We typically have a very hard time predicting the path of technological development, primarily because we have a hard time understanding when there will be infl

We typically have a very hard time predicting the path of technological development, primarily because we have a hard time understanding when there will be inflection points that will utterly obliterate the previous status quo. One great example is the Malthusian check/catastrophe, the idea that agricultural development would not be able to keep up with population growth and that without a plague or other substantial check on population, there would be millions of people starving. Malthus posited this in the late-1700s and probably would have been right if the Industrial Revolution and the associated massive shifts in the technological landscape hadn't changed everything. We can see similar ideas when we think about the various "Peak" energy scares over the last 50 years ago. While it is absolutely true that technological stagnation occurs and possibly is occurring right now, I think we are always better off recognizing that thinking linearly about how technology develops and will develop can be a fools errand. That's my two bitcoins.