While things like flush toilets and electricity might be technically more important, I think Krugman is really underestimating how amazing the modern world is.

While things like flush toilets and electricity might be technically more important, I think Krugman is really underestimating how amazing the modern world is. I'm in my 40s and I certainly remember how hard it was to learn something prior to the mid-1990s. You had to go to a library or bookshop and hope they'd have a book that would have the info you needed. If it was obscure, probably not. Now we can have the info on basically anything that's known in seconds.