Good point. It's quite possible that there's a fundamental limit to technological achievement and that we just haven't reached it yet. On the other hand, I'd l

Good point. It's quite possible that there's a fundamental limit to technological achievement and that we just haven't reached it yet. On the other hand, I'd like to say that it's also possible that some particular processes can follow exponential laws without any restriction. It might be somewhat hazy, but what if outside of a few measures (infant mortality, life expectancy, etc) economic progress is nothing more than a subjective measurement of how present consumers value past output? I'm not saying anything new here, both Easterlin's paradox and the idea of a "hedonic treadmill" support the idea that more income doesn't necessarily equate into increased happiness. And specially in the case of economic innovation, which might not actually be technically interesting or require any "new physics" at all - just mashing some current technologies into a marketable product - it might never ever stop, and will just degenerate into an endless chase of ever changing fads. Past economies wouldn't be particular poor, just particularly quaint, and a repository of dead fads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox