The golden age of western civilisation was n - 5 years ago, where n is the year the speaker got their first job.

The speaker, as in the person who started talking about golden ages? Well it surely if they think there was a golden age it couldn't be now, what with all the late stage capitalism and rising phobias and supremacies and people voting the incorrect people into office or countries out of unions.

They are insinuating that the consensus you're talking about never existed as you have described it.

If anything, I think the Internet has made it easier to expose bad science. People like Andrew Gellman and websites like pubpeer have had a huge impact on the practice of the social sciences (psychology especially) just using blogs. In the past he would have been ignored. Journals and authors do their best to ignore, dismiss, and discredit him now. Having a direct voice to the public is what saves him.

Nobody is looking at that, they're watching TikTok and ReelShorts

That would be strange and misguided because I didn't talk about a consensus, I was talking about a mechanism for consensus. And consensus has existed many times on many issues now, and then.

Right, the mechanism you mentioned, reason, never existed. That's how I read their comment anyways.

Yes I have noticed people get extremely emotional and upset at the suggestion that not everything in society may be monotonically improving.

Sorry for being flippant. My analysis is that the mix of reason or emotions is unchanged over time. Take the case of this management science paper. What is irrational about defending a bad paper you wrote when it brings you all the accolades and benefits Andrew has described? The authors' personal goals aren't aligned with the public's goals of getting good science. That's not a failure of reason. Maybe it's selfish. That's different.

That's great, I'd love to see this analysis of yours.