The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 449 The Logic of Industrialization of Cultural Industries
While the American elites were touring various parts of the Ming Dynasty, general information about nuclear weapons began to be released in official and private newspapers, radio, and television in the Ming Dynasty.

Use popular science methods to explain the working principles of nuclear weapons, the application scope of atomic energy technology, and the specific power of nuclear weapons.

Photos taken at the nuclear explosion site were displayed in newspapers, and video footage of the explosion was shown on television.

Although it is difficult for civilian forces to suddenly develop equipment and raw materials related to the production of nuclear weapons without attracting official attention.

However, just in case, Science Popularization will not disclose specific technical details to the public.

For example, how to purify uranium ore, how to enrich uranium 235, how to produce plutonium 239, and how to make and control nuclear bombs.

Initially, Zhu Jianxuan asked the Ministry of Rites to arrange for news media-related agencies to do it.

But Zhu Jianxuan quickly thought that this incident could be made into a documentary and promoted through showing movies, as he had similar memories of his previous life.

However, after having this idea, Zhu Jianxuan found that he had no idea where to start.

I have no idea what to do, how to arrange personnel, or how to make an overall plan.

Should the Ministry of Rites be in charge of this matter? Should they directly look for actors from the Jiaofangsi? Or should they look for actors from folk opera troupes and film companies?

When Zhu Jianxuan was thinking about this, he once again thought of a question he had considered before.

Over the years, Zhu Jianxuan has gradually realized that the Ming Dynasty's industrial system seems to be missing a very important link.

In my previous life, this industry was not yet mature in my country.

That is the cultural and artistic industry, including literature and art, music, film and television, sports and so on.

These industries are the essence of the tertiary industry, important auxiliary tools in social governance, and key tools for controlling public opinion.

Because they belong to the tertiary industry, the rapid development of these industries is premised on the full completion of basic industrialization.

The basic necessities of ordinary people have been met, and their spiritual needs have begun to become stronger, and naturally there are higher requirements for the cultural and entertainment industries.

Usually, where there is sustained demand, a corresponding industry will emerge, and people will study ways to meet these needs.

However, the market, technology and the industry itself will not develop and mature rapidly on their own.

Industrial development in natural conditions is usually tortuous.

Before an industry matures, the origin and emergence of technology within the industry usually comes from personal interest and inspiration.

People usually feel that when a circle is small, the environment within the circle is mostly pure and simple.

Because the proportion of people who create purely for hobbies and interests is larger.

However, the continuation, maturity and promotion of technology, in addition to the continued strong demand, is more importantly driven by the actual benefits generated thereby.

Usually when the circle expands, the elderly will feel that the environment has changed, becoming chaotic and full of the smell of money.

Because the profit drive is long-lasting and realistic, even if the party's interest declines, there is a high probability that they will continue to produce works for profit.

However, pure interest-driven activities will be interrupted by various practical reasons.

Those who generate electricity for love will gradually withdraw, and the number of people who generate electricity for profit and make a living from it will continue to increase, and the ratio of interest to work will gradually reverse.

The small circle has become an industry, and the main driving force has changed from interest to profit.

If there are no reasonable rules and constraints within the circle and industry, and there is no coercive force to maintain a relatively reasonable order, the industry itself will be allowed to grow wildly and freely.

Then this circle and the corresponding industries and markets will most likely not have a healthy and harmonious environment.

The key is that it may not develop as rulers like Zhu Jianxuan hope, and may even lead to various pathological and extremely distorted situations.

For example, profit orientation is taken to the extreme, and mutual attacks and destructive vicious competition are expanded to the entire industry.

Normally, this sick and distorted market only appears when it encounters a huge setback, such as the Atari crash in real-life gaming history.

People in the industry will realize that if they continue to mess around like this, the entire industry will be ruined and everyone will be unemployed.

Only then will someone step forward or agree upon some basic principles to avoid another industry-wide collapse.

With the basic principles in place, the industry may be reborn, but it is also possible that new problems will arise after the rebirth.

For example, there may be new manufacturers who break the basic principles without regard for the consequences, triggering a new round of collapse.

An industry without constraints will gradually mature through such rebirth and destruction, and eventually show an upward spiral trajectory.

If someone takes the initiative to provide guidance, the industry will have the opportunity to skip some spiral bends and move towards a relatively healthy and mature direction more quickly.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that he needed to take the initiative to intervene and guide to promote the healthy development of the Ming Dynasty's cultural and artistic industries.

Let the Ming Dynasty’s cultural and art industries achieve modern industrialization as soon as possible.

Even after I left, the industry lost strong control and suffered a large-scale collapse and regression.

Rebuilding after a crash will also be faster, and the spiral trajectory will start from a higher position.

People in the industry will recall the rules they set and will proactively retrieve the framework rules they are currently guiding and establishing.

However, the modernization and industrialization of the cultural and arts industry are very abstract things.

In Zhu Jianxuan's previous life, by the 21st century, there were only a few typical representatives to refer to.

The United States' film industry and four major league sports such as basketball, European and American documentaries and the football sports industry, Japan's manga and animation, and pop music.

In China's cultural and artistic industries, the only industry that can be considered to have achieved industrialization is online literature.

There is a relatively simple reference standard to determine whether an industry is in the handicraft era or has entered the industrialization era.

It is to look at the distribution of personnel and products within the industry, whether it is dumbbell-shaped or pyramid-shaped.

If it is distributed in a pyramid shape, it is an industrial industry.

There may not be many top-level personnel and works, because top-level personnel and works require the right time, place and people.

But as long as the standards are lowered slightly, the number of people and works will increase rapidly, and will expand rapidly as the standards are lowered. The level of standards is roughly inversely proportional to the number.

There are enough products above the horizontal line to meet the actual needs of most people.

People in the industry have a relatively reasonable upgrade path and can expand their circle step by step within the industry and steadily increase their audience range.

The environment they can enter depends on the standards that their personnel and products meet.

If you want to continue to advance, there are relatively clear methods and paths for what kind of people you should learn from and what abilities and skills you should master.

Even if there is no sudden and unexpected popularity, you can still achieve above-average results step by step.

If the distribution is dumbbell-shaped, it is a handicraft industry.

The top-notch personnel and works will also appear, but lowering the standards will not result in more personnel and works, and may even decrease rapidly.

Of course, there will be a lot of people and works at the bottom.

However, the capabilities of the personnel cannot meet the needs of the industry, and the parties involved may not even be able to make a living from it, and they may not earn a penny.

The quality of the works is also extremely low and cannot satisfy the vast majority of users.

People in the industry don’t know how to reach a higher level or how to produce better works.

Relying on uncontrollable unexpected events, or direct support from successful people, and forcibly promoting through abnormal and huge exposure.

For example, below the level of The Wandering Earth, what science fiction films can we find whose quality is slightly lower than that of The Wandering Earth, but whose overall level is above the passing line?
It should be said that there are almost none and they are impossible to find at all.

But in the online literature industry, there are certainly top-notch works, and if the standards are lowered a little, the number will expand rapidly.

In order of number of readers and influence from high to low, the number of authors and works is increasing.

Authors who have truly entered the industry basically know what kind of abilities they need to have in order to get a certain scale of readers and subscriptions.

When a book has written 30,000 to 50,000 words, you can roughly assess your future performance and income.

At the same time, just as basic industries may decline, the production model of the cultural and arts industry may also decline.

Once there is a clear gap in the distribution of works and personnel within the industry, it is almost on the verge of decline.

Because then the people in the industry will lose the smooth promotion path. Either they soar to the sky and become popular, or they just sit by the sidelines and no one cares about them. There will be no middle class to serve as the pillar.

Industries based on a handicraft model may also appear to be very prosperous.

As long as the demand is strong enough, there will be enough works, but the output of high-level works is not stable and depends on the personal talents of practitioners.

At the same time, a small number of elite members will monopolize most of the market.

Zhu Jianxuan felt that he should at least build the framework for the industrialization of the cultural industry and establish the basic bottom-line rules for each industry.

Unless future generations encounter major changes, they should not dare to arbitrarily change the rules that they have clearly set.

To industrialize the cultural industry, the foundation is to have enough high-level practitioners, and then to have a complete training system and market environment.

There must be a sufficient number of specialized, mature schools that can recruit students of sufficient level.

The level of football in the previous life was extremely poor, and the fundamental reason was that there were no good students.

Football is a typical team sport.

Team sports are not just about physical fitness. Players and coaches need to have brains and know how to cooperate with each other to get things done.

There really is a difference between people's brains.

The gap in physical fitness can be made up as much as possible through acquired training, but the gap in IQ is difficult to make up.

Due to the absolute priority given to science and engineering, liberal arts students are the leftovers from science majors, and sports students and art students are the leftovers from liberal arts majors.

Most sports and art students seek out these opportunities simply because they are not good at liberal arts or science.

It would be a real surprise if the artists and athletes who come out in this way can still achieve a high enough overall level, and it would be normal if they do not perform well.

Ordinary students go through at least three waves of screening during high school and college, and those with slightly better learning abilities are screened out.

As for the rest, once they enter the entertainment industry, it’s not surprising what they can do.

The literary creation and news media industries have the same environment. The reason they are filled with low-level personnel is that good students do not develop in this direction.

Because the overall level of these circles is low and poor, they may give ordinary people a very bad impression.

Students with some ability are even less willing to work in these industries.

For example, the perception that "you learn from journalism" has already been formed, and there is a high probability that the news industry will become worse in the future.

The cultural and art circles in the era of the big pot seemed to perform better. The key reason was that a social revolution had just taken place and the lowest-class actors had become artists.

At the same time, with the state providing a safety net and social security, good students can study and develop in these industries simply because of their interests.

The level of the cultural and artistic industries in the old society seemed to be pretty good. This might be because before the social revolution, good students had no better options and could only take the exams where they could get access.

Ordinary people in Latin America do not have any good options, and only by becoming a football star can they cross the class barrier.

Most black people in the United States do not have a good way out in society. Playing basketball can provide them with a possibility to cross classes, so naturally there will be a crazy enthusiasm among black people.

When society has other better options and the general public believes that culture and art are not a good way out.

The cultural and art industries probably won't have a bright future.

After The Wandering Earth, there will be Shanghai Fortress and The Great Wall, but there are few science fiction adaptations that are above the passing line.

Because the director and team of The Wandering Earth, after learning and mastering enough film techniques, are unable to split themselves to create multiple similar works at the same time.

They also don't have the opportunity to quickly train a group of students to do similar work.

Even if they stop making movies and start teaching in schools, they cannot solve the problem of good students not choosing to be art students, nor can they expand the industrial film industry.

The Wandering Earth may be able to master "industrial film techniques", but in terms of technology inheritance it is still a handicraft model.

A few people relied on their own talents, mastered quite advanced technologies through self-study and communication, rather than directly finding a group of qualified personnel from the industry.

If they don't build schools to teach, they can only have masters and apprentices within the company and recruit people with good science majors to switch careers.

Even though there are a large number of wealthy families in society, some family members do not need to earn money to have food and clothing, and can concentrate on doing what they like.

They will also face more competition from groups that make a living from this, even vicious competition or even direct attacks and sabotage.

Based on these experiences and analyses, what should the Ming Dynasty do now?

The Ming Dynasty at that time had not undergone a widespread social revolution, actors still had a lower social status, and scriptwriting was still not a glamorous profession.

The Ming Dynasty also banned the buying and selling of Ming people as slaves, and continued overseas expansion and industrialization to absorb population.

Private factories also provide a large number of jobs.

As far as Zhu Jianxuan knows, there are a large number of Japanese and Koreans in the Ming Dynasty's "entertainment circle".

There are very few people in the Ming Dynasty who go to act in plays anymore.

Zhu Jianxuan thought about it and felt that in the current environment of the Ming Dynasty, it seemed inappropriate and difficult to directly turn actors into artists.

For things happening in the entertainment industry, we can refer to Japan, which has strong feudal remnants from the past.

According to the standards that the Japanese have worked out over the past few decades, the sales of a record are divided into a guaranteed 20% share for the songwriter, and less than 10% or even 1% for the singer.

The remaining 70% or so is shared among the performing arts company, record company and sales store, but they have to bear all the costs and risks.

At the same time, most of the income related to the live performances is given to the performers.

Separate the profits of creators and performers, and let creators make money from record sales. The more they sell, the more they can earn, and at the same time they will not lose money in any case.

Let the performers make money from the performance itself, and use the performance to attract audiences to buy tickets.

The imperial court could protect the basic personal rights of performers, but it did not have to, and could not, take the initiative to improve their social status.

As long as they have the same basic personal rights as ordinary people, they will naturally gain a higher social status because of their actual influence.

If they take the initiative to improve it, their status will become inflated.

They can make money simply by relying on their influence. After becoming famous, they can make money just by participating in events, without having to rely on continuous performances to generate income.

They will try every possible means to become famous instead of working hard on the performance itself.

However, we need to improve the status of creators as much as possible; the foundation of the cultural and arts industry still lies in creators and their works.

Without good works, everything else is just castles in the air.

The social status of those who write vernacular novels in the Ming Dynasty today is similar to that of the online writers in Zhu Jianxuan’s previous life.

Although it is still not a glamorous profession, it is no longer despised.

If you meet readers, you may be welcomed.

They can further protect their interests and status, and at the same time raise the status of songwriters and film and television screenwriters.

The specific approach could be for the Ministry of Rites to step in, open specialized schools and establish management agencies to build the framework for the industry.

At the same time, as the emperor, as long as he opened his mouth and personally participated in some relevant public activities, their status would immediately rise.

After all, creation is the job of literati and scholars, and there are many famous poets in the Song and Yuan dynasties.

Music, chess, calligraphy and painting are elegant things and it is easy to explain them.

List the share of creative income as a legal additional income that in-service officials can obtain.

Sports competitions can develop by relying on the army, and the demand for war in the Ming Dynasty is unprecedentedly scarce.

The generals all have certain command abilities, and the soldiers also have the ability to cooperate.

The framework for various competitive sports can be set up in the name of training programs using existing military personnel.

The government regularly organizes competitions and awards prizes to attract ordinary people to participate.

(End of this chapter)