My robot says:
““use a better paid model” as an argument from authority is magnificent. We’ve somehow reinvented “my dad can beat up your dad,” except our dads are inference-time budgets”.
So there’s that.
Getting back to human responses; it’s hard to argue your robot’s conclusion when it only got to a weak “probably” while comparing the communication environments of 1980’s (no social media) and 2026 (very much social media). Lots more people with lots bigger platforms dealing with lots more voices on what should/shouldn’t be tolerated -> perceived increase in volume of censorship by both audience and other creatives (themselves taking role of both audience and performer playing to their own audience)
Elvis may not have been calling to censor himself, but the hosts and producers (themselves creatives) followed the demands of the audience - surely at least a somewhat close analogy to creatives amplifying the voices of their audiences today?
To get a bit better than your model’s “probably”, maybe we should shoot for specifics. If we agree there was a “dark past” where government and religious pressure created artistic censorship to comparable levels to today, and if I concede to move the argument forward that we’re in “historical decline” now. Where specifically do you put the beginning and end of the “golden age”?
The dark past could of course overlap with the start of the subsequent decline, creating not a golden age but a shit age, centered maybe on the late 80s.
It seems entirely disingenuous to tell me to investigate this in earnest and ask ChatGPT for answers, then dismiss it when it didn't give you the answer you wanted. I gave you the model, the effort level, the query, and the summary, which you could use to confirm what I write. I note that you haven't tested this yourself - ostensibly because you know it will return something similar. Further, you either didn't read my comments or are attempting to straw man them, because I have not stated nor argued that religious and government censorship is equivalent today. I also find the implication in your final question absurd. There is no way to place chronological boxes around cultural change. They are not binary, and I do not believe you think they are.
Your comment is dishonesty wrapped in condescension, and it's clear that you never intended to have any kind of earnest discussion here.
Of all the replies I was expecting from you, this wasn’t on my betting slip.
There’s no condescension here; you had one key thesis I objected to (and, incidentally, were the first to invoke a robot war!)
> I just asked ChatGPT and got about 10,000 examples of famous creatives demanding censorship. It didn’t used to be this way.
My argument is - it did “used to be this way”. Your proxy, as best as I can tell, agreed.
> formal government censorship was in some respects more coercive then.
And your courageous avatar made a weak (e.g. the word probably, not provably and “I think” not “I showed”) supportive claim (I cannot see the reams of research behind the conclusion).
> I think the evidence points to it being broader in scope and probably more common today than 50 years ago
I said, ok, let’s take that at face - where do you feel the transition happend, and posited reasons why the transition may seem stronger (social media).
Now you’re unwilling to argue specifics and off dismissing my sincerity. Adult argument fully abandoned, feelings abound!
So neither of us will learn anything useful today. I’ll never find out specifically when you believe our slippery slope began, and you’ll never explore whether reality matches your thinking. Let’s hope the data centers that powered your race to self-confirmation were running on solar, so at least the environment was spared!
In the hope of rescuing some thread.
> There is no way to place chronological boxes around cultural change.
This is not only demonstrably false, it also turns your initial thesis “it didn’t used to be like this” into a farce. You were the first to claim there was some time boxing we could apply!
It also, candidly, reinforces the first conclusion robo-me reached. “ someone under 40 who believes they’re living through a unique historical decline but refuses to read a book”. My robot gave me 10,000 examples of books on the study and findings of historians researching the evolution of cultural norms over time. It is very much a thing. I very much believe in it sincerely as a valuable discipline.
If you really want to argue that nobody can say Victorian social norms evolved, and were arguably most harmed by the First World War. Or that the gender and sexual attitudes of the post-second-world-war were pushed to breaking point during a period known as the “swinging sixties”. Or that the introduction of social media and camera phones to the schoolyard caused a dramatic change in kids’ behaviors. Then I think you’re being a special kind of Saturday obstinate.
But if you are actually trying to discuss rather than play-fight, try answering the question - when specifically do you think that the decline began, such that we are no longer living in the rose-tinted era where things “used to be”?
And dude, you can back your claim down or add nuance to it - “creatives censor in a different way in the internet era to how the censored in the TV era” is a defensible claim, I’ll even let you have “the nature of what is censored now has changed”. You’re just not getting away with a demonstrably false “there’s more censorship now”.