In fact, I wrote about the selection effect, but that "it was better before" is not holding up in my example, at least the one I had in mind.
Some decades in the past were not particularly good in terms of literary output (I am very familiar with literature in my native language and know much more than average in two or three other languages), but the last decade has been incredibly poor. And I suspect that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find original ideas. As time goes by, the average technical competence of artists almost inevitably increases, but the same cannot necessarily be said for creativity, for example.
>And I suspect that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find original ideas.
That is a bias in itself, as originality should naturally grow with the number of people alive. The best time to catch one in a million ideas should be when we are more and more billions, no ?
No, they are different things. Physicists of today are technically much better than those of 50 years ago; basketball players, soccer players, musicians, they are all better, on average, than their colleagues of decades ago, for obvious reasons.
I was imprecise when using the term "creativity"--what I wanted to say is that the human experience is varied but not infinite. How many more Mission Impossible, special agent, whatever, can be perceived as "original"?
The interesting part of the James Bond movie is who is the next Bond, the costume, maybe the Bond-girl or the location, but the plot is of very little interest; it is all already watched.
I have seen 2,000 kidnappings in movies, one million people dying in all sorts of ways (and never seen a shooting irl), I don't know how many affairs, failed marriages, aliens coming and going I have watched; it becomes increasingly difficult over time to propose plots and ways of narrating that don't evoke a "already seen" feeling.
After the peplum films of the 1950s, there was a hiatus in terms of ancient Rome settings. Then came Gladiator, Rome, and Spartacus, which were exciting. Now, when you watch Gladiator 2, it feels like you've seen it before, at least to me. Maybe if they stopped making these films for a couple of decades, they would become novel again.
Some decades in the past were not particularly good in terms of literary output (I am very familiar with literature in my native language and know much more than average in two or three other languages), but the last decade has been incredibly poor. And I suspect that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find original ideas. As time goes by, the average technical competence of artists almost inevitably increases, but the same cannot necessarily be said for creativity, for example.