I think it's easy to theorize an asymmetry here, where if things have gotten worse you wax lyrically about the glorious past (in writing), whereas when things get better you don't dwell on the past much at all, thus creating a bias towards accounts of worsening in the historic record that can easily coexist with the present being much better than the past. In this model, the reports of worsening could well have been completely accurate.
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I think it's easy to theorize an asymmetry here, where if things have gotten worse you wax lyrically about the glorious past (in writing), whereas when things get better you don't dwell on the past much at all, thus creating a bias towards accounts of worsening in the historic record that can easily coexist with the present being much better than the past. In this model, the reports of worsening could well have been completely accurate.
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