[quote=AN][quote=CA renter]
As for those innovations, while I respect the fact that many people are in love with their iPhones, the main innovation was getting a mobile phone into a person’s hand. That was done well before this past decade. Navigation is cool, but the rest is just “fluff” as far as I’m concerned. We had notebook/laptop computers decades ago, so the iPad isn’t such a big deal, IMO. And 24/7 connectivity is as much a burden as it is a blessing. We had voice recognition decades ago, TV cards for computers were available back then, too. And “Picturephones”/teleconferencing was available decades ago, as well. There have been some advances in biotech, but with cancer, for instance, we’re still using many of the same drugs and treatments that we were using decades ago. Drones???? Don’t get me started on drones! đ
Sorry, but I’m just not seeing the life-altering innovations that you seem to be seeing. Of course, I’ll admit that you are more tech-focused than I am, so you’re more likely to notice the incremental changes that might be a big deal to you (and others like you), but not nearly as impressive to me (and others like myself).
I also think you greatly underestimate the extent to which our economy IS zero-sum.[/quote]That’s the most ridiculous post I’ve ever read. My only response to a post like that is lol.[/quote]
I actually think the post is not that ridiculous. Technology is slowing down on subjective level. Planes are flying to more places but we are not travelling any faster than the decade ago. Some NASA exploration is still on-going, but we felt that we have seen all that is to see and traveling outside the solar system is still not a reachable goal. In 1970, Congress promised victory over cancer in six yearsâ time; four decades later, we are still here. The nuclear industry and its 1954 promise of âelectrical energy too cheap to meterâ sounds like yesterday’s dream after Fukushima. Energy and batter are holding the progress for new technologies.
But on the other end, people forgot that technology progress is never linear and these “incremental changes” might amount to something in the future. We are closer ever to AI thanks to the steady Moore’s law. That’s making machines equal to human, which stands back on millions years of evolution. And then there is bio-science, we are creating new DNA and organism, a domain that used to belong to God.
It is after all impossible to predict the future progress of the technology. But Internet does unleash a great amount of creativity and collaboration, with time, I think it will eventually amount to something.
