[zbrozek]

I think the short answer is that society simply doesn't value it as much today as it did in the past. We're just seeing the consequences of that slow change in attitude. These days it's more important to have low-effort, smooth relationships with everybody at once.

When machine translation gets so good as to be transparent, correct, and effortlessly ubiquitous, we'll probably see more cross-cultural communication. And along with it, a bunch of additional clashes, new taboos, and additional reduction in the range of acceptable expression. I probably say things that someone halfway across the planet thinks are abhorrent all the time, and I only get away with it because we're not interacting yet.