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But look at IQ test capability over time. Or even take a TV show today and how complex it is — that's responding to the marketplace. You take Breaking Bad versus, I don't know, Leave it to Beaver, or Combat!, or The Wild, Wild West. You know, yeah, take Combat! because that was sort of pushing the edge of should kids be allowed to watch it. The interest and complexity really does say that, broadly, these tools have meant that market-driven people are turning out more complex things. Now, you can say, "Why hasn't that mapped to more sophistication in politics or something like that?" That's very complicated. But I don't see a counter trend where there's some group of people who are less curious or less informed because of the internet.

A "scientist" can go to work developing a cure for cancer (or placebos) or making meth.

It's the same with television programming and just as fruitless.

Ahmet Ertegün boasted of how impressed he was in Kid Rock when he saw him live in a club/party because he was rapping and playing drums and scratching records. Somehow that made him more talented in the eyes of the exec than all of the R&B greats who recored for Atlantic Records in the 40s-60s.

Breaking Bad was very dark comedy. I enjoyed it, but it was certainly not everyone's cup of tea.

I don't think this disses Combat - Gates says it was cutting edge for the time, which it was. I read somewhere that the guy who played the Lt's part was offered Sgt Saunders but he turned it down because he wanted to be the officer. Guess he didn't know the Sarge would emerge as the main character.