I can agree with a lot of the criticisms in these comments, because the future will definitely be cool, and Taleb has selectively forgotten about a lot of the g

I can agree with a lot of the criticisms in these comments, because the future will definitely be cool, and Taleb has selectively forgotten about a lot of the great technological advancements and focussed on things that haven't advanced. That said, Taleb makes a good point when he is talking about the tendency for 'futurists' to get it all wrong. He is touching on one of the major problems of design which is that bad design is always additive, and constantly bolts on extra useless features in order to strive for something 'newer', whereas good design demands subtraction. The iPhone was released in an era where most nerds still got excited about what Intel was planning to release next year, and yet the most influential computer of the decade didn't even have an Intel processor. By subtracting away the unnecessary, Jobs delivered something that was far greater than the sum of its parts. Most notably, the iOS touch interface was a huge innovation from a human-computer interaction perspective, yet viewed from another perspective all it did was bring us back to an interface that had been used for centuries (I think Taleb can realise the difference between a Phoenician tablet and an iPad, he is referring to the interface). I think ultimately Taleb is touching on something that Steve Jobs would often repeat, which is that the best objects exist at an intersection of the arts and the sciences. Human nature does not fundamentally change as the years pass, and this is ultimately the limiting factor on successful technologies, and the driving force behind the process of disruptive innovation which continues to favour the less technologically advanced yet more customer-centric (or human-centric) technologies. This is something that is often forgotten in the technology world where it took a completely non-technical liberal arts drop-out in the form of Jobs to help technologists realise that computers ultimately have to be made for real people. That said, Taleb is writing outside his domain and therefore this piece could have been much better written.