Selection Effects

Tyler Cowen writes...

When it comes to Roman literature there is also a significant selection effect, namely what later manuscript collectors thought was worth preserving and protecting. Many novels were written during Roman times, but not many of them have come down to us and thus the average quality of Roman literature may look artificially high, just as the average quality of today's literary menagerie looks artificially low.

Whenever someone claims to me that movies today are crap (commonly either snobs or oddly people who actually never watch old films and only watch contemporary films anyway - especially the most stale of today's genre - the romantic comedy) I normally spout out something like that. Though I replace "roman literature" with "old movies" and "manuscript collectors" with "those people who preserved film prints". This effect is magnified with old movies, especially silent films since these movies were filmed on Nitrate film stock which without proper care would degenerate into goo. Provided it hadn't blown up first.

But the market also does this work as well, more films were made back in the pre-television days than now but only a handful of them actually survive. With the digital age upon us, it increases the chances that films will survive into the future. But not all of them, the market will sweep aside those films that were picked up by neither the mass consumer or the critic. With the bad movies gone the average quality of these movies goes up.

The same thing happens with all form of culture - music, books, whatever else there is...