But this obviously contributed to a feeling of decline in the long-run, because mass culture continued to do the thing it always does: avoid artistic innovation in order to maximize profit. But once poptimism established that only the mainstream "mattered," it set up audiences to judge the health of culture on its least artistic output. If we have... See more

Baseball started it, but then Daryl Morey and the basketball world quickly took the baton and beat the living hell out of a dead horse. There’s a famous boxing quote that says “styles make fights”. Well, the NBA used to have a bunch of different stylistic ways to play the game and everyone leaned into the specific strengths of their roster. But... See more

So, is Jacobs right to say that baseball was better when we knew less about it? And here we are at the crux of the issue from another angle: how is the goodness of the game measured and accounted for? Or, more to the point, can the goodness of the game be measured? If not, then in what would the goodness of the game consist? And, an equally... See more