[celoyd]

The industrial revolution, while revolutionary, did not improve on the intelligence that invented it.

I bet it led to a significant increase in the average IQ. It may not have been a Singularity with a capital S, but it certainly did reflect back on its creators.

[cicada]

The qualitative and quantitative improvements from the flynn effect and the population increase reflected back on humanity as a whole, not the creators of the industrial revolution. This is why we've got accelerating growth, but it's also why the second derivative is still small.

[celoyd]

I agree, but this is orthogonal to the point I was trying to address. mechanical_fish, in a cousin thread, is talking about the same thing I was.