That's also what stood out to me. It's almost like the article was painting the hypothesis as something a lot of people who 'feel' the same way (as the author)

That's also what stood out to me. It's almost like the article was painting the hypothesis as something a lot of people who 'feel' the same way (as the author) is trying to prove it to be true without going into why do they feel that way and how much bias is in that. Sure, technology is developing fast, but its been quite fast since just before the start of the industrial revolution or when humans started walking or farming etc. I would speculate during those times of rapid development of some of the historical civilisations there was probably just as much of a feeling of it being at a hinge as now. It's just that right now we like to attract people's attention and creating suspense and that sense of hingeyness is good at attracting attention and there's now a lot of money to be made from attracting attention. Not just money, but you can drive political action if you give people this kind of sense of do or die urgency. This could turn the hypothesis into a self fulfilling prophecy. That's why we need better arguments against it.