[voidz]

Isn't it amazing how much things improve in so little time. Things used to go so slow, now they go exponentially faster.

[lagrange77]

Yeah it's really amazing.

> Things used to go so slow, now they go exponentially faster.

Going slow at the beginning is actually part of exponentials.

[couchand]

Well it's only the beginning and slow relative to what comes after. Relative to what came before, it's much later and faster!

[majormajor]

Saying this universally leads to a too-rosy view of the future, I think, and downplays the amount of hard work needed to maintain society.

Consider advances in travel - you basically had people who saw, within their lifetime, a world of trains become one of planes, including some supersonic passenger flights (not to mention going to space). Even bullet trains are old at this point.

Lotta other examples of stagnation in the physical world rather than the information one since then.

[mitthrowaway2]

(Bullet trains might be old now, but for those of us who come from a country without them, hopping on one is still a huge thrill!)

[Teknoman117]

I'd love to take a bullet train from SF to LA. I make the trip every two or three months for work and just hoping on a train and zoning out would be far nicer than running through buses/light rail/airport security/cramped airplane/etc.

Distance would be pretty similar to the Tokyo to Osaka leg of the Tokaido shinkansen. Total time would probably be similar. I left my apartment 3.5 hours before I arrive in SoCal. Hour and a half on public transit, 30 minute buffer for flight, 30 minute boarding time, 60 minute flight.

[mhh__]

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"

[HPMOR]

As a corollary, it takes decades where nothing observable happens to have the weeks where decades happen.

[jimmySixDOF]

Like an overnight success 30 years in the making

[CamperBob2]

It always takes longer than you think it will, and when it finally does happen, it always happens faster than you think it will.

[giantg2]

For some things I wish it stayed slower. But of course we can't control it. We have to take the bad with the good.