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> The problem with that is there will be proto-inventions all around us that will later be improved and made economical, but we can't see them yet. Except that

> The problem with that is there will be proto-inventions all around us that will later be improved and made economical, but we can't see them yet. Except that the book isn't taking about "proto-inventions" but items that could be purchased and used by the general public, from transportation (planes, trains, automobiles), food-related (refrigeration, microwaves, even induction cooking), radios, television, medicine (penicillin/anti-biotics). All the major inventions (except the Internet) that we would association with 'modern civilization' were invented pre-1980.

cperciva 2y ago
The first prototype Lithium Ion battery was 1985. I'd say that was a pretty major invention considering how many devices use them now.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > The first prototype Lithium Ion battery was 1985. True to a certain extent: > Research on rechargeable Li-ion batteries dates to the 1960s; one of the earliest examples is a CuF2/Li battery developed by NASA in 1965. The breakthrough that produced the earliest form of the modern Li-ion battery was made by British chemist M. Stanley Whittingham in 1974, who first used titanium disulfide (TiS2) as a cathode material, which has a layered structure that can take in lithium ions without significant changes to its crystal structure. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lithium-ion_bat... But even if we grant that Li-ion batteries were a post-1970s innovation/invention—as opposed to a refinement of something that came before—it would still be one of the few that occurred, as the referenced book argues.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    The CuF2/Li cells you mention there used metallic lithium; they are not properly Li-ion batteries, where the Li ions serve only to shuttle charge across the electrolyte, not be reduced to Li metal.
pfdietz 2y ago
So, one could buy a Picturephone in 1970, but it was completely impractical. Today, any average person can do video calls across the world. The "invention > refinement" idea would call these the same thing.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > Today, any average person can do video calls across the world. Yes, the book makes the point that computers and the Internet was one of the inventions that were and an improvement post-1970s. But the productivity bump of those seem to have peaked around 2004 (the book has numbers up to 2014, as it was published in 2016). Apple's iSight was released in 2003: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISight The first webcam was in 1993: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    US labor productivity has increased considerably since just after that book was published, so I strongly doubt the peaking claim there.
pfdietz 2y ago
Example of something that was a proto-invention in the 1970s and widely available now: monoclonal antibodies. You know those pregnancy tests one can buy in the drug store? Based on MABs. Ditto those COVID tests. The Nobel-prize winning work that first created MABs occurred in the 1970s, but no product was available to consumers then. MABs are ubiquitous in medicine now.

cperciva 2y ago

The first prototype Lithium Ion battery was 1985. I'd say that was a pretty major invention considering how many devices use them now.

throw0101c 2y ago
> The first prototype Lithium Ion battery was 1985. True to a certain extent: > Research on rechargeable Li-ion batteries dates to the 1960s; one of the earliest examples is a CuF2/Li battery developed by NASA in 1965. The breakthrough that produced the earliest form of the modern Li-ion battery was made by British chemist M. Stanley Whittingham in 1974, who first used titanium disulfide (TiS2) as a cathode material, which has a layered structure that can take in lithium ions without significant changes to its crystal structure. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#History * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lithium-ion_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lithium-ion_bat... But even if we grant that Li-ion batteries were a post-1970s innovation/invention—as opposed to a refinement of something that came before—it would still be one of the few that occurred, as the referenced book argues.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  The CuF2/Li cells you mention there used metallic lithium; they are not properly Li-ion batteries, where the Li ions serve only to shuttle charge across the electrolyte, not be reduced to Li metal.

pfdietz 2y ago

So, one could buy a Picturephone in 1970, but it was completely impractical. Today, any average person can do video calls across the world. The "invention > refinement" idea would call these the same thing.

throw0101c 2y ago
> Today, any average person can do video calls across the world. Yes, the book makes the point that computers and the Internet was one of the inventions that were and an improvement post-1970s. But the productivity bump of those seem to have peaked around 2004 (the book has numbers up to 2014, as it was published in 2016). Apple's iSight was released in 2003: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISight The first webcam was in 1993: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot
- pfdietz 2y ago
  US labor productivity has increased considerably since just after that book was published, so I strongly doubt the peaking claim there.

pfdietz 2y ago

Example of something that was a proto-invention in the 1970s and widely available now: monoclonal antibodies. You know those pregnancy tests one can buy in the drug store? Based on MABs. Ditto those COVID tests. The Nobel-prize winning work that first created MABs occurred in the 1970s, but no product was available to consumers then. MABs are ubiquitous in medicine now.