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Is there actually any reason to assume the pace of technological progress from the early 20th century til now, will remain the same in the next 100 years? I fi
by TheZenPsycho 13y ago
Is there actually any reason to assume the pace of technological progress from the early 20th century til now, will remain the same in the next 100 years?
I find it more likely that technological progress ended around 1980 and what we are doing now is coasting on old ideas that weren't implemented in the 1960's because computing power wasn't ready yet. Once those run out, it's just going to be rehashes and efficiencies. Why is that? All this recent progress was driven by WWI, WWII and the cold war and space race. We haven't had another one of any of those, and we'd better all be hoping we don't have another one!
On the other hand, maybe technological progress will keep pace. But there's actually just no reason to assume that it absolutely will. Do not forget that the 20th century was actually a very unusual and unprecedented century for progress in a history where humanity has gone many many centuries without inventing ANYTHING new at all.