It's important to distinguish discovery and adoption. Why don't we have graphene furniture or software that works like a Bret Victor demo? Plumbing existed in R

It's important to distinguish discovery and adoption. Why don't we have graphene furniture or software that works like a Bret Victor demo? Plumbing existed in Roman times, but my grandparents' generation was the first to take it for granted. It's also important to distinguish depreciating and expansionary adoption. Each generation of Intel chips depreciates previous generations and largely replaces them in the field. The innovation increases the efficiency of computing units more than their quantity. I think the "golden quarter" was real. It was a time of tremendous expansionary adoption. Scientific discovery has not slowed since then. Efficiency-improving adoptions haven't slowed. Expansionary adoptions have. Why? The author rightly dismisses Cowen's hypothesis of diminishing returns but suggests something equally implausible: our attitude toward risk spontaneously changed and sabotaged progress. In my view, civilization is a physical process and there should be a physical explanation for long-term trends like this. Cultural changes like attitudes toward risk are manifestations.