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Assorted links
1. Will Wilkinson's new paper on happiness
2. Experts
3. What from our culture will last?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 13, 2007 at 07:32 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
When we compare the abstract of Wilkinson's paper with Cato's mission statement at http://www.cato.org/about/about.html, we find that -- surprise! -- The Cato-employed expert has concluded that arguments by non-Cato-employed experts which tend to conflict with that mission statement are completely off the wall. Does this exercise really tell us anything?
Posted by: Sam Penrose at Apr 13, 2007 1:05:48 PM
Cultural icons developed over roughly the last 50 years or so that will still be a part of year 2300 culture include:
The Beatles
Jazz
The Godfather I and II
Video Games
Television (although more divergent than today, and will certainly have a different ‘feel’.)
Everything else will only be viewed through the spectrum as historical anecdotes and preserved as such, rather than as part of culture. There will also be 1 or 2 other cultural phenomena that we have presently undervalued which will be more important to future generations. I think that painting from the last 75 years will be particularly ridiculed as having being overly simplistic in its efforts to convey complex emotions. Cultural items I see diminishing in their importance are:
Professional Sports
Pop music (which is why The Beatles will be so fondly remembered and listened to)
Books, particularly fiction and anything over 200 pages
Posted by: Shaun at Apr 13, 2007 3:43:02 PM
The Hamburger, or more broadly, Fast food.
Posted by: DJB at Apr 13, 2007 9:03:43 PM
"What from our culture will last?"
I'd say that the correct answer here is *everything*. Every cultural phenomenon, every genre, every fad will have at least a small group of devotees in the future. In fact, in the present (and increasingly in the future), things that were previously forgotten will be resurrected (and will be available on YouTube or its successors).
The days when culture had the bandwidth to preserve only a few canonical 'great' works from previous generations is over.
Posted by: Slocum at Apr 14, 2007 9:31:59 AM
Tyler, Thank you for putting up this fun reading material, makes my day more exiting and gets me a chance to learn from your vast expirences, with respect Alex L
Posted by: Alex at Apr 14, 2007 12:02:06 PM
Does this exercise really tell us anything?
You actually need to read the paper to find out the quality of his arguments. Then you can make up your own mind.
Posted by: Tracy W at Apr 16, 2007 12:39:01 AM
大家好，我是臺灣人，從臺灣一個人搬家來到美國，環境很陌生，感覺很孤單。以前在臺灣幾家知名的徵信社工作過，我是一個優秀的徵信工作者，希望早點找到適合自己的工作。希望通過貴站，認識更多的朋友。
Posted by: 謝文豪 at Apr 2, 2008 3:02:01 AM
