Rayvon wrote: AllSeeingSkink wrote: I think people way overstate that sort of stuff. Sure, things change over the years but I think peoples' capacity to think (or in some peoples' cases, not to think) is relatively constant.
Agree that the capacity to think is constant, but the desire or need to think more than making basic decisions, Im not so sure.
Given the sharp rise in production of creative goods you see in the "common man" through Kickstarter et al., that is people whose job is often not in a creative industry but are starting a new career as such, that is a little difficult to believe. People said the same thing about TV. I suspect that most folks highly over estimate the amount of creative and deep thinking that anyone ever does, especially in the past.
You see that at play in measures of political knowledge. People complain that folks don't understand government or politics etc., that previous knowledge and engagement was much higher. Then you see actual survey data spreading
from the early-mid 20th century to the later part, and pretty much no one knew anything ever (citation in link). Arguably things are more complicated now and so the gap between what people know and what they would need to know to be "fully informed" is ever increasing, but it hasn't been a rosy picture since people slept one hut over from their representatives.
And I would not be too suspicious of the number of economists that are on the forum and in this thread. Turns out a job that requires a taste for model building and design, system analysis and a lot of numbers lends itself nicely to a hobby that rewards similar behaviors
