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'[except for] the exponential increase in computing power.' Yeah, just take out thé major industry where all change has taken place the last few decades and th

'[except for] the exponential increase in computing power.' Yeah, just take out thé major industry where all change has taken place the last few decades and then sure, changes are coming more slowly.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> '[except for] the exponential increase in computing power.' That would be incremental improvement, not major technological change. Take this list from the article: > In our century, for better or worse, progress isn't what it used to be. Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argues that by 1970, all the key technologies of modern life were in place: sanitation, electricity, mechanized agriculture, highways, air travel, telecommunications, and the like. Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980: Software compatibility across computer generations (IBM 360), microprocessors and personal computing (8-bit micros like the Apple II), packet-switched networking, GUIs (Alto), all the major modern types of programming languages (imperative, functional, object-oriented), etc. Most of the seemingly big things that have happened since fall more into the category of incremental improvements and popularizations than "major technological change."
- navaati 7y ago
  The big one missing is mobile telecommunication/computing. Basically the last most transformative tech since your list is the lithium battery I guess ? And this transformative effect keeps on giving, with the transition to renewables and "electrified everything" (such as cars, but not only).
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > The big one missing is mobile telecommunication/computing. The major technological advancements that permitted that are old. Cellular telephone technology dates to the 70s/80s, etc.
    - beat 7y ago
      And where will DNA editing be in 40 years?
      - CharlesColeman 7y ago
        The thesis isn't that major advancements aren't happening, but that they're happening more slowly. Or maybe more accurately, there was an period in the 20th century that is now over where major advancements happened unusually quickly.
        beat 7y ago
        That thesis is not well supported by the article, and I didn't see it referencing better-quality material. And it grossly overestimates the speed of changes. My father farmed with a mule in the 1950s.
        tossAfterUsing 7y ago
        not to bang the trope drum too loudly, but Kurzweil mentions this phenomenon when describing the way that growth looks exponential over a long scale, but feels more like S-curves[1] 1- https://www.slideshare.net/olandri/l03-exponential-world https://www.slideshare.net/olandri/l03-exponential-world
- nostrademons 7y ago
  The structure of innovations isn't usually outward progress along a uniform frontier. Instead, one portion of the frontier proves more promising than others, innovators pour into that one area, it fragments into subfields, and then the descendants of that one field become the totality of experience for future generations. Think of the major innovations of the 1500s and early 1600s Renaissance. Exploration of the Americas, colonialism, transatlantic slave trade, Protestant reformation, joint stock corporation, parliamentary monarchy, scientific method, nation-state, alchemy, and merchant guilds. By the 1800s, the exploration of the Americas was basically complete. Colonialism was on its way out with U.S. independence (there was a subsequent era with the scramble for Africa, but that wasn't until the late 1800s). Slavery was banned in Britain and the importation of new slaves was banned in the U.S. The Protestant Reformation was old news. Alchemy had been largely debunked. Pretty much all progress was in the scientific method, and in the corporations that came to capitalize on it. Yet we don't think of the 1800s as an innovation slowdown. Rather, we think of it as a time of rapid technological progress and massive social change. We've just changed our definition of what innovation is. Things like alchemy, colonialism, and slavery are viewed as quaint anachronisms, mistakes on the march of history. It'll likely be the same with software vs. the massive manufacturing industries of the 20th century. Some of them (eg. coal power plants or gas-powered automobiles) will seem like outright mistakes; others will simply be taken for granted the way we take democracy and corporations for granted. And we'll start defining innovation in terms of different subfields of software, the same way we define industry in terms of the different subfields of automated manufacturing.
- wetpaws 7y ago
  There is no such thing as a non-incremental major technological change, all changes in the history of humanity took time, sometimes many decades.
- lm28469 7y ago
  Incremental improvement can have a life changing impacts. Google maps is just a map, we had them for thousands of years, I'm still mind blown every time I use it. A kindle is just a book, an A320 is just the same as the Wright brother's plane, &c. > Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980: Sure, but no one had access to it. Availability of tech also plays a huge role in "progress".
buboard 7y ago
hasn't Moore's law stopped for a while now?
- fnord123 7y ago
  No. Moore's law is that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 months. People confuse this with clock cycle doubling every 18 months (which did stop) but with the expansion of multiple cores, AIUI, Moore's law is still continuing.
snarf21 7y ago
And what about the exponential miniaturization of everything? We can now have high res cameras that are crazy small and cost almost nothing. We are starting to make nano technology to use in surgery. We starting to use gene editing (poorly). Those all seem pretty freaking major.
zarkov99 7y ago
World War II is chronologically a mid point between the American Civil War and now. The progress made in the first half of that period seems to me vastly more impressive than that of the later half.
- lm28469 7y ago
  Idk, I can come up with so many example of life changing tech ... But yeah, all things considered, having running water or central heating is def more life changing than reusable spaceX rockets for example. The progresses of the first half are more impressive because they were basic needs with high impact on health, transportation, &c. once these are met everything simply becomes "nice things" to have. I think the most obvious progress was smarthpones, they are : - Navigation systems - Allowing seamless and instant text and video communication worldwide - Capable of holding more music than you'll ever need - Having better cameras than anything before (price for quality/convenience, I know medium/large format cameras from < 1930 produce better images but they are nowhere as convenient) - Letting you manage things like your bank account or your emails, &c. - Allowing you to rent shared cars/bicycle on the fly When you really think about it something like google Earth would have been close to witchcraft not even 70 years ago. I could probably store the entire library of Alexandria in my $60 kindle. A tesla is "just" a car, but hasn't much to do with cars from < 1950s. An airbus A320 is "just" a plane, but has't much in common with planes < 1950s. A single PS4 is probably more powerful that the entire NASA computing system of the 60s. Reusable space rockets, supersonic planes, landing a probe on a comet, the curiosity rover, GMO, nuclear power plants, discovery of planets out of the solar system, credit cards, microwave ovens, efficient freezers, induction cooking plates, washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, advances in psychology & medicine, satellite internet, photochromic lenses, solar panels, li ion batteries, birth control, 3d printers, you can watch lectures from top universities of the world on youtube for free, the list goes on forever. If your grandparents are still alive ask them about how life was 60 years ago, everything changed. Being used to amazing tech doesn't negate the fact that progress still happens. I think people just got bored/lost their ability to see magic. A dog playing with a stick is more ecstatic than the average Joe having the entire world's knowledge in the palm of his hand.

CharlesColeman 7y ago

> '[except for] the exponential increase in computing power.' That would be incremental improvement, not major technological change. Take this list from the article: > In our century, for better or worse, progress isn't what it used to be. Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argues that by 1970, all the key technologies of modern life were in place: sanitation, electricity, mechanized agriculture, highways, air travel, telecommunications, and the like. Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980: Software compatibility across computer generations (IBM 360), microprocessors and personal computing (8-bit micros like the Apple II), packet-switched networking, GUIs (Alto), all the major modern types of programming languages (imperative, functional, object-oriented), etc. Most of the seemingly big things that have happened since fall more into the category of incremental improvements and popularizations than "major technological change."

navaati 7y ago
The big one missing is mobile telecommunication/computing. Basically the last most transformative tech since your list is the lithium battery I guess ? And this transformative effect keeps on giving, with the transition to renewables and "electrified everything" (such as cars, but not only).
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > The big one missing is mobile telecommunication/computing. The major technological advancements that permitted that are old. Cellular telephone technology dates to the 70s/80s, etc.
  - beat 7y ago
    And where will DNA editing be in 40 years?
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      The thesis isn't that major advancements aren't happening, but that they're happening more slowly. Or maybe more accurately, there was an period in the 20th century that is now over where major advancements happened unusually quickly.
      - beat 7y ago
        That thesis is not well supported by the article, and I didn't see it referencing better-quality material. And it grossly overestimates the speed of changes. My father farmed with a mule in the 1950s.
      - tossAfterUsing 7y ago
        not to bang the trope drum too loudly, but Kurzweil mentions this phenomenon when describing the way that growth looks exponential over a long scale, but feels more like S-curves[1] 1- https://www.slideshare.net/olandri/l03-exponential-world https://www.slideshare.net/olandri/l03-exponential-world
nostrademons 7y ago
The structure of innovations isn't usually outward progress along a uniform frontier. Instead, one portion of the frontier proves more promising than others, innovators pour into that one area, it fragments into subfields, and then the descendants of that one field become the totality of experience for future generations. Think of the major innovations of the 1500s and early 1600s Renaissance. Exploration of the Americas, colonialism, transatlantic slave trade, Protestant reformation, joint stock corporation, parliamentary monarchy, scientific method, nation-state, alchemy, and merchant guilds. By the 1800s, the exploration of the Americas was basically complete. Colonialism was on its way out with U.S. independence (there was a subsequent era with the scramble for Africa, but that wasn't until the late 1800s). Slavery was banned in Britain and the importation of new slaves was banned in the U.S. The Protestant Reformation was old news. Alchemy had been largely debunked. Pretty much all progress was in the scientific method, and in the corporations that came to capitalize on it. Yet we don't think of the 1800s as an innovation slowdown. Rather, we think of it as a time of rapid technological progress and massive social change. We've just changed our definition of what innovation is. Things like alchemy, colonialism, and slavery are viewed as quaint anachronisms, mistakes on the march of history. It'll likely be the same with software vs. the massive manufacturing industries of the 20th century. Some of them (eg. coal power plants or gas-powered automobiles) will seem like outright mistakes; others will simply be taken for granted the way we take democracy and corporations for granted. And we'll start defining innovation in terms of different subfields of software, the same way we define industry in terms of the different subfields of automated manufacturing.
wetpaws 7y ago
There is no such thing as a non-incremental major technological change, all changes in the history of humanity took time, sometimes many decades.
lm28469 7y ago
Incremental improvement can have a life changing impacts. Google maps is just a map, we had them for thousands of years, I'm still mind blown every time I use it. A kindle is just a book, an A320 is just the same as the Wright brother's plane, &c. > Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980: Sure, but no one had access to it. Availability of tech also plays a huge role in "progress".

buboard 7y ago

hasn't Moore's law stopped for a while now?

fnord123 7y ago
No. Moore's law is that the number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 months. People confuse this with clock cycle doubling every 18 months (which did stop) but with the expansion of multiple cores, AIUI, Moore's law is still continuing.

snarf21 7y ago

And what about the exponential miniaturization of everything? We can now have high res cameras that are crazy small and cost almost nothing. We are starting to make nano technology to use in surgery. We starting to use gene editing (poorly). Those all seem pretty freaking major.

zarkov99 7y ago

World War II is chronologically a mid point between the American Civil War and now. The progress made in the first half of that period seems to me vastly more impressive than that of the later half.

lm28469 7y ago
Idk, I can come up with so many example of life changing tech ... But yeah, all things considered, having running water or central heating is def more life changing than reusable spaceX rockets for example. The progresses of the first half are more impressive because they were basic needs with high impact on health, transportation, &c. once these are met everything simply becomes "nice things" to have. I think the most obvious progress was smarthpones, they are : - Navigation systems - Allowing seamless and instant text and video communication worldwide - Capable of holding more music than you'll ever need - Having better cameras than anything before (price for quality/convenience, I know medium/large format cameras from < 1930 produce better images but they are nowhere as convenient) - Letting you manage things like your bank account or your emails, &c. - Allowing you to rent shared cars/bicycle on the fly When you really think about it something like google Earth would have been close to witchcraft not even 70 years ago. I could probably store the entire library of Alexandria in my $60 kindle. A tesla is "just" a car, but hasn't much to do with cars from < 1950s. An airbus A320 is "just" a plane, but has't much in common with planes < 1950s. A single PS4 is probably more powerful that the entire NASA computing system of the 60s. Reusable space rockets, supersonic planes, landing a probe on a comet, the curiosity rover, GMO, nuclear power plants, discovery of planets out of the solar system, credit cards, microwave ovens, efficient freezers, induction cooking plates, washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, advances in psychology & medicine, satellite internet, photochromic lenses, solar panels, li ion batteries, birth control, 3d printers, you can watch lectures from top universities of the world on youtube for free, the list goes on forever. If your grandparents are still alive ask them about how life was 60 years ago, everything changed. Being used to amazing tech doesn't negate the fact that progress still happens. I think people just got bored/lost their ability to see magic. A dog playing with a stick is more ecstatic than the average Joe having the entire world's knowledge in the palm of his hand.