In many fields, the bar for virtuosity has risen sharply, and not because of what we’d normally think of as new tech.
eg: The record marathon time 100 years ago would barely qualify for the Boston Marathon today. (h/t A Ericsson)
Are there fields in which the bar has regressed?
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I can think of lots in which median performance has plausibly fallen, often because progress makes it less relevant—e.g. car maintenance. But in the examples I can think of, virtuosic performance has still risen!
Actually, I did both in high school! But I don’t think the bar for *virtuosity* has fallen in that domain—just the median. Seems reasonably likely that virtuosic Latin scholars are even more effective today than 100 years ago, b/c better communications networks etc.
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I think wealth/tech/population growth means that in a lot of areas the bar is higher, but I think there are sports where the best athletes are attracted to other sports and so standards are lowered -- the only examples I can think of now are supremely unpopular sports.
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In baseball, for example, there's such an emphasis on hitting for power that players don't hit for average anymore. The top batting average has dropped.
baseball-almanac.com/hitting/hibavg
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I'm sure data analysis has led to similar changes in other sports as traditional methods lose favor.
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Car maintenance has its virtuosi. If you watch Wheeler Dealers there seems to be someone somewhere who can fix anything no matter how much car manufacturers try to nobble the OEM aftermarket. One guy diagnosed and resoldered the board of $1350 Corvette EBCM for ten bucks.