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Tech breakthroughs these days don't seem on the level of things like airplanes, the computer, the internet, nuclear power, space flight, satellites, etc. I won

by yters 8y ago

Tech breakthroughs these days don't seem on the level of things like airplanes, the computer, the internet, nuclear power, space flight, satellites, etc. I wonder what is different now.

SirLuxuryYacht 8y ago
It seems the difference is that developing a new toilet doesn't require the manpower that developing nuclear power or spaceflight does. This is just the list for 2019, not the 20th century.
- yters 8y ago
  It's representative of recent breakthroughs. For example if we looked back in time to the invents I mentioned, the year's breakthroughs would have surrounded these much bigger breakthroughs. The theme of current breakthroughs seems much smaller scope. For some reason our vision is smaller. I don't know why. We are either focused on very large things that appear unlikely to happen, like AGI, or on very small, speculative or trivial things like social networking or blockchain. None of the middle ground which are large, clearly important and have traction. I guess a lot of the big tech I mentioned was generated by the necessities of fighting a global war.
  - SirLuxuryYacht 8y ago
    Yes, the drive to kill something before it kills you is a very strong driver of innovation. All of these breakthroughs cater to precisely the opposite target: promoting human health either directly, or by improving our environment. This makes sense since this is the primary focus of the Gates Foundation, in 2019. That's a small scope if you ask me. You'd better believe that humans returning to space would be on this list if Gates had a horse in that race. I personally admire Gates' commitment to humans rather than stuff 'n things. Also, I don't think its fair to call blockchain or social networking trivial. But thats neither here nor there given this listicle.
    - yters 8y ago
      Gates is a billionaire thanks to a lot of wartime technology.
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    By 1938 radioactivity, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and quantum phenomena had been observed in the laboratory. Quantum mechanics and theories of special and general relativity were already well-developed. I think that the 20th century would have seen technologies mushroom from these new scientific observations even without WW II. Of course scientific discovery continued after 1950. The difference is that newly discovered physical [1] phenomena -- though very impressive in their own ways -- don't have the same obvious technological applications as ionizing radiation, nuclear phenomena, and quantum mechanical phenomena. The discovery of gamma ray bursts, continental drift, the cosmic microwave background, and exoplanets were all very scientifically exciting. But they don't have obvious technological applications the way that nuclear fission or the photoelectric effect did. It may be possible that we ran low on interesting physical phenomena amenable to incorporation in new inventions much sooner than we ran low of interesting physical phenomena in general. [1] I almost forgot biology. I would say that the progress of biological knowledge and applied biotechnology has been impressive in recent decades, even if it hasn't matched the hype around the time of the original Human Genome Project. I also think that biotechnology has yet to reach its peak rate of development.
eikenberry 8y ago
You're cherry picking some of the biggest inventions of the 20th century. Wait until 2099 and look back, I bet you could come up with a similar list.
flo123456 8y ago
Vaccines against cancer, ECGs on your wrist and fusion power. I think those are pretty amazing. Also it’s not really fair to compare ground braking things from a whole century to one year‘s breakthroughs.
leesec 8y ago
Mobile phones? Radically transformed the word in <10 years.
- yters 8y ago
  Those and smart phones do seem pretty disruptive, but are more a medium of distributing the computer than an inherent technical innovation. The computer is still the fundamental technology here. I'd agree there is still a fair amount of disruptive innovations happening. However, I don't see the same kind of fundamentally new technologies appearing as they did a generation or two ago.

by yters 8y ago

Tech breakthroughs these days don't seem on the level of things like airplanes, the computer, the internet, nuclear power, space flight, satellites, etc. I wonder what is different now.

SirLuxuryYacht 8y ago

It seems the difference is that developing a new toilet doesn't require the manpower that developing nuclear power or spaceflight does. This is just the list for 2019, not the 20th century.

yters 8y ago
It's representative of recent breakthroughs. For example if we looked back in time to the invents I mentioned, the year's breakthroughs would have surrounded these much bigger breakthroughs. The theme of current breakthroughs seems much smaller scope. For some reason our vision is smaller. I don't know why. We are either focused on very large things that appear unlikely to happen, like AGI, or on very small, speculative or trivial things like social networking or blockchain. None of the middle ground which are large, clearly important and have traction. I guess a lot of the big tech I mentioned was generated by the necessities of fighting a global war.
- SirLuxuryYacht 8y ago
  Yes, the drive to kill something before it kills you is a very strong driver of innovation. All of these breakthroughs cater to precisely the opposite target: promoting human health either directly, or by improving our environment. This makes sense since this is the primary focus of the Gates Foundation, in 2019. That's a small scope if you ask me. You'd better believe that humans returning to space would be on this list if Gates had a horse in that race. I personally admire Gates' commitment to humans rather than stuff 'n things. Also, I don't think its fair to call blockchain or social networking trivial. But thats neither here nor there given this listicle.
  - yters 8y ago
    Gates is a billionaire thanks to a lot of wartime technology.
- philipkglass 8y ago
  By 1938 radioactivity, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, and quantum phenomena had been observed in the laboratory. Quantum mechanics and theories of special and general relativity were already well-developed. I think that the 20th century would have seen technologies mushroom from these new scientific observations even without WW II. Of course scientific discovery continued after 1950. The difference is that newly discovered physical [1] phenomena -- though very impressive in their own ways -- don't have the same obvious technological applications as ionizing radiation, nuclear phenomena, and quantum mechanical phenomena. The discovery of gamma ray bursts, continental drift, the cosmic microwave background, and exoplanets were all very scientifically exciting. But they don't have obvious technological applications the way that nuclear fission or the photoelectric effect did. It may be possible that we ran low on interesting physical phenomena amenable to incorporation in new inventions much sooner than we ran low of interesting physical phenomena in general. [1] I almost forgot biology. I would say that the progress of biological knowledge and applied biotechnology has been impressive in recent decades, even if it hasn't matched the hype around the time of the original Human Genome Project. I also think that biotechnology has yet to reach its peak rate of development.

eikenberry 8y ago

You're cherry picking some of the biggest inventions of the 20th century. Wait until 2099 and look back, I bet you could come up with a similar list.

flo123456 8y ago

Vaccines against cancer, ECGs on your wrist and fusion power. I think those are pretty amazing. Also it’s not really fair to compare ground braking things from a whole century to one year‘s breakthroughs.

leesec 8y ago

Mobile phones? Radically transformed the word in <10 years.

yters 8y ago
Those and smart phones do seem pretty disruptive, but are more a medium of distributing the computer than an inherent technical innovation. The computer is still the fundamental technology here. I'd agree there is still a fair amount of disruptive innovations happening. However, I don't see the same kind of fundamentally new technologies appearing as they did a generation or two ago.