| Well lets actually congeal similar things together. A = {The personal computer, The personal computer that fits in your pocket } B = {Global phone networks, The internet and everything that stems comes from instant global communication, GPS and similar} C = {Automated language translation, Automated computer vision, Automated speech recognition and transcription} D = {Global financial networks, Global supply chains} E = {5x reduction in global child mortality rate, 25% higher global life expectancy, Minimally invasive surgery, MRI} A: Basically moore's law. We've gotten smaller and smaller transistors and cheaper/condensed storage. No real breakthrough, just been using similar semiconductor technology and making incremental progress when it comes to semiconductor fabrication but it has led to exponential number of transistors being placed into a single chip. B: Improved the number of bits we can push from one place to another from slowly weaning of the old generation of networks that were used to communicate. C: This is clearly a result of A and B. As more people got connected to the internet and we could push more bit there was more data and as computers got more transistors we could do more compute. So with enough compute and data we could train the refined versions of models that had their foundation in the late 60s, early 70s. D: Globalization. Plain and simple. People become more connected via B and opening up of developing countries (China). E: A lot of people dying in developing world got access to medicines that existed but were out of their reach. This led to the average to significantly move up. If you compare how the average has moved for developed western countries ... well it's depressing. Antivirals and MRI had their foundations laid out during the 60s and early 70s and widespread travel was possible in pre 1970. In fact the Boeing 747 was designed in the 60s and had its first flight in late 60s. Since then we've just been incrementally improving it. I can't speak about artificial organ since I don't know much about that. But so far I have not heard of humans getting artificial organs. In conclusion, I agree that there has been some progress but most of that has been concentrated in pushing and processing bits. There is some progress when it comes to CRISPR and some new advances but it is nothing compared to 1920s - 1950s. We went from just having figured out powered flight to landing a man on another world. The ISS is akin to taking some aluminum presuraziable modules and sticking them together in low earth orbit... Most people alive today were born in the last 50 years and they've come to accept the world for what it is; their definition of incremental progress as landscape changing progress. I am not sure if this slow down is because we've exhausted a lot of the simple discoveries or their is some institutional faliure. I lean more towards the latter. Government has its mandate set by beauracrats who are bent on continuing the status quo and spending on social services to appease the masses. They don't have the balls to spend large amounts of money on large scale human efforts or fund foundational research. This mindset has also spilled over to the scientific community where funding for something out of their zone of comfort is never funded. Its as if people like Ralph Abernathy (opposed apollo program and thought funding should be used to feed the homeless) have taken over. And sadly enough in a world where there are deadlocks in government over small theing, it is unlikely that they would ever agree on funding anything that could move the needle for the human race. |