[igorlev]

I don't think it's starvation, it's just a big slow patch. Innovation, just like evolution doesn't work on a smooth continuum but in jumps and bursts of flowering. Neal Stephenson is being observant but unfortunately shortsighted himself by complaining about the natural cycles of innovation.

I agree with his observation that we've become more short-term oriented, I don't agree with his extrapolation of that tendency to the future or the causality. We're not building big stuff because we've become shortsighted, we've become shortsighted because we've built most of the big stuff that was cheap to build with current knowledge. As soon as new avenues open up we'll have another burst of invention.

Fusion reactors have been "a few decades away" for the last 75 years so it's understandable that we don't have as many people interested in that. But I'll bet you that when they're finally made workable enough you will have enough applications of that tech to figure out for the next 50 years.

Same thing with manufacturing. You already have people printing gun parts on 3D printers and trading designs on-line. Research being done at this very moment on metallising printable materials or making stronger composites printable is going to turn manufacturing completely upside down.

19th century was figuring out the applications of mechanical automation, early 20th - the applications of electricity, late 20th - of electronic automation. Who knows what the 21st will be, but I'm sure we'll get out of this slow patch eventually.