[graeham]

Oil prices are essentially capped at $60/barrel for the foreseeable future due to unconventional extraction techniques -> was not long ago oil production was thought to have peaked. Solar power can be economical without subsidy. Robotic and minimally invasive surgery. Battery cost becoming viable for mass-market cars. Gene sequencing. Sensors for pennies. New materials (cheaper carbon fibre, metal alloys, semiconductors, graphine/carbon nanotubes). Most of the things mentioned as 'first half of 20th century' coming to the next 5 billion people.

For aerospace, how about affordability of a ticket over time (Ryanair vs Concorde)? Space travel: number of journeys per vehicle or time astronauts are able to spend in space (was minutes in early space flight, unlimited now). Transportation speed is a straw-man, the industry optimises for cost not speed.

[TheOtherHobbes]

No, because you're failing to distinguish between game-changer tech - transistors, DNA sequencing, operating systems, powered flight, all as classes of original and unexpected inventions - and refinement tech, which is made of game-changer inventions made smaller, cheaper, and more widely avaialable.

Game changer tech changes what can be imagined. Refinement tech changes what can be bought by consumers.

There's been plenty of refinement over the last few decades, but not nearly as much original game changer invention as in the previous decades.

[ExactoKnight]

Exactly. Peter Thiel's book Zero to One is actually named after this.

Refinement is taking existing tech and moving it up (e.g. 10 to 30).

Thiel argues real game changer tech emerges when it brings us from 0 to 1. From nothing to something huge.