> since we haven't plateaued I'd argue ICE is the ultimate example of that. I'll toss in monoculture, fertilizer/herbacide-powered farming; centralized banking

> since we haven't plateaued I'd argue ICE is the ultimate example of that. I'll toss in monoculture, fertilizer/herbacide-powered farming; centralized banking (in the sense of Chase, not the Fed); commute-mandating urban planning; hydrocarbon-powered grid energy production; von Neumann architecture; electrical computing; and nuclear reactor designs to the list. My argument is not that these things aren't efficient. Indeed, I'm saying they're so hyper-optimized that they're nigh impossible to unseat. Maybe fusion power production is feasible, maybe it isn't. But where is the very substantial investment to see going to come from if it can't immediately compete against existing solutions? And barring that investment appearing, we (as a planet) end up stuck on a technology that's globally suboptimal and impossible to improve further. > Also, why is the incumbent suppressing a disruptive tech necessarily a bad thing? Since they're an incumbent they could also be in a position to evaluate the tech and know that there are certain downfalls to that approach. I feel history is definitely on my side that large companies with a focused product are more likely to attempt to torpedo viable alternatives than incubate and help them. (E.g. MS/Lotus, MS/Netscape, MS/OSS, GM/Streetcars, GM/EV1)