of stringing together a few paragraphs of readable prose on a deadline. And they got paid for it; how many people can make a living off their Substack?
- tonymet 3mo agoEven peasant Civil War soldiers penned more expressive letters than Ivy League graduated journalists do today, so the source was even more broadly experienced. But you’re right about this one aspect.
- nottorp 2mo agoUnrelated to the topic, but maybe that was because they couldn't read or write and paid someone to do it for them?
- tonymet 3mo agoPossibly, but some eras are better than others. And given the volume we are producing, even at 2% it should eclipse all of the books you read in high school. Despite the volume, it’s nearly all garbage from what I can tell (at least what makes it through the marketing and awards pipelines)