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!
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What was the last time you read Ovid in Latin and Plato in Greek?
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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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To be a candidate for Yale a hundred years ago, you had to be fluent in Latin and Greek. You and I are perhaps not standard examples 😊