Is there a ratings inflation? I would like to think that there are many more good players now than in 1970. Chess seems to be more global now.

How do we get to the facts?

If Carlsen has any obvious weakness, it is slightly inferior positions that happen to be highly tactical, and perhaps long rook endgames.

Carlsen plays maneuvering positional games with a skill not seen since the heyday of Karpov. Given even a small advantage, he is able to tenaciously preserve it and increase it, usually by converting it adroitly to other pluses in his position, until it transforms into an overwhelming attack or material advantage.

This is an important question for young GMs who are just recently being exposed to international tournaments- including Sjugirov himself, and others like Giri, Caruana, So, Ding, Yu, and so on. Probably this is important even for older GMs like Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi who are way behind Carlsen in terms of international exposure.

In terms of international exposure, Carlsen probably has a headstart of at least 3 years ahead of them. To explain it in another way, the Carlsen of today has probably played as many or even more international chess games than the Capablanca of 1919, the Alekhine of 1924, the Botvinnik of 1946, the Karpov of 1972, the Kasparov of 1983. IMO it is not so much the absolute age that matters, it's the accumulated experience of a rising chess player. In which case, the rising GMs younger than Carlsen have a chance to catch up on experience and consequently attain their own peaks and plateaus sometime in the future.

Whether or not their peaks and plateaus are close enough for them to give Carlsen serious competition in the future still remains to be seen.

Anand and Kramnik probably will not be able to maintain their form for the next 10 years, and if no one is able to play like a Carlsen, he is the obvious successor to the Anand-Kramnik era.