Things that seem related:

in art

• Representations of Power and Rarity (in games)
• (also mentioned in the above) idle games, like universal paperclips - the entire game is just “but what if number got even bigger
• Frozen 2 should be rated R - on danger-level “power creep” in movies
• Game of Thrones (House of the Dragon) where it feels like every time you turn around there’s actually another still-more-powerful foe. “Ormund Hightower, who we never mentioned until this season, now has a huge army and is infinitely brilliant and will destabilize the new queen’s rule.”

in real life

• The world cup final. I don’t really follow soccer but I was kind of expecting the story to end as “and Messi caps off his run as the GOAT by winning a second consecutive world cup and scoring the most goals” etc. I just kind of expected the superlatives to continue.
• “hello there the jacobian conjecture is false”¹: I would have expected this to be a triumphant paper published in the Big Math Journal, with articles about how it’s the Biggest Result Ever, but instead it’s a tweet. that includes “hello there” and “thanx.”

It’s hard to keep wonder alive. In anything. So in art we go for exponential numbers, or new colors, or convoluted backstories about how our hero is in real jeopardy from the REAL big bad now. In life… I don’t know, it’s messier². But as things get more exponential, I guess we’ll see this more and more.