'[except for] the exponential increase in computing power.'
Yeah, just take out thé major industry where all change has taken place the last few decades and then sure, changes are coming more slowly.
Yeah, just take out thé major industry where all change has taken place the last few decades and then sure, changes are coming more slowly.
That would be incremental improvement, not major technological change. Take this list from the article:
> In our century, for better or worse, progress isn't what it used to be. Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argues that by 1970, all the key technologies of modern life were in place: sanitation, electricity, mechanized agriculture, highways, air travel, telecommunications, and the like.
Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980:
Software compatibility across computer generations (IBM 360), microprocessors and personal computing (8-bit micros like the Apple II), packet-switched networking, GUIs (Alto), all the major modern types of programming languages (imperative, functional, object-oriented), etc.
Most of the seemingly big things that have happened since fall more into the category of incremental improvements and popularizations than "major technological change."
And this transformative effect keeps on giving, with the transition to renewables and "electrified everything" (such as cars, but not only).
The major technological advancements that permitted that are old. Cellular telephone technology dates to the 70s/80s, etc.
My father farmed with a mule in the 1950s.
Think of the major innovations of the 1500s and early 1600s Renaissance. Exploration of the Americas, colonialism, transatlantic slave trade, Protestant reformation, joint stock corporation, parliamentary monarchy, scientific method, nation-state, alchemy, and merchant guilds.
By the 1800s, the exploration of the Americas was basically complete. Colonialism was on its way out with U.S. independence (there was a subsequent era with the scramble for Africa, but that wasn't until the late 1800s). Slavery was banned in Britain and the importation of new slaves was banned in the U.S. The Protestant Reformation was old news. Alchemy had been largely debunked. Pretty much all progress was in the scientific method, and in the corporations that came to capitalize on it.
Yet we don't think of the 1800s as an innovation slowdown. Rather, we think of it as a time of rapid technological progress and massive social change. We've just changed our definition of what innovation is. Things like alchemy, colonialism, and slavery are viewed as quaint anachronisms, mistakes on the march of history.
It'll likely be the same with software vs. the massive manufacturing industries of the 20th century. Some of them (eg. coal power plants or gas-powered automobiles) will seem like outright mistakes; others will simply be taken for granted the way we take democracy and corporations for granted. And we'll start defining innovation in terms of different subfields of software, the same way we define industry in terms of the different subfields of automated manufacturing.
> Most of the major technological changes in computing were already available by 1980:
Sure, but no one had access to it. Availability of tech also plays a huge role in "progress".
I think the most obvious progress was smarthpones, they are :
- Navigation systems
- Allowing seamless and instant text and video communication worldwide
- Capable of holding more music than you'll ever need
- Having better cameras than anything before (price for quality/convenience, I know medium/large format cameras from < 1930 produce better images but they are nowhere as convenient)
- Letting you manage things like your bank account or your emails, &c.
- Allowing you to rent shared cars/bicycle on the fly
When you really think about it something like google Earth would have been close to witchcraft not even 70 years ago. I could probably store the entire library of Alexandria in my $60 kindle. A tesla is "just" a car, but hasn't much to do with cars from < 1950s. An airbus A320 is "just" a plane, but has't much in common with planes < 1950s. A single PS4 is probably more powerful that the entire NASA computing system of the 60s. Reusable space rockets, supersonic planes, landing a probe on a comet, the curiosity rover, GMO, nuclear power plants, discovery of planets out of the solar system, credit cards, microwave ovens, efficient freezers, induction cooking plates, washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, advances in psychology & medicine, satellite internet, photochromic lenses, solar panels, li ion batteries, birth control, 3d printers, you can watch lectures from top universities of the world on youtube for free, the list goes on forever.
If your grandparents are still alive ask them about how life was 60 years ago, everything changed. Being used to amazing tech doesn't negate the fact that progress still happens. I think people just got bored/lost their ability to see magic. A dog playing with a stick is more ecstatic than the average Joe having the entire world's knowledge in the palm of his hand.