[throwaway6532]

>We closed a remarkable bit of that gap in the 19th and 20th centuries - the gaps remaining are getting really difficult to fill. This is the counterargument to innovation will solve all our problems.

When you combine this with birth rates below replacement level that leads society in the direction where it's a) harder to fill those gaps, and b) much less people to fill them. So, having far less bandwidth available to do that discovery/work seems to be in general a trend people don't seem to acknowledge.