I think it's also important to consider and analyze technological advances in the context of various periods in the historical development of humanity. For muc

I think it's also important to consider and analyze technological advances in the context of various periods in the historical development of humanity. For much more than half of the 20th century, nations were at war with each other, the British Empire was declining (and there had to be a replacement fitting for the times), etc. Man's taste for blood has not necessarily gone away with the 20th century, it only found expression in soft power and other psychological means of domination (e.g., Hollywood movies whose central theme is American​ Exceptionalism). This fresh awareness that actionable information is what may determine the fate of nations has also polarized technological progress in favour of advancements in understanding data and processing large volumes of it in the most efficient way possible. To be fair, Claude Shannon and Alan Turing made outsized contributions to this space. Just as there were Economic Consequences of the Peace (thanks, J.M. Keynes), I think we will also have to chronicle the The Effects of Peacetime on Technological Progress.