> The author is largely trying to sell exceptionalism. That everything will be fine with generic improvements. [...] Specific people doing specific things in specific places with specific technology and culture.

On second thought I think you are correct, it should detract. And it's important my example only be seen within the context of the entire climbing culture, not as an alternative to the authors causal choice. Many things, individual pieces of technology, social environment and cultural inertia have brought the culture to where it is today - it cannot be attributed to any single thing or event.

I think there is something about human psychology that makes people commonly gravitate towards this type of thinking, like in a myth or fairytale... some sensitive dependence, a key event that changed it all! or a single piece of technology to change it all etc etc. It makes for exciting stories and makes it easy to explain things (wrongly), but it's rarely the truth.

There are obviously both factors at work though. Exceptionalism does happen, and it is not purely driven by technology. Outside of climbing, take guitar as an example. The amount of excellent players out there on youtube is amazing. Certainly music and the instruments have been available and mass marketed since the 70s at least, but guitars haven't gotten easier to play. Now though, there are a lot of players that have grown up now watching how others play. Not just figuring it out by ear but seeing videos of great players and studying them. It's never been easier to observe great musicians, and so you see plenty of instrumentalists that have progressed very far, building on the shoulders of those who figured those techniques out and wrote those songs.

I don't think the author intended the piece to be "an explanation" so much as an observation. I think that is fine, and there isn't much point in generalizing this observation a human tendency towards sloppy thinking.

I just don't think the authors observation is very good. He is essentially saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats". But in reality it is the boats that are important more so than the tide.

The invention of the sampler created a huge amount of value. But mainly by a handful of companies and music scenes. If you wasn't for Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, London, Bristol or wherever else the change would have been marginal. Just like climbing wouldn't necessarily improve without places like Yosemite.

You can even go further and say that it isn't just specific groups that make progress, but that they define progress itself. There isn't much as such saying that free soloing in Yosemite is what progress is. Or even that climbing is worth progressing.

There also can't be many who believe that technology haven't made e.g. trains significantly better in past decades. Yet, China now have much more advanced trains than the US which is arguably better at technology. That is presumably because China is building boats rather than praising the tide.

> I think there is something about human psychology that makes people commonly gravitate towards this type of thinking

Chronology and narrative are definitely natural ways that humans frame the world - one of the many instinctive faults in our cognition. Such a simple view of the “infinite now” is easily hijacked in marketing, politics, etc.