Past the Present
Illustration by Ayo Arogunmati
Ideas, good or bad, have shaped our history and culture. Ideas are also fluid, making them a condition we must account for in understanding the shape of our culture. These ideas can begin their journey bad, become good and return back to their origin, although this pattern is not true for every idea. But, how do you know if something is a good idea? There are no shortcuts to this answer other than to see each idea with less skepticism and more openness.
One of the challenges to this openness to ideas is the phase "they don't do X like this anymore". If you hear someone express this phrase, it might be worth asking why that statement is true or false. This phrase is stated with much conviction that it becomes a tautology. Except X can be a number of things, but often anything creative. This creative thing is further narrowed and applied to things that are deemed artistic. Then qualified again to mean visual and musical acts. This conclusion that X no longer exists I think is incorrect.
Two things that happens in life is aging and experiencing the evolution of technology. I remember using a Walkman before it got replaced by the CD Player and then watching the MP3 cannibalize the former. These changes to the physical device did not prompt a feeling of nostalgia for the old technique because each successive mode was a better idea.
In his book, Antifragile, Nassim Taleb mentions a concept known as the Lindy Effect, which proposes that a technology or any non-perishable thing increases its life expectancy with each passing day. A book, song or film, for example, that has been around for a decade will likely be around for another 10 years. Taleb says these *ideas* are aging backwards. When I first read about the Lindy Effect in Taleb’s book, I thought it was about the physical object, those objects that appear to live forever. I also thought that the technological advancement will shorten the temporal limits of any object exhibiting the Lindy Effect.
But rarely is an object the cause of nostalgia. Noone misses cassettes, VHS or CDs, but we do miss the ideas held in these devices. And if these ideas are good, technology spreads it even faster, causing it to increase its temporal limits.
The production of content continues to increase because it is easier, cheaper and faster to create with new technology, but the life cycle of this excess production is short. If access is more democratic, then it should be available for not only those chasing quantity of output but also those interested in quality output. Yet, we keep hearing this phase that X is missing in our culture. The resolution to this paradox might be the Lindy Effect.
If we assume that the Lindy Effect is still an important and relevant concept then there should be some underlying factors that we can use to recognize when a thing is exhibiting this effect. We can conclude on certain structural factors such as (1) the form this effect is embedded in varies, it can be a book, painting, person or digitized, (2) The thing has been around for at least T years, (3) it can leverage new technology and (4) the thing is accepted widely as a good idea.
Wasiu is the most popular Fuji artist with a career spanning four decades. His live performance continues to be in high demand for all forms of celebrations. He performs songs he composed 40 years ago, yet commands an audience with access to other more contemporary forms of music. Talent and skill are factors, but the good ideas contained and transmitted through his songs and leveraged through new technology are the source of his relevance.
If the person saying this can show that the ideas they are referencing are less common today and X continues to live, then that idea might be a Lindy Effect. An example might be the idea of Michael Jordan. Arguments can be made about players that better skilled, but the idea of Jordan supersedes any skill in the long term. But if the person cannot state that the ideas are not in cultural circulation then this is unlikely to be a Lindy Effect. I would argue that musical and visual acts continue to exhibit these good ideas even if people fail to see or hear it.
Religious texts and constitutions are books that contain ideas that exhibit the Lindy Effect. The ideas were documented in a different time and not only do we cling to them to structure our society, but technology accelerates the widespread acceptance and increases the temporal limits. Clearly, the thing we can’t move beyond is the quality of ideas and not the physical books.
New technology to distribute ideas often results in our culture chasing quantity and not quality of ideas. Yet, I can imagine that the creation of the printing press was not only a catalyst for more books, but also more books that contain quality ideas. This is probably the same trend in podcasting and online videos, both increasing quantity of output and quality ideas.
There is likely a power law effect with quality ideas. The allocation of resources including money and time to these new mediums means there are artists pursuing and creating those quality ideas.
Is there a risk that we shift to only quantity of output as technology to create becomes more democratized? I don’t think so. The reason for this is that our culture rewards good ideas.
