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Has the world become less colourful?

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Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#2
Colour is not driven by fashion directly. There is always a technical innovation or regulatory change.

The Ford Focus pioneered a new 'silver' paint that was formulated differently to 'silver' paints that had gone on before. 'Silver' was no longer an expensive option, the base model had it. This proved popular and the trend was set, silver cars took over at the start of the century, using the new formula paint.

An example of regulatory change is food. In the 70's food coloring additives packed a vibrant punch. Decades later with many regulatory changes, those hot pink biscuits are now pinky grey. The palette has been toned down.

Although we have came a long way, many colours rely on elements that are quite toxic. We might have got rid of the lead, but cadmium? Cobalt? Take those out on the same basis and things get grey.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#3
It's not just colours. The world rapidly turning into a real-life "borg-world": same kinds of buildings; same kinds of dresses; same kinds of "world models; same philosophies; and now the same language too.

The world is for all real purposes has been gobbled up by the Anglosphere. It's all but dead; I'm sure many people realize how drab and low-entropy our world is today.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#4
Maybe because we have such rich color reproduction in screens we feel the need to have the rest of our surroundings take on a more neutral stance. In fact this reflects the screens such as they are "blank canvases" that take on whatever content deemed fit for the present purpose or mood.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#7
> Consider this study, which analysed the colour of everyday objects over time.

> Percentage of Pixels across all photos

Does anybody have a citation for "this study" ?

It's implicitly implied that it comes from some mega cloud storage of personal and professional photos, but it'd be nice to see the actual source and read the methodoloy.

ADDENDUM: Found it.

https://lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-using-computer...

> This article analyses a selection of the Science Museum Group Collection. We examined over 7,000 photographs of objects from 21 categories. The categories were selected on the basis that they contained large numbers of everyday or familiar objects. These categories range from photographic technology to time measurement, lighting to printing and writing, and domestic appliances to navigation.

Hmmmmm.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#8
Car colours is something that sometimes worries me, brighter colours are sold as 'extra', while greys are default/cheaper. This leads to some cars basically camouflaging with the road, especially at times like dawn or dusk. There are other colours that make it harder to spot a car depending on location/time-of-day, but from my experience greys and grey-navy-ish are the worst.

Re: Has the world become less colourful?

#10

It's not just colours. The world rapidly turning into a real-life "borg-world": same kinds of buildings; same kinds of dresses; same kinds of "world models; same philosophies; and now the same language too. The world is for all real purposes has been gobbled up by the Anglosphere. It's all but dead; I'm sure many people realize how drab and low-entropy our world is today.

Wouldn’t drabness and sameness be more high-entropy?
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