- History is both accelerating and then decelerating (along the S-curve)
- One finds the S-curve in the widespread adoption of automobiles
- The S-curve is confirmed in Amara's law
- Renewable energy may have reached a critical mass
- There have been theories of economic takeoff more generally
- Does human evolution manifest the S-curve?
- S-curves can build upon one another
- Did religion make our brains small?
- Western drama is religious in origin
- Western tragedy has been Christianized and cinematized
- One can find the plateauing of the S-curve in 1970s cinema
- The superhero movie may be a symptom of the disruption of movies by television
- Mediocre television might be the new reality of drama
- "Game of Thrones" was a throwback to theater
History is both accelerating and then decelerating (along the S-curve)
We commonly think of progress as accelerating.It could just as well be decelerating.
The S-curve suggests that both are true -- at different stages.
Change at first is gradual, then takes off, and eventually plateaus.
.https://enrg.io/plug-in-cars-60-of-new-car-sales-in-norway-in-september/.
For example, the sale of electric vehicles supposedly doubles every so many years.
That is, if it takes ten years to get from EVs comprising 1% of automobile sales to 2%, then it will take another ten years to get from 2% to 4%.
It will likewise take ten years to go from 4% to 8% EVs, and from 8% to 16%.
Remarkably, it will only take ten years to get from 32% to 64%.
But at that point, the exponential rate of growth begins to plateau.
Rapid change does happen, but it happens in the middle stage of the process of adopting a new technology.
One finds the S-curve in the widespread adoption of automobiles
The following article shows two photographs.https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45786690
The first photograph shows a street in NYC in 1900 that is filled with horse-drawn carriages.
"In 1908 the first Model T Ford rolled off the production line; by 1930 the equestrian age was, to all intents and purposes, over - and all thanks to the disruptive power of an earlier tech innovation - the internal combustion engine."The author is arguing that innovation sweeps rapidly through society.
But rates of technological adoption might be more complicated than that.
Here is a graph of the adoption of cars, color televisions and the internet by American households.
.https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-rate-of-adoption-of-cars-television-and-the-Internet-in-the-20th-century.
That's right when exponential growth kicks in.
So the graph does not note the long period of slow adoption until that critical mass of 10% adoption has been reached.
The following graph gives a better picture of the initial low rates of adoption of new technology.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/the-100-year-march-of-technology-in-1-graph/255573/
It resumed in 1950.
It began to plateau at 80% in 1960.
This confirms the statement by the BBC News author that the equestrian age was basically over by 1930.
But it was not a sudden clean sweep.
The author had predicted in the article that very soon and in a very short period of time private cars will be displaced by self-driven electric taxis.
However, a few months after publishing that piece, the author backpedaled.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46794948
Make no mistake, the invasion of electric robot taxis will happen.
But it is decades away, not years.
The S-curve is confirmed in Amara's law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_AmaraWe tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.Most famously, Elon Musk tends to overestimate how soon a new technology will predominate.
Again, the sudden ubiquity of autonomous EVs will become a reality not in a few years, but in a few decades.
Also, settling Mars will not happen in 30 years, but in 300 years.
Nevertheless, Musk has accelerate this process.
Perhaps more than anyone, Elon Musk has moved progress forward in multiple markets to where the penetration of new technology reaches the critical mass of 10%.
He has shortened the path.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Kwisatz_Haderach
Renewable energy may have reached a critical mass
There is striking evidence that energy markets are gearing up for a rapid transformation.The most obvious example is the Saudi sale of state-owned oil company Aramco.
Saudi Arabia is selling the farm and no one seems to notice this.
Renewable energy markets are entering stage 2 of the S-curve.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=92&t=4
In 2018, renewable energy sources accounted for about 11% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 17% of electricity generation.This would represent peak oil consumption, not peak oil production.
The idea of "peak oil" typically states that oil production in a region follows a bell curve, first rising, plateauing, and then declining.
The production of conventional oil in the USA peaked in the 1970s and then declined.
But non-conventional oil production in the USA has burgeoned since 2010.
This has largely discredited the idea of peak oil -- in terms of production.
The world is full of oil, but oil becomes increasingly obsolete as it becomes more expensive and alternatives become cheaper.
The alternatives are now taking off and oil consumption may peak sooner than we expected.
There have been theories of economic takeoff more generally
For example, modernization theory postulate five stages of economic transformation.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostow%27s_stages_of_growth
In the second stage, capital investment reaches 10% and economic growth takes off, transforming a traditional society into a modern one.
During this second stage:
1. The rate of productive investment should rise from approximately 5% to over 10% of national income or net national productIn the third stage, economies mature over a period of 60 years.
2. The development of one or more substantial manufacturing sectors, with a high rate of growth;
3. The existence or quick emergence of a political, social and institutional framework which exploits the impulses to expansion in the modern sector and the potential external economy effects of the take-off.
The fourth stage is mass consumption.
This is characterized by a diversification of social interests that challenge mere economic pursuits.
The age of high mass consumption refers to the period of contemporary comfort afforded many western nations, wherein consumers concentrate on durable goods, and hardly remember the subsistence concerns of previous stages. Rostow uses the Buddenbrooks dynamics metaphor to describe this change in attitude. In Thomas Mann's 1901 novel, Buddenbrooks, a family is chronicled for three generations. The first generation is interested in economic development, the second in its position in society. The third, already having money and prestige, concerns itself with the arts and music, worrying little about those previous, earthly concerns. So too, in the age of high mass consumption, a society is able to choose between concentrating on military and security issues, on equality and welfare issues, or on developing great luxuries for its upper class. Each country in this position chooses its own balance between these three goals. There is a desire to develop an egalitarian society and measures are taken to reach this goal. According to Rostow, a country tries to determine its uniqueness and factors affecting it are its political, geographical and cultural structure and also values present in its society.
Historically, the United States is said to have reached this stage first, followed by other western European nations, and then Japan in the 1950s.Modernization theory was a classic 1950s anti-communist model of development.
Yet it imagined a trajectory of societal change similar to that of Marxism.
Borrowing from American anthropology (IIRC), Marx asserted that history happens in predictable stages that culminate in communism.
- primitive communism (hunter-gatherers)
- empires/slave societies (ancient Rome)
- feudalism
- capitalism
- communism
People would then spend all their time engaged in democratic engagement or the life of self-cultivation.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!Marx's vision of the final stage of history seems modeled after ancient Athens, albeit an Athens in which all have become citizens.
In contrast, modernization theory models the final stage of history on the USA of the 1950s.
Beyond ConsumptionThe S-curve would confound both Marx and modernization theory.
This step is more of a theoretical speculation by Rostow rather than an analytical step in the process by Rostow.[12] Individuals begin having larger families and do not value income as a pre-requisite for more vacation days. Consumer products become more durable and more diverse.[12] New Americans will behave in a way where the high economic security and level mass consumption is considered normal. Rostow does make the point that it is possible with the large baby boom it could either cause economic issues or dictate an even larger diffusion of consumer goods.[12] With increasing urban and suburban population there will be undoubtedly an increase in consumer goods and services as well.
According to the S-curve, the final stage of history would be stagnation.
Does human evolution manifest the S-curve?
The first stage of human history might be seen in terms of biological evolution.This was the long period of differentiation from the other primates.
This period comprised the long buildup to "civilization".
The ancestors of humanity became generalists during this period.
They evolved to become bipedal, opening up a wider expanse of environments to exploitation.
They became omnivorous, able to eat a greater array of foods.
Standing vertically and eating large amounts of proteins and fats, their brains could grow larger.
Humans attained the zenith of biological evolution upon the emergence of language.
Language opened up the possibility of cultural evolution and accelerated change.
However, human brains have ceased to increase in size during this period of cultural change.
In fact, since the Agricultural Revolution, human brain sizes shrunk due to poorer nutrition.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-has-human-brain-evolved/
Actually, human brains have been shrinking for 17,000 years.
https://medium.com/@yuribarzov/dehumanization-idiocracy-or-animal-farm-d1a8c407e635
In fact, the shrinkage of the human brain goes back 40,000 years.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2019/04/08/human-brains-have-shrunk-since-the-stone-age/
Based on measurements of skulls, the average brain volume of Homo sapiens has reportedly decreased by roughly 10 percent in the past 40,000 years. This reduction is a reversal of the trend of cranial expansion, which had been occurring in human evolution for millions of years priorMysteriously, this brain shrinkage happened to all human populations all over the planet.
(This would discredit racialist notions about distinct lineages.)
Only in the 20th century did brains start to get bigger again, perhaps thanks to more protein in the Western diet.
In any case, it looks like humans reached a point of "peak brain" tens of thousands of years ago.
When growth in the size of the human brain was plateauing and even shrinking, growth in terms of cultural sophistication was taking off.
This might represent a significant phenomenon:
S-curves can build on one another
As growth tapers off (or even declines) in one sphere, that realm becomes a foundation for accelerated growth of another type.http://ideagenius.com/the-s-curve-pattern-of-innovation-a-full-analysis/
- walking upright
- becoming omnivorous
- getting big brains
- capacity for music
- capacity for language
- getting smaller brains, due to
- less need to be intelligent in larger, safer groups
- human self-domestication (domesticated animals have smaller brains)
- poorer nutrition
- developing art
- Agriculture Revolution
- inventing writing
- Scientific Revolution
- Industrial Revolution
- Information Revolution
- superhero movies
- Kardashians
To understand our current period of cultural decline, it might be useful to survey the earlier period of mass brain shrinkage.
Because this period refers to prehistoric events, such a survey would be speculative and theoretical, albeit informed by circumstantial evidence.
But it might raise a provocative question:
Did religion make our brains small?
The assumption here is that the emergence of religion was based on the evolutionary advancement of human social cognition."Social cognition" involves recognizing the intentions and actions of others.
Social cognition might consist of two discrete systems:
- Agents. One system represents agents who act on the world and cause changes on it.
- Social beings. The other system represents social beings who engage with other social beings and share experiences with them.
Humans might be unique in how dual systems such as these are integrated with one another.
(At the individual level, this capacity develops during childhood.)
[CARTA: Mind Reading: Human Origins and Theory of Mind: What Makes Humans Different? October 18, 2013, Elizabeth Spelke of Harvard]
The perception of agency in others is often linked to the "theory of mind".
Humans normally possess what amounts to a theory of mind which enables them to understand themselves as selves and to perceive others as distinct individuals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, etc. — to oneself, and to others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.[1] Theory of mind is crucial for everyday human social interactions and is used when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors.[2] Deficits can occur in people with autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,[3] cocaine addiction,[4] and brain damage suffered from alcohol's neurotoxicity,[5] but not opiate addiction after prolonged abstinence.In contrast, sharing in the experiences of others as social beings is often related to a so-called "mirror neuron" system.
For example, when we see someone bang their elbow against something, we unconsciously clutch at our own elbow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.[1][2][3] Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Such neurons have been directly observed in primate species.[4]
In humans, brain activity consistent with that of mirror neurons has been found in the premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area, the primary somatosensory cortex, and the inferior parietal cortex.[5] The function of the mirror system in humans is a subject of much speculation. Birds have been shown to have imitative resonance behaviors and neurological evidence suggests the presence of some form of mirroring system.Interestingly, discussions of these two systems often blur into one another.
It could be that the functional integration of these two systems -- along with other systems -- would gradually make the brain smaller.
The analogy would be with the efficiencies found in vertical consolidation in a corporation.
The emergence and development of religion would drive this process.
The emergence of religion might go back 300,000 years, judging by the evidence of burial practices.
This would set in motion the parallel, simultaneous and independent development of religious phenomena.
The evolution of religion in all human groups would subsequently be strikingly similar despite the diffusion of humanity over the planet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion#Axial_age
Discrete religious phenomena can be correlated with specific regions of the brain.
Moreover, this correlation also works along the lines of social cognition in terms of relating either to the system that identifies agency in the world or to the system that fosters empathy with social beings.
The parietal lobe controls sensory input and its relation to a sense of self.
The frontal lobe is involved in focus and concentration.
Both of these lobes shut down during certain religious rituals.
This can lead to a loss of the sense of self.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190529-do-humans-have-a-religion-instinct
The first, the parietal lobe, located in the upper back part of the cortex, is the area that processes sensory information, helps us create a sense of self, and helps to establish spatial relationships between that self and the rest of the world, says Newberg. Interestingly, he’s observed a deactivation of the parietal lobe during certain ritual activities.
“When you begin to do some kind of practice like ritual, over time that area of brain appears to shut down,” he said. “As it starts to quiet down, since it normally helps to create sense of self, that sense of self starts blur, and the boundaries between self and other – another person, another group, God, the universe, whatever it is you feel connected to – the boundary between those begins to dissipate and you feel one with it.”
The other part of the brain heavily involved in religious experience is the frontal lobe, which normally help us to focus our attention and concentrate on things, says Newberg. “When that area shuts down, it could theoretically be experienced as a kind of loss of willful activity – that we’re no longer making something happen but it’s happening to us.”Religion also taps into faculties of mind that imagine that unseen agents are watching.
One is known as HADD.
Let’s take a look at some of these properties, beginning with one known as Hypersensitive Agency Detection Device (HADD).
Say you’re out in the savannah and you hear a bush rustle. What do you think? “Oh, it’s just the wind. I’m perfectly fine to stay right where I am.” Or, “It’s a predator, time to run!”
Well, from an evolutionary perspective, the second option makes the most sense. If you take the precaution of fleeing and the rustling ends up being nothing more than the wind, then you haven’t really lost anything. But if you decide to ignore the sound and a predator really is about to pounce, then you’re going to get eaten.
It’s this property ... that causes us to attribute agency to the objects and noises we encounter. It’s the reason we’ve all held our breath upon hearing the floor creak in the next room, which we assumed was empty.
[T]his detection device causes us to attribute agency to events with no clear physical cause (my headache was gone after I prayed) and puzzling patterns that defy an easy explanation (someone must’ve constructed that crop circle). This is particularly the case when urgency is involved.Humans often imagine an outside agent to be engaged in total surveillance of the self.
This imaginary super-agent is known as a "full-access agent".
Early religions cast one's ancestors in the role of all-seeing eyes.
Later, deities were understood to play this role.
Closely related to the idea of agency is what Dennett refers to as a cards-up phenomenon. Agency detection carries with it certain risks: do you know about that bad thing I did? How can I be sure you know, and how can I be sure about what you think about me because of it? These are complex questions and human beings aren’t good at managing all the options. What’s needed for learning how to navigate these muddy waters is for everyone to be taught the rules of the game by placing all of our cards face up on the table. The teacher, then, is something of a full-access agent: they see everything and can instruct us accordingly.
The original full-access agents, says Dennett, were our dead ancestors. But eventually, the seeds of this idea became more formalised in various theologies.This cognitive synthesis might have contributed to the shrinkage the human brain even while it made humans more sophisticated.
Nevertheless, the fact that the brain was not growing following this synthesis might suggest that sheer brain power was leveling off.
That is, the old feedback effect -- of greater intelligence securing greater resources that would in turn continue to grow the brain -- did not seem to be in effect.
So, mysteriously, the consolidation of faculties and increase in sophistication that might have allowed the brain to downsize could have also promoted continued brain growth, but it did not.
Ironically, as humans became more sophisticated, they also kind of became more dumb insofar as they became slavishly social in nature.
[Chimpanzee versus human child learning with box]
Again, the synthesis of social cognition was hypothetically driven in part by the development of religion.
But this synthesis would also be reflected in cultural phenomena that arose from religion.
In ancient religions, there was a distinction between civic religion and personal cults.
The state sponsored an official religion that publicly celebrated customary holy days.
As private individuals, men would engage in secretive private ritual cults.
The official public religion is associated with individual agency.
The private cult would involve the loss of personal identity and personal boundaries.
In the West, these two strains of religion fused together to create the theater.
Western drama is religious in origin
More specifically, Greek tragedy was identified with religious ritual.Tragedy represented a fusion of public religion and the personal cult.
The actors in Greek tragedy represented human individuality (principium individuationis).
The chorus represented the mysterious forces that negated individuality.
The closest experience today to ancient Greek tragedy is watching a movie in a theater in the dark with other people.
Only in a movie theater is the drama of the interplay of human agency and shared experience brought together in full force.
For example, the French strongly resist the idea that watching a movie at home is "cinema".
For the French, streaming movies on Netflix is not cinema, it is television.
By that measure, the old serial adventures like "Buck Rogers" that inspired "Star Wars" were genuine cinema.
This is because the venue was a genuine cinematic experience -- a movie theater.
This hearkens backs to the primordial art of cave paintings, as cinephiles have noted on occasion.
But there have been changes in the nature of drama.
Western tragedy has been Christianized and cinematized
One can see the centrality of the Christian ethic in serious American movies.In Greek tragedy, fate was ineluctable, unavoidable.
American tragedy retains some of that ancient fatalism.
["The Godfather, Part 2", 1972, ending scene]
But if the Judeo-Christian notion of free will means that people make moral choices, this alters tragedy.
From a Catholic point of view, tragedy would then explore the appeal of evil, its glamor and even its beauty.
["The Bad Lieutenant", 1992, trailer]
This would be especially true when confronting a society that has neither moral nor theoretical considerations, only practical, technical and aesthetic concerns.
["Silence", 2016, trailer]
Today, the list of societies without moral considerations includes the USA.
["Taxi Driver", 1976, trailer]
In a Protestant tragedy, the struggle would be inward.
["First Reformed", 2017, trailer]
Drama has undergone at least three historical shifts relevant to this discussion:
- pagan religious rituals
- Greek theater
- Christianized tragedies of cinema
One can find the plateauing of the S-curve in 1970s cinema
First, there is a period of glorious growth..https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/hollywood#section_10.
Second Golden Age of Hollywood
Some critics and movie fans regard the 1960s and 1970s as a second Golden Age of Hollywood, as the old studio system of the 1930s completely broke down and restrictions on sexual content, obscenity and violence loosened.
These changes gave groundbreaking directors like Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Mike Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola and others free reign over controversial content that definitely wasn’t “family-friendly.”
Noteworthy films that embraced the counterculture ethos of the 1960s and 1970s include Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Easy Rider, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Conversation, Mean Streets, The Godfather and All the President’s Men.This period of excellence is followed by the plateau and decline.
Reign of the Blockbuster
By the mid-1970s and 1980s, computer-assisted special effects had evolved and helped launch massive blockbuster action movies such as Jaws and the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. Feel-good movies like Rocky and E.T. sent moviegoers flocking to theaters and made their movie stars larger-than-life.
Movie ticket sales declined in the 1990s, but Hollywood pressed on thanks to a surge in VCR video rentals and later, DVDs and Blue-Ray. With the 2000s came an increase in Disney movies, big-budget blockbusters and crude comedies.
Changing technology continues to move people to a more digital world and Hollywood has more exposure than ever. Yet in an era of economic inequality, many Americans today are much less enthralled with Hollywood movie stars and their glamorous lifestyle.
Social media, tabloids, a 24-hour news cycle and online movie review websites can make or break movies, movie stars and movie industry professionals overnight."Jaws" is considered the movie that created the blockbuster.
But one can find hints of what was to come in Spielberg's "Sugarland Express", his first feature film.
It was condemned as being a fun movie that was pretending to be meaningful.
This is the beginning of the plateau.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sugarland_Express#Reception
One finds this plateauing of cinema in China today, with the career of Zhang Yimou as a case in point.
His early career produced some of the greatest films in cinematic history.
- Red Sorghum (1987)
- Ju Dou (1990)
- Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
- The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)
- To Live (1994)
- Shanghai Triad (1995)
["The Great Wall", 2017, trailer]
Blockbuster movies are getting worse even as their technological sophistication has increased.
They could be turning into television.
The superhero movie may be a symptom of the disruption of movies by television
With its constant sequels and interchangeable actors, superhero movies represent television transposed onto the big screen.This might be seen as a kind of disruptive innovation in which a marginal market displaces the mainstream market.
Dramatically speaking, cinema was itself a kind of disruptive innovation in that it was a substitute for theater, which was itself a stand in for religion.
Perhaps in the evolution of technology of visual representation, there was another sequence of disruptive innovations.
Paintings were supplanted by photographs, which in turn evolved into motion pictures -- "movies".
The development of sound in movies failed to relabel movies as "talkies" because cinema remained primarily a visual art.
Streaming likewise does not represent a cinematic revolution.
Streaming represents a technological revolution for television.
Streaming is significant for cinema nevertheless because it may accelerate the process of turning all movies into television.
This kind of transformation of cinema into television happened in Japan in the 1970s.
The Japanese made some of the best movies in the world in the 1950s.
Akira Kurosawa lamented that within a generation, all Japanese movies looked like television shows.
But in another disruptive innovation, Hayao Miyazaki came to the rescue.
In Japan, within cinema, anime and horror -- at one time, art forms on the fringe -- have salvaged a film industry that, in fact, had already been overrun with television-like movies.
Again, in the form of the superhero movie, the blockbuster has become the kind of serialized soap opera that once dominated daytime television and radio.
To make things worse, now it might be television which has begun to plateau into a stark new mediocrity after years of excellence.
Mediocre television might be the new reality of drama
This brings us back to the issue of technology and progress.Streaming represents the eclipsing of the movies by television.
This is classic disruptive innovation, in which an inferior market improves over time and overtakes and displaces a mainstream market.
But it is also a crisis change, in which crises reveal and accelerate long-term trends.
For example, during the Great Recession, three trends emerged that were simultaneously disruptive innovations and crisis trends:
- instead of a long-planned trip to Hawaii, people went to Disneyland
- instead of a trip to Disneyland, people took their kids to the movies
- instead of going to the movies, people watched Netflix
https://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/36832779.html
"In a way, the slumping economy works well for Tokyo Disneyland," said Hiroshi Watanabe, an economist at the Tokyo-based Daiwa Research Institute. "Because of the recession, people have stopped buying cars and houses or going to Hawaii, and Tokyo Disneyland offers an affordable and pleasant alternative."
[Disneyland attendance by year:]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/movies/01films.html
As she stood in line at the 18-screen Bridge theater complex here on Thursday to buy weekend tickets for “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience,” Angel Hernandez was not thinking much about escaping reality. Instead, Ms. Hernandez, a Los Angeles parking lot attendant and mother of four young girls, was focused on one very specific reality: her wallet.
Even with the movie carrying a premium price of $15 because of its 3-D effects — children’s tickets typically run $9 at the Bridge — Ms. Hernandez saw the experience as a bargain.
“Spending hundreds of dollars to take them to Disneyland is ridiculous right now,” she said. “For $60 and some candy money I can still be a good mom and give them a little fun.”
A lot of parents may have been thinking the same thing Friday, as “Jonas Brothers” sold out more than 800 theaters, according to MovieTickets.com, and was expected to sell a powerful $25 million or more in tickets.
[Movie theater ticket sales per year in USA from 1995 to 2018:]
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/01/13/movie-ticket-sales-1995-2018/
[North American cinema annual per capita attendance, 2000-2018:]
https://www.whitehutchinson.com/news/lenews/2019/february/article105.shtml
[Percentage of US population that went to the cinema on average weekly, 1930-2000:]
https://www.businessinsider.com/movie-attendance-over-the-years-2015-1
[Consumer spending on home entertainment by year:]
https://www.statista.com/chart/15894/home-entertainment-spending-in-the-united-states/
"Game of Thrones" was a throwback to theater
The irony of "Game of Thrones" is that it originally resembled theater more than it did either television or the movies.The classic theater is not a visual form, but aural.
The theater is more about language than images.
This has been an English specialty since Shakespeare.
Classic theater consists of two troubled, civilized people engaging in a long, sad, intelligent conversation in a cold room.
(This is another specialty of the English, for example, 1945's "Brief Encounter".)
["Game of Thrones", Old Nan]
In "Game of Thrones", all of this theater was steadily pushed aside in favor of dragons.
But even in terms of spectacle, by season eight, "Game of Thrones" exuded the banality of television rather than the epic quality of cinematic classics like "Apocalypse Now" or "Lawrence of Arabia".
Now that HBO is owned by AT&T, the Final Victory of television is complete.
This represents the plateauing of the S-curve in cable television.
