3 ms·

Are you saying nothing new has been invented since the 1970’s?

throw0101c 2y ago
> Are you saying nothing new has been invented since the 1970’s? The book referenced argues there have been no major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways since that time period, or at least nothing that shows up in any economic metric. Transportation: in the US, the automobile hit >80 cars per 100 households by the late 1920s. Airplane invented in early 1900s, the 747 was designed and launch in the 1960s. Rocketry and satellites were developed in the 1960s, and culminated with landing on the moon in 1969. Trains developed in early 1800s, mainstreamed by late 1800s into early 1900s; electric trains in operation in late 1800s. Trams and subways/metros in operation in 1800s. The vacuum tube in early 1900s, computers in 1950s, transistor in 1960, and since then it's been miniaturization but nothing 'new'. ARPAnet was in 1970s, with the mainstream Internet in the 1990s hitting saturation in 2004, and per the book that's when productivity numbers stopped increasing. Or health metric: there was a step change when treated water and indoor plumbing (including sewage treatment) came in. We got penicillin in ~1945, and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s. CT scans were invented in the 1960s, and MRIs in the 1970s. Honestly, I was kind of skeptical of the claims that the book was making at first, but the arguments and statistics that it puts forward are decently convincing. Really interesting read. Worth checking out, if just for the history of 'progress', even if you don't fully buy into their conclusions.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Slickwater fracking caused huge changes in the economy of the US. Look at natural gas as a fraction of energy use in 1970 vs. today. Achieving efficient combustion turbines (comparable to steam turbines) wasn't really possible until ~1980.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > Slickwater fracking caused huge changes in the economy of the US. Look at natural gas as a fraction of energy use in 1970 vs. today. But that's more of the same commodity that we've been using since the days of Standard Oil. Has fracking increased economic productivity or measurable gains in quality of life? > Achieving efficient combustion turbines (comparable to steam turbines) wasn't really possible until ~1980. And ~1980 is very close to the cut-off (1970s) that the book argues things haven't change much. The book does have chapters on transportation, including airplanes.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      The large drop in price is an example of "major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways". It has caused a fundamental restructuring of the US electrical energy supply, moving from coal to natural gas. I am merely going by the criterion the post above me was giving. We can see other examples of changes that are so large that quantitative becomes qualitative. The cost of passenger air travel dropped by an order of magnitude (adjusted for inflation) over the time period. SpaceX's Falcon 9 has done the same, or even more so, to the space launch market. US steel production has overwhelmingly moved to recycled production in EAFs. (BTW, the fuel tanks of Falcon 9 are assembled using a technology called Friction Stir Welding. This technology, which was a game changer for welding aluminum alloys, was invented in the 1990s.) Yet another example, and another one illustrating the difference between invention and adoption, is standardized container shipping. There was a very long incubation period where shipping containers were experimented with, but standardization, and then widespread adoption, took decades. The real burst was in the period since 1980. From 1980 to 2021 the mass of cargo shipping internationally on standardized container ships increased by more than two orders of magnitude. Globalization of production is about as significant a change to the society and the economy as you can get.
- kcb 2y ago
  > The book referenced argues there have been no major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways since that time period, or at least nothing that shows up in any economic metric. Apple makes $400 billion a year largely selling a product that was at best a sci-fi imagination item in the 1970s. > Or health metric: there was a step change when treated water and indoor plumbing (including sewage treatment) came in. We got penicillin in ~1945, and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s. CT scans were invented in the 1960s, and MRIs in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    > Apple makes $400 billion a year largely selling a product that was at best a sci-fi imagination item in the 1970s. The book specifically mentions the mainstreaming of computers and the Internet as one of the (few, according to the author) innovations post-1970s. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine Possible contender. The book was published in 2016 (and has statistics up to 2014), so perhaps if a second edition is ever published they'll mention this. But the mortality rate from chlorinated indoor plumbing and sewage treatment, is a hard metric to beat when it comes to improving human mortality. Along with penicillin in 1945 and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s (especially against smallpox, measles, diphtheria, poio), I'm not sure if MRNA would be as much of a step change.
    - chr86 2y ago
      I believe the user is referring to the iPhone here.
      - throw0101d 2y ago
        > I believe the user is referring to the iPhone here. The author of the book in a 2016 interview: > Q. As you note in your book, many of the inventions in the special century took as long as five decades to reach their full potential. Since the iPhone was introduced in 2007, isn't it too early to say that smartphones aren't transformative? > A. I think the potential of smartphones has played out very rapidly. We're still at the dawn of payment systems based on the smartphone. We may 10 years from now look back and marvel at the fact that people had to pull credit cards out of their wallet. > But remember, the entire decade of the rollout of the smartphone and all the applications have not caused productivity growth to budge. There are many people who think we're missing the benefits of the smartphone in our measures of productivity and GDP. But we've always missed the benefits of new inventions. Economic growth has always been understated. But the degree of understatement was more important in the past, because the innovations were more transformative to every aspect of human life. * https://phys.org/news/2016-02-smartphones-lagging.html https://phys.org/news/2016-02-smartphones-lagging.html From a 2021 interview: > […] In the last 15 years, we’ve had the invention of smartphones and social networks, and what they’ve done is bring enormous amounts of consumer surplus to everyday people of the world. This is not really counted in productivity, it hasn’t changed the way businesses conduct their day-to-day affairs all that much, but what they have done is change the lives of citizens in a way that is not counted in GDP or productivity. It’s possible the amount of consumer welfare we’re getting relative to GDP may be growing at an unprecedented rate. * https://conversableeconomist.com/2021/02/24/robert-j-gordon-thoughts-on-long-run-us-productivity-growth/ https://conversableeconomist.com/2021/02/24/robert-j-gordon-... It's very nice to have maps and the world's knowledge in your pocket, but how much has it cause the economy to growth? Has it reduced rates of poverty? If it has, it's not showing up in the numbers, so how can we tell? (The technology may be having more of an impact in other countries, especially those starting at a lower 'base', but there isn't a measurable economic impact in the US.)
icegreentea2 2y ago
I don't think that's the OP meant. But perhaps you're aware of the mother of all demos. That was in 1968, and we've been effectively just figuring out how to economically deploy the ideas from that demo, and figure out how to actually use these innovations to affect the rest of our lives for the last 50 years. Another thing to consider is just how systemic and total the innovations in the first half of the 20th century were. We discovered blood types, antibiotics, deployed widespread industrial refrigeration, made air conditioning viable, got widespread automobile adoption, the birth of heavier than air flight, birth of commercial aviation, invention of the jet engine. We harnessed nuclear power for the first time. The first medical x-ray just barely misses the time cut. I don't know if it's fair to characterize the last 50 years as "stagnation", since maybe 1900 to 1950 is an unfair comparison. But it is fair to say that the rate of change as obviously changed.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > But perhaps you're aware of the mother of all demos. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY&t=1m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY&t=1m43s * https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
analog31 2y ago
Perhaps an issue is that Moore's Law and the rapid rise in the performance of computation and communication have absorbed the creative energy -- and capital -- that would have been directed towards other kinds of invention in past ages. The 1970s do coincide with the development of microprocessors, even though most of the constituent parts were already known.

> Are you saying nothing new has been invented since the 1970’s? The book referenced argues there have been no major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways since that time period, or at least nothing that shows up in any economic metric. Transportation: in the US, the automobile hit >80 cars per 100 households by the late 1920s. Airplane invented in early 1900s, the 747 was designed and launch in the 1960s. Rocketry and satellites were developed in the 1960s, and culminated with landing on the moon in 1969. Trains developed in early 1800s, mainstreamed by late 1800s into early 1900s; electric trains in operation in late 1800s. Trams and subways/metros in operation in 1800s. The vacuum tube in early 1900s, computers in 1950s, transistor in 1960, and since then it's been miniaturization but nothing 'new'. ARPAnet was in 1970s, with the mainstream Internet in the 1990s hitting saturation in 2004, and per the book that's when productivity numbers stopped increasing. Or health metric: there was a step change when treated water and indoor plumbing (including sewage treatment) came in. We got penicillin in ~1945, and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s. CT scans were invented in the 1960s, and MRIs in the 1970s. Honestly, I was kind of skeptical of the claims that the book was making at first, but the arguments and statistics that it puts forward are decently convincing. Really interesting read. Worth checking out, if just for the history of 'progress', even if you don't fully buy into their conclusions.

pfdietz 2y ago
Slickwater fracking caused huge changes in the economy of the US. Look at natural gas as a fraction of energy use in 1970 vs. today. Achieving efficient combustion turbines (comparable to steam turbines) wasn't really possible until ~1980.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Slickwater fracking caused huge changes in the economy of the US. Look at natural gas as a fraction of energy use in 1970 vs. today. But that's more of the same commodity that we've been using since the days of Standard Oil. Has fracking increased economic productivity or measurable gains in quality of life? > Achieving efficient combustion turbines (comparable to steam turbines) wasn't really possible until ~1980. And ~1980 is very close to the cut-off (1970s) that the book argues things haven't change much. The book does have chapters on transportation, including airplanes.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    The large drop in price is an example of "major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways". It has caused a fundamental restructuring of the US electrical energy supply, moving from coal to natural gas. I am merely going by the criterion the post above me was giving. We can see other examples of changes that are so large that quantitative becomes qualitative. The cost of passenger air travel dropped by an order of magnitude (adjusted for inflation) over the time period. SpaceX's Falcon 9 has done the same, or even more so, to the space launch market. US steel production has overwhelmingly moved to recycled production in EAFs. (BTW, the fuel tanks of Falcon 9 are assembled using a technology called Friction Stir Welding. This technology, which was a game changer for welding aluminum alloys, was invented in the 1990s.) Yet another example, and another one illustrating the difference between invention and adoption, is standardized container shipping. There was a very long incubation period where shipping containers were experimented with, but standardization, and then widespread adoption, took decades. The real burst was in the period since 1980. From 1980 to 2021 the mass of cargo shipping internationally on standardized container ships increased by more than two orders of magnitude. Globalization of production is about as significant a change to the society and the economy as you can get.
kcb 2y ago
> The book referenced argues there have been no major innovations that have changed society and the economy in large ways since that time period, or at least nothing that shows up in any economic metric. Apple makes $400 billion a year largely selling a product that was at best a sci-fi imagination item in the 1970s. > Or health metric: there was a step change when treated water and indoor plumbing (including sewage treatment) came in. We got penicillin in ~1945, and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s. CT scans were invented in the 1960s, and MRIs in the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Apple makes $400 billion a year largely selling a product that was at best a sci-fi imagination item in the 1970s. The book specifically mentions the mainstreaming of computers and the Internet as one of the (few, according to the author) innovations post-1970s. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine Possible contender. The book was published in 2016 (and has statistics up to 2014), so perhaps if a second edition is ever published they'll mention this. But the mortality rate from chlorinated indoor plumbing and sewage treatment, is a hard metric to beat when it comes to improving human mortality. Along with penicillin in 1945 and widespread vaccines in the 1950-60s (especially against smallpox, measles, diphtheria, poio), I'm not sure if MRNA would be as much of a step change.
  - chr86 2y ago
    I believe the user is referring to the iPhone here.
    - throw0101d 2y ago
      > I believe the user is referring to the iPhone here. The author of the book in a 2016 interview: > Q. As you note in your book, many of the inventions in the special century took as long as five decades to reach their full potential. Since the iPhone was introduced in 2007, isn't it too early to say that smartphones aren't transformative? > A. I think the potential of smartphones has played out very rapidly. We're still at the dawn of payment systems based on the smartphone. We may 10 years from now look back and marvel at the fact that people had to pull credit cards out of their wallet. > But remember, the entire decade of the rollout of the smartphone and all the applications have not caused productivity growth to budge. There are many people who think we're missing the benefits of the smartphone in our measures of productivity and GDP. But we've always missed the benefits of new inventions. Economic growth has always been understated. But the degree of understatement was more important in the past, because the innovations were more transformative to every aspect of human life. * https://phys.org/news/2016-02-smartphones-lagging.html https://phys.org/news/2016-02-smartphones-lagging.html From a 2021 interview: > […] In the last 15 years, we’ve had the invention of smartphones and social networks, and what they’ve done is bring enormous amounts of consumer surplus to everyday people of the world. This is not really counted in productivity, it hasn’t changed the way businesses conduct their day-to-day affairs all that much, but what they have done is change the lives of citizens in a way that is not counted in GDP or productivity. It’s possible the amount of consumer welfare we’re getting relative to GDP may be growing at an unprecedented rate. * https://conversableeconomist.com/2021/02/24/robert-j-gordon-thoughts-on-long-run-us-productivity-growth/ https://conversableeconomist.com/2021/02/24/robert-j-gordon-... It's very nice to have maps and the world's knowledge in your pocket, but how much has it cause the economy to growth? Has it reduced rates of poverty? If it has, it's not showing up in the numbers, so how can we tell? (The technology may be having more of an impact in other countries, especially those starting at a lower 'base', but there isn't a measurable economic impact in the US.)

icegreentea2 2y ago

I don't think that's the OP meant. But perhaps you're aware of the mother of all demos. That was in 1968, and we've been effectively just figuring out how to economically deploy the ideas from that demo, and figure out how to actually use these innovations to affect the rest of our lives for the last 50 years. Another thing to consider is just how systemic and total the innovations in the first half of the 20th century were. We discovered blood types, antibiotics, deployed widespread industrial refrigeration, made air conditioning viable, got widespread automobile adoption, the birth of heavier than air flight, birth of commercial aviation, invention of the jet engine. We harnessed nuclear power for the first time. The first medical x-ray just barely misses the time cut. I don't know if it's fair to characterize the last 50 years as "stagnation", since maybe 1900 to 1950 is an unfair comparison. But it is fair to say that the rate of change as obviously changed.

throw0101c 2y ago
> But perhaps you're aware of the mother of all demos. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY&t=1m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY&t=1m43s * https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/209/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos

analog31 2y ago

Perhaps an issue is that Moore's Law and the rapid rise in the performance of computation and communication have absorbed the creative energy -- and capital -- that would have been directed towards other kinds of invention in past ages. The 1970s do coincide with the development of microprocessors, even though most of the constituent parts were already known.