I've watched this presentation. Unfortunately, I can't say I've found all of it enlightening or at least useful. For one thing, there were important omissions,

I've watched this presentation. Unfortunately, I can't say I've found all of it enlightening or at least useful. For one thing, there were important omissions, like inventions/development in agriculture or communication technology that caused an explosion in resources/means available (which were to stay), whereas Mr. Tainter assumes resources to be limited and declining. Other than the omissions there are just wrong assumptions or metrics. The best example in this regard is US patents that he takes as an indicator of research and development and points that the costs got higher because patents are submitted by (costly) groups. Nowadays not only patents are submitted in groups, but also paperworks, and this is partly political (i.e. an artificial induced phenomenon). And patents become hardly a metric of invention or development, as a lot of us may acknowledge (reference to patent trolling), but for some reason in Mr. Tainter's dissemination this is again overlooked. I'm not saying Mr. Tainter's work is worthless, it's just that I see it not that solid to consider it as a foundation to build upon.