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What massive efficiencies have technology brought us lately? I count ... fracking as a real improvement. That's it!

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
Fracking as we know it today started in the 40’s, it’s just a matter of economics that it’s feasible to do on a wide scale today. Mind you, that only goes to further reinforce your point. Edit. Every example other people are posting have been around for longer than most of us have been alive. I’m not trying to take a dump on the notion of progress, but I feel the distinction between “new” and “maturing” is being lost.
xiphias2 8y ago
Internet? You know you wouldn't be able to take part in this debate without it. I wasn't able to read so many interesting things 20 years ago, and I was behind in everything because I wasn't born at the right place in the world.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
  The internet is probably older than you are. A lot of the “exciting new tech” is a mature or market-ready form of technology that has been around since the Cold War or much earlier. There is also a lot of very old tech that is “new” only by virtue of having a microcontroller stuck in, much in the same way an IoT device is often just Device X + Network connection.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  20 years ago, the internet was vastly superior to what we have now, which is basically turning into a much worse version of Genie, Compuserve and/or Prodigy (... now with more surveillance dystopia ...).
shaki-dora 8y ago
Long-distance phone calls Long-distance message transmission DTP Photography Short-haul flights Electric lighting (LED uses less than 10% of the power of incascendent bulbs) Travel, in general (remember luggage did not have wheels until the 70s because it was expected that a traveler would have servants to carry their luggage)
toomuchtodo 8y ago
Electricity from utility scale solar PV and wind turbines cost ~2 cents/kwh. That's orders of magnitude decline over the last 15 years.

Fracking as we know it today started in the 40’s, it’s just a matter of economics that it’s feasible to do on a wide scale today. Mind you, that only goes to further reinforce your point. Edit. Every example other people are posting have been around for longer than most of us have been alive. I’m not trying to take a dump on the notion of progress, but I feel the distinction between “new” and “maturing” is being lost.

xiphias2 8y ago

Internet? You know you wouldn't be able to take part in this debate without it. I wasn't able to read so many interesting things 20 years ago, and I was behind in everything because I wasn't born at the right place in the world.

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
The internet is probably older than you are. A lot of the “exciting new tech” is a mature or market-ready form of technology that has been around since the Cold War or much earlier. There is also a lot of very old tech that is “new” only by virtue of having a microcontroller stuck in, much in the same way an IoT device is often just Device X + Network connection.
scottlocklin 8y ago
20 years ago, the internet was vastly superior to what we have now, which is basically turning into a much worse version of Genie, Compuserve and/or Prodigy (... now with more surveillance dystopia ...).

shaki-dora 8y ago

Long-distance phone calls Long-distance message transmission DTP Photography Short-haul flights Electric lighting (LED uses less than 10% of the power of incascendent bulbs) Travel, in general (remember luggage did not have wheels until the 70s because it was expected that a traveler would have servants to carry their luggage)

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Electricity from utility scale solar PV and wind turbines cost ~2 cents/kwh. That's orders of magnitude decline over the last 15 years.