Reality Deficit

This is a subject that I've meaning to write about for a while but haven't because I want to open up a kind of dialogue, but I realize that vast majority of my friends and relations are in agreement with me, so I won't get the kind of critical response I want. However, I was prompted to write after reading an article that appeared in the American Conservative by a man, Bruce Bartlett who once worked for the Reagan and GHW Bush presidencies.

While he covers a lot of his criticisms of the current Republican Party, he touches on one subject in particular that interests me, that Republicans have seemed to escape to their own reality. Bartlett talks about how he wrote an article for the New York Times only to find out later while attending a reception for right-wing organizations "not one person had read it or cared in the slightest what the New York Times had to say about anything." From Bartlett's perspective, the NYT might be bias, but it was still an important newspaper.

This is basically what I've started noticing, that Republicans have started to flat out reject anything that even approaches a differing opinion. Of course, conservatives and liberals tend to group together, forming their own echo chambers, which is why I have been reluctant to criticize Republicans, because I was sure Democrats did the same thing. What got my attention though was when I was visited Quora, a website where people ask questions for others to answer. Someone asked, "Does Quora aspire to displace Daily Kos in the USA as the fever swamp for liberals and progressives?" Up until then, I had found the Quora community surprisingly open-minded and cordial, I hadn't considered that it might have a bias. Of course, websites are going to attract a certain demographic, but still Quora was open to everyone. Anyone could go the website and pose any question they wanted or offer any answer they wanted.

That's when I realized a pattern. Back when it first started, Wikipedia, a site open to anyone to edit, was criticized for having a liberal bias and being unamerican. In response, Conservapedia was created. Conservapedia didn't attempt to balance out what it saw as bias, it specifically sought out to present a single viewpoint and banish anything that opposed that viewpoint. It stuck me then that these conservatives weren't upset because their thoughts and ideas were being repressed, but that Quora and Wikipedia, by virtue of being open to everyone, where presenting thoughts and ideas that they opposed and wanted nothing to do with them.

I had also noticed how websites that specifically cater to conservatives appear to be the only ones that attract a large conservative community. Websites that are open to everyone and don't overtly express any political opinion tend to have a fairly liberal active user base, but there are still a few conservatives. Conservative websites however don't appear to have any kind of liberal minority. It makes me wonder if general websites seem to express a bias not because they attract liberals but because conservatives have sequestered themselves to their own websites.

This could be considered an internet phenomenon, but the election showed how much of an effect this is having on American politics. Looking at another media source, there is the constant attacks on liberal "mainstream media". While a case could be made for this, it is still a questionable position. For one, Fox News, despite being the most popular cable news source, somehow escapes the label of "mainstream media". Also, Fox News doesn't attempt to a balanced news source, if anything, it is the media outlet that is most overt about its partisanship.

To quote Bartlett again, "[Republicans] were genuinely shocked at Romney’s loss because they ignored every poll not produced by a right-wing pollster such as Rasmussen or approved by right-wing pundits such as the perpetually wrong Dick Morris. Living in the Fox News cocoon, most Republicans had no clue that they were losing or that their ideas were both stupid and politically unpopular." There was a pretty substantial Republican attack on pollsters this year for under-representing Republicans and doing other things to boost Obama's numbers, culminating in an attack on Nate Silver, a guy who might be a Democratic, but is first and foremost a statistician. In the end though, Obama and Democratic senators outperformed the polls and Nate Silver managed to predict every state correctly.

This wasn't just an issue for pundits and news consumers, the denial of the changing demographics of the US had a real impact on the outcome of the election. Romney's strategy for election assumed that 74% of voters would be white, the same as in 2008. This was an absurd assumption as the percentage of white voters has declined every election since 1992. The strategy also assumed that Obama wouldn't improve on the 80% of minority votes he received in 2008, but he did.

There is one last fact that makes me comfortable in saying that Republicans are unique in their level close-mindedness, I don't see this kind of behavior from conservatives from other countries. I mentioned how general websites tend to show a liberal bias, but this is starkest only when considering US politics. When politics for another country comes up, the debate is much less one-sided. In both the criticism of Quora and Wikipedia, the US was mentioned. For example, one of the criticisms of Wikipedia was that it adopted the more internationally-recognized British English as the standard for the English pages. The fact that the question on Quora that got me started on this analysis specifically mentioned the US struck me as odd given that a huge number of Quora's users live in India. Apparently Republicans aren't just escaping from other viewpoints, but from the rest of the world.

Titan Tops 500

Top 500

The ranking of the 500 fastest supercomputers was released a few days ago. It was a fairly average list, with over all FLOPS increasing by 31% over 6 months, compared to the average 36%. There were a little over 160 new computers on the list.

The biggest news is that the top computer is now Titan, which can calculate 17.6 PetaFLOPS. Unfortunately, the speed for standard computers is not measured in FLOPS, which makes it difficult to conceptualize what this means. Looking up estimates for my computer, a laptop from 2008, I got anywhere between 30 and 160 GigaFLOPS. So it would take between 110,000 and 600,000 laptops just like mine to match Titan. That said, my laptop would have been one of the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the early 1990's.

James Bond Music Again

Three years ago, I made a post about James Bond theme songs. It was fun putting it together and hearing all those songs that don't get played much anymore.

I was thinking of revisiting the list after Skyfall's release, but somebody at the Atlantic had the same idea and made their own Graded, Ranked, and Non-Negotiable Guide to Every 'Bond' Song. There are definite difference in our lists. For one, Dunaway seems to like Tom Jones' "Thunderball" much more than I did and he's less enthusiastic about Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name". The list also taught me something. What I had thought was the theme of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was actually a different song. Louis Armstrong actually sang the main theme. Although much better than the other song, Armstrong's song falls into the same category as Carly Simon's song. Good, but doesn't seem like a James Bond song. As for Adele's "Skyfall", it's a classy little number, not the greatest, but up there with "The World is not Enough".

Unused Roads

I don't remember how I first became aware of this, but several years ago while doing research on the recession, I came across figures for miles driven on US highways. What was fascinating about them was that the figures perfectly corresponded to the dates set as the beginning and end of the recession. Miles driven peaked in November of 2007, fell for the following 18 months, and started to recover in June of 2009. I figured that the number would make its way back up and that would be the end of the story. But it wasn't. I checked again some months later, and the number had actually declined. As it sits now, the number has been improving since November 2011, but it's still far below it's 2007 high.

As it stands, total miles driven in the US are currently the same as in 2004. A closer look at the numbers reveals that the decline may have begun earlier. Up until 2002, monthly changes in miles driven closely matched a linear trend line, increasing around 5 billion miles every month. However, since November 2002, every month has been below what a linear trend line would predict. Even after switching to a polynomial trend line, the predicted and the actual results begin to diverge after July 2004. If the linear trend from 2002 had been maintained, as it had been for 15 years, miles driven would be 3.4 trillion instead of 2.9 trillion.

There is one more thing to consider, the US population has increased by 11 million since the recession began. So whereas total miles driven has more or less flat-lined since 2009, per capita miles driven continues to decline.

While total miles driven is the same as 8 years ago, miles per person is the same as 14 years ago. Similar to total miles driven, miles per person used to follow a linear trend line, but it began to diverge in December 2000.

The big question is, what does this mean? The sharp decline after 2007 is easily explained as a result of the recession while the continued decline could reflect the weakness of the recovery. However, slowing trends could be seen as far back as 2000. The lack of recovery in highway might not reflect the recession so much as a change in driving behavior. There are studies showing that car ownership is declining especially among young people. A further question is, will the current trend continue or will a confluence of improving economic conditions and population increase drive the number back up?

Election Spending

Total campaign spending per vote in federal elections (in 1998 dollars).

2010: $30.15
2008: $30.69
2006: $28.76
2004: $29.03
2002: $24.71
2000: $27.50
1998: $22.14

Mexican Border

I recently read a review of Robert Kaplan's book "The Revenge of Geography" wherein he writes about how geography shapes society. One part of interest to me, but won't expand on in this post is the importance of Ukraine to Russia in whether or not Russia takes a more European or Asian orientation. What I want to talk about here is actually a quote from another book about the Mexican border. The reviewer critiques Kaplan on his views about the Mexican border and quotes another author, George Friedman who wrote "[Mexico's] real, social border will be hundreds of miles north of the legal border.” I thought this was an interesting concept. In terms of geography, the Mexican border is pretty poorly defined and was established at a time when the region was sparsely populated. So here lies a poorly defined border seperating two countries with a massive income gap. This of course leads to massive immigration. Because of the level of immigration and the proximity of Mexico, Mexicans are not being assimilated in the same way immigrants in the past were. They have such a large presence that they are about to maintain their culture and language and current technology allows them to communicate and visit with family in Mexico regularly, so they are never alienated from their history. This means that the Southwest is increasingly looking like its southern neighbors, so while the Mexican border may be south of Texas, Mexican society extends farther north.

In looking at this issue, I wanted to know just how far north Hispanic culture extends today. To do this, I looked at Census data on the Hispanic population just north of the Mexican border. I then used this data to map out a region of the US where the population is 50% Hispanic.

There are counties north of this region which are over 50% Hispanic, but I wanted to create as clean a border as possible without exclaves. Likewise, the region includes counties with very low Hispanic populations, but were surrounded by counties with high Hispanic populations. I left one American exclave though, San Diego and Orange County, because it has a large population, but a relative small Hispanic population.

Overall, this region represents 36 million people, 18 million of whom are Hispanic. New Mexico is clearly the most Hispanic state, although it is sparsely populated so the majority of this region lives in California. Over a quarter of the population is in Los Angeles County alone.

What is striking about this region is how uneven it is. It extends as far north as the Bay Area in California and parts of Colorado and Kansas, but only incorporates the border counties of Arizona and just barely reaches Austin and Houston. Arizona has a relatively low Hispanic population despite being flanked by large Hispanic populations in California and New Mexico. The Hispanic population isn't moving uniformly northward but is following its own patterns, possibly adhering to more sensible boundaries than the arbitrary ones currently in place.

Majority-Minority 2011

It's been awhile since I've looked at figures for the majority-minority states. In my last post on the subject, new data from the 2010 census revealed that minority populations had been under counted, and that the estimated year for when most states would become majority-minority states moved forward considerably. Well, I finally got around to including 2011 in my estimates. Not much has changed from 2010, the next ten states likely to become majority-minority states, remain the same, although the years change a little.

Nevada - 2014
Maryland - 2017
Georgia - 2019
Florida - 2022
New Jersey - 2025
Arizona - 2025
New York - 2029
Louisiana - 2030 (est. excludes 2005)
Mississippi - 2030
Delaware - 2031

Only three states, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, showed a proportional increase in the white population between 2010 and 2011, but in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, it wasn't large enough to reverse the trend, and in Hawaii, the white population is already so small, there is no significant trend. DC is the only region that clearly shows a reversal as the city becomes more gentrified. According to current trends, DC will be majority white by 2029. However, I'm skeptical this trend will continue as the pace of change decreased greatly between 2010 and 2011.

Divergent Staaten

While on the subject of economic convergence and divergence, I thought it would be interesting to look at Germany. Since reunification, Germany has been marked by the stark economic differences between eastern and western Germany. During their time as separate states, West Germany greatly out paced East Germany in economic growth.

Since reunification though, the German government has poured tons of resources into the eastern Staaten, hoping to bring about a convergence. So far success has been limited. At first, they thought they could pay for reunification through the privatization of East German factories, but they turned out to be in such bad shape they were essentially given away. When replacing the East German currency, the government gave a highly favorable exchange rate, in an effort to increase wealth. However, this ended up inflating labor costs, which led to persistent unemployment. A massive investment in construction proved fruitless as the population continued to decline, leaving many disused buildings.

However, the government learned much from these early efforts, and with the recent growth of the Germany economy, one would hope that some convergence has occurred. Unfortunately, I can't find an comparison of incomes over a long enough period of years to determine if there has been a convergence in that area. An article from Spiegel says that in 20 years, household incomes in the east went from 35% to 53% of that in the west.
I have more complete data on unemployment though.
Instead of there being a more immediate convergence, there was a divergence in unemployment rates up until 2001, and the unemployment rate didn't peak until 2005. However, since then, the drop in unemployment in the east has outpaced the west.

Another chart I find interesting is comparing the number of unemployed people for each job vacancy.

After a massive spike in 2004, the number of job vacancies in eastern Germany greatly increased. So it appears, at least in terms of employment figures, eastern Germany didn't begin to converge with the west until around 2005, when Germany's economy started to improve.

While doing this research, I found one interesting article that now I can't find, wherein it concluded that attempts to compare the economies of the west and the east were flawed as the east is more rural. While the largest city in Germany, by far, is Berlin, all other cities in the top 10 are in western Germany. When compared to just rural areas in the west, the level of convergence is much higher. It's just that recent economic growth in Germany has mostly taken place in the cities, which the east is lacking.

Divergent States

The different rates of economic growth is a rather common topic when comparing countries. There is always a question of whether growth leads to convergence, assuming growth has decreasing marginal returns, or to divergence, assuming growth acts as a feedback loop. Of course, given the number of variables involved, there are plenty of examples to support either claim. While many Asian countries are approaching the levels of wealth seen in Western countries, there are many African countries that have been left behind.

Focusing on just divergence, one reason it occurs is because countries are sovereign. Just because one country has a growing economy, doesn't mean that another randomly selected country will have one. It takes a certain level of exchange between the two countries to forestall divergence. For example, since the introduction of NAFTA, economic growth in the US and Mexico has been almost the same every year. This is of course a situation where there is neither divergence nor convergence. Arguably though, there is a positive relationship between integration and economic convergence.

One reason to believe this is true is to look at regions within a country. It appears to be very rare that two regions within a country have divergent growth rates, at least not in the long-run. China is currently experiencing divergent internal growth rates between the coastal regions and the interior (per capita GDP in the wealthiest province is 5 times greater than in the poorest). China is actively trying to fix this problem, but other countries have mechanisms in place that also address this problem, although more passively, such as the free movement of capital and labor. For example, when a region becomes poorer than its neighbors, property and labor will be cheaper which entices businesses to move there.

What I am curious about though is how effective these mechanisms are. It's actually kind of a marvel that given how big the US is, that most people can expect the same standard of living in every state. There are pockets of wealth and poverty, but those are scattered throughout the US, not concentrated in certain areas.

I wanted a long term look at how GSP per capita in each state grew relative to the US GDP per capita. Unfortunately, there was a change how GSP is measured in 1997, so older data will not much up. Regardless, there have been some interesting movement since 1997.

The most basic way to look at divergence is to find the standard deviation of GSP per capita between states. In 1997, the average state had a GSP per capita of $35350 with an standard deviation of $6943. In 2011, the average state had a GSP per capita of $41446 with an standard deviation of $8109. While the standard deviation increased, so did the average, and relative to the average, nothing has changed as in both 1997 and 2011, one standard deviation was 20% of the average. However, in the years available, 1997 and 2011 are both high points. In 2003, one standard deviation was 17.5% of the average. So since 2003 there seems to have been a divergence, but a glacial one.

Looking at a more individual level, in 1997 the wealthiest state, Alaska, had a GSP 2.4 times greater than the poorest state, Idaho. In 2011 the wealthiest state, Delaware, had a GSP 2.2 times greater than the poorest state, Mississippi. So not only has the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest decreased, but the states holding the top and bottom positions has changed. This indicates that no state is soaring ahead or falling behind.

That said, there is a huge difference in growth rates from 1997 to 2011. During that time period, GDP per capita in the US increased by 14%. At the low end, Michigan's GSP per capita declined by -2%. At the high end, North Dakota's GSP per capita increased by 41%. However, despite such different growth rates, neither state have a GSP per capita much different from the rest of the country. All it really changed was their relative position. North Dakota has intriguing gone from being nearly one standard deviation below the average to nearly one standard deviation above the average.

Another interesting finding is that the current 3 wealthiest states all had below average growth. Which indicates there is some convergence happening at the top. However, there is some indication the poorest states are not converging with the average. Mississippi, the current poorest state, had only 9% growth, while South Carolina, the 3rd poorest state, had only 1% growth. While there's no indication that this trend will continue, it is still a worrying position to be in. It will be interesting to see when this divergence reverses itself.

New Top Computer

Top 500

Despite my prediction that K Computer would remind in the top spot for a long time, it has already been over taken by Sequoia, a computer that can calculate 16 PetaFLOPS. Not only that, after two rather lackluster updates, the Top 500 this time around saw a massive change. Overall, the total FLOPS calculated by the entire top 500 increased by 67%, the second highest increase ever, just behind June 2008's 68% increase.

Most of the change took place in the top 10, with 6 new computers. Compare that to November 2011's list which saw the exact same top 10 with just K Computer getting an upgrade. Overall, the top 10 increased it's total FLOPS by 113%. However movement at the bottom was rather low. Despite 170 new computers on the list, the total FLOPS of the bottom 10 only increased by 20%.

Eurovision 2012

Eurovision is coming up! Here is the vital information:

Semi-Final 1: May 22nd
Semi-Final 2: May 24th
Final: May 26th

All Shows start at 21:00 CET. That's 22:00 in Ukraine and 3:00pm EST.

It can be watched anywhere online at Eurovision.tv

Ironically, because of the late start of the shows in Ukraine, and the fact that my host family doesn't have a TV, I may have to miss the live show. But that doesn't mean you should (although, most of the acts in the second semi-final, so you can skip that).

This year's contest is taking place in Azerbaijan. Due to security concerns, Armenia decided to not compete, but that still leaves 42 countries in the contest. Poland also decided to drop out this year. However, Montenegro has returned.

In previous years, I made a top ten list of songs that I found amusing for some reason. This is year, there are few gimmicks and joke songs, but there are a bunch of songs I actually enjoy. I don't know if this means Eurovision is getting better or if my taste in music is getting worse. I'll let you decide. Here are the 12 best and/or most entertaining entries for 2012.

12. Finland- Nothing amazing, I just like Swedish
11. Israel- Not something I expected from Israel, but I appreciate it
10. Austria- Quit Eurovision because they never win, and when they finally return, they do this
9. Italy- Sticking with a jazz influence
8. United Kingdom- Engelbert Humperdinck is still alive?
7. Ireland- Still traumatized from winning Eurovision 3 years in a row back in the 90's, Ireland resubmits Jedward
6. Sweden- Did she kill that man?
5. France- Experimenting with English again, but only for the chorus
4. Iceland- How has Iceland never won?
3. Russia- This is just adorable
2. Montenegro- Exactly what I expected from someone called Rambo Amadeus
1. Ukraine- The fact that this is number one has nothing to do with the fact that I want Ukraine to host Eurovision next year

Ice Breaking Update

A couple of months ago, I posted about the Nenana Ice Classic. This is a contest to predict when the ice on the Tanana River in Alaska will break. I made the prediction that it would take place on May 2nd at 2:11pm. I was pretty far off. The actual time was April 23rd at 7:39pm, one of the earliest dates in their records. Better luck next time.

Hispanic Election

One detail I've come across while research election maps is just how static the presidential electoral map has become in last few election cycles. Democrats winning the Northeast and West Coast and Republicans winning the Southeast and most of the West is taken as a given. However, looking at earlier election maps shows that voting patterns varied wildly from election to election.

Here is the 1956 election result:

Eight years later in 1964:

Only five states voted the same way in 1956 as in 1964.

Another way to show just how static the electoral map has become is to "equalize" it. That is to say, imagine what the result would have been if the race had been competitive.

In 2008, a competitive race would have probably looked like this:

In this scenario, the election ends in a 269-269 draw. Notice though, it looks a lot like the 2004 and 2000 result.

Now imagine that the 1984 election had actually be competitive. It probably would have looked like this:

In this scenario, Michigan is left as a toss-up as whoever wins it, wins the election. While there are notable differences between the 1984 and 2008, only ten states actually changed. Meaning in 24 years 39 states have shown a consistent preference for one party over the other (not sure what to consider Michigan).

As far as I can tell, this pattern has only existed for the last 24 years, and looking at previous elections reveals no other pattern so consistent. Clearly 1984 marked a major change in how Americans voted. The clearest distinction is the division between urban and rural voters that doesn't appear in earlier electoral maps.

It doesn't look like the 2012 election will break this pattern. For one, there is an incumbent running, which tends to keep the electoral map static. However, looking to the future, is there a chance that the pattern could be broken? I've been reading a bit lately about how the GOP's stance on immigration is causing Hispanics to abandon the party in droves. Right now, Hispanics just heavily favor the Democrats, but what if they become a solid voting bloc like African-Americans.

So the scenario, in 2016, Republicans continue to rail against Hispanic immigrants while the Democrats nominate a popular Hispanic politician for president, so Hispanics vote 90% in favor of the Democrats. The Republican candidate is popular amongst White voters, making this a competitive election. What are the results?

The lighter states are swing states, won with less than 52.5% of the vote. Surprisingly, not all that much changes. Compared to the equalized 2008 map, Democrats pick-up Colorado and Florida, but don't gain any other heavily Hispanic states. Republicans pick up Minnesota, Iowa, and New Hampshire to replace their losses.

Texas, despite its large Hispanic population stays Republican, just missing the cut-off of being considered a swing state, with Republicans winning 53%. While over one-third of the state is Hispanic, they only make up one-fifth of voters. Also, Texas' White population votes heavily Republican. Similarly, Arizona stays Republican, but only by a slim margin. It's somewhat similar to the situation Mississippi, wherein 33% of voters are African-Americans who vote over 90% Democrat, but the Republican candidate always wins.

While this map makes it look like not much has changed, this is a nightmare scenario for the GOP. Texas is the GOP's only major stronghold, and if it ever starts to favor the Democrats, they would have a great deal of difficulty making up for the loss of 38 electoral votes. Even if the Republicans could hold off a Hispanic voting bloc in 2016, it becomes much more difficult going into 2020 and later elections. Once Texas flips, that's when the map really changes as Republicans will have to pick up several long-time Democratic states to make up for such a loss. The problem is figuring out which ones.

How the US was Purchased

I had a discussion with friend some months ago about US expansion, wherein she joked that the US had purchased half its territory. For anyone that has seen a map of the original 13 colonies and then a map with the Louisiana Purchase, it certainly seems true. So decided to test this hypothesis. Wikipedia thankfully had a very nice write up about US territorial acquisitions.

I found there were four primary categories into which territorial acquisitions fell:

1. Purchase, land that was sold to the US that wasn't part of a peace treaty. I added the peace treaty caveat because technically the US compensated Mexico for the territories it gained after the Mexican-American war, but Mexico would have never sold that land had there not been a war.

2. War, land gained as a result of a peace treaty.

3. Annexation, land gained through unilateral action, such as unchallenged land claims or when a local independent government chose to join the US.

4. Treaty, unclaimed land that was peacefully gained based on an international treaty.

These percentages are, of course, estimates as treaties generally didn't specify the size of the territory being claimed, and often borders were disputed and changed. They also only include territory which the US currently holds, so the Philippines and several other Pacific territories are not included.

While half the US wasn't purchased, purchased territory makes a plurality of the US. The single largest purchase was the Louisiana Purchase (22%), followed by Alaska (17%).

The single largest transfer of land was the Revolutionary War (24%), which means the US has quadrupled in size since independence.

As for annexations, most of that 11% is from the annexation of Texas (10%). While the Oregon Treaty (8%) which gave the US the Pacific Northwest makes up most the treaty category.

Texas was actually hard to categorize as, while it was annexed prior to the Mexican-American War, that annexation certainly led to the Mexican-American War. If one were to include Texas as gained through war, the Mexican-American War would rival the Revolutionary War as the single largest transfer of land.

Tall Buildings 2011

Last April I made a post about the tallest buildings in the world. I was interested in seeing how much they changed from year to year. Now that 2012, I figure I should add in the numbers for buildings completed in 2011. The full list is at Emporis.

There were three new buildings in the top 30 this year, pushing up the average height from 405 to 410 meters. This is slightly higher than the annual average change of 3.7 meters.

If you want a bit more information, you can read the original post from last year.

Movie Sequels II

For years, I've heard people complain about how all new movies are either sequels or remakes and that there's no original movies, or that Hollywood has run out of ideas. The problem I have with this logic is that this same complaint comes up every single year. If people are making the same complaint every year, it would seem that nothing has actually changed.

In order to test this, I looked at the top 10 grossing films of each year and categorized them as originals, sequels, series, and remakes. This is a surprisingly difficult task because there are many movies that defy any kind of categorization. Would Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" be an original, sequel, or remake? It reusing established characters, but the story is original. It takes place after the the events in the books and the animated movie, but it's not a direct sequel. Then there's "Thor" which is the first movie about the comic book character, but the character has actually been around for a long time. So is it an original since it's the first movie or a remake because it's using an established story? Then there's the problem that there are a lot of movies that are remakes, but it's not widely known that they are. I just happened to know that "Gladiator" was a remake, but when I started looking the top 10 movies prior to 1990, I had no idea what some of their histories were because I had never heard of them.

I finally decided to use a fairly narrow definition of "original". An original movie was one wherein the story was either created by the writers, or was based on source material that had not been widely-adapted to any visual media such as film, television, or theater.

Much to my surprise, it appears people are right, movies are becoming less original. In fact, not a single original movie made the top 10 in 2011 by my standards. I should add the caveat that even though it appears more original movies made the top 10 in the 80's and 90's, I'm less familiar with those films, so some of them might be remakes, but I wouldn't know.