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From the RooshV Forum:
I constantly get the vibe from people that they think our technology is skyrocketing, that we're living in a new tech age, "where was all this ten years ago?!" etc.
But I disagree with this assessment of our technology. It has made steady improvements in one specific space: software and electronic hardware. That is all. On top of that, the improvements on the hardware have not even been ground breaking. GPS is a ground-breaking invention. Smaller screens are not: they are just an incremental improvement.
Smartphones are merely the result of incremental improvements in the size and quality of electronic components. The only breakthroughs involved are ages old. The invention of the transistor, the laser, etc. The existence of google, facebook, uber, and so on, are merely inevitable "new applications" stemming from these improvements. They are not breakthroughs, they are merely improvements and combinations upon the telephone, the directory, and the taxi.
In my opinion, technology as a whole is borderline stagnant.
A list of why technology is still shit:
The posting goes on to list examples of incremental, rather than breakthrough, changes in the areas of:
- Electronics & Machines
- Energy
- Medicine
- Clothes
- Food
- Finance
Have we really stagnated? Have we already found all of the "low-hanging fruit", so new breakthroughs are harder to find? Maybe there is greater emphasis on changes that are immediately able to be commercialized and less emphasis on basic research?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 29 2017, @04:06PM
I like to use the 10-year rule of thumb for a lot of things. It seems to hold true in really different parts of life. IBM originally did the study that said, in very general terms,. it takes 10 years for a software project of "significant" size to mature. I think this holds for a lot of social changes related to technology as well. It just takes some time for things that fundamentally change how we interact to be incorporated into social norms. Cell phones are a great example: in the US, consumer cell phones first became "mainstream" in the late 90s. Before that, they were the province of salesman on the road, doctors, tradesmen, and the wealthy. We then spent 6 years fighting the tide of cellphones ringing everywhere from homes to churches to movie theaters. It took time for social norms to catch up and create generally accepted codes for when and where cell phone use was appropriate. Today, we see signs theaters, doctor's offices, and other communal spaces reminding everyone, "Please do not use your phone." In 20 years, those signs will seem quaint as "No spitting" signs are today. It will simply be understood that you do not use your cell phone in a communal space.
A lot of the social tech developments have happened in the past 10 years and social norms are catching up. Facebook started out as a dating website for college students and now it is a place for people to post pictures of their meals and trips so the grandparents can see them. Another Soylent article addressed just that - people are curating what they post because they know Facebook is not just a private forum for them and their close friends but a public medium with an expiration time of never. Social Media has been incorporated into the social norms.
There is still a lot of "low-hanging" fruit but the money is in the implementation now. I can hand every single user a smartphone and a laptop but we are still working on the implementation to make all of this work together. Wide area file sharing is pretty mature if you are willing to pay and is beginning to mature for most consumers. In 5 years, file sharing will "just work" the way "email" just works. EMR is beginnning to come around but that is really a regulatory issue more than anything.
Clothes have some neat tech but you do not notice it, which is the point! All ski pants have an RFID in so Search and Rescue can find you under an avalanche of snow up to 20 feet deep. My running shirts dry out in a hurry; I can wear my UA thermal shirt and ski jacket and be skiing when it 10 below zero (F). When I was a child, I'd be wearing about an inch of clothes under my jacket and still be cold. In the same area, ski boots have improved. Again, when I was a child, you got ski boots and if it hurt a bit, it "fit". Now, ski boots are warm and I can ski all day with no discomfort. This is materials and design advances in action.
In food, I would argue the biggest advance in the past 10 years is YouTube. The biggest challenge for the home cook is all of the "assumed" knowledge. Recipes call for "dash of x" and ask you to "chop y" but clearly they are doing it a different way because, in my mind, a "dash" is not a unit of measure and "chop" can mean a lot of different things. Everyone I know has watched at least a few videos to learn how to prepare something they would have otherwise messed up. I always hated vegetables growing up because my mom overcooked everything; I wonder how many people in America dislike vegetables and other foods because nobody taught them how to properly prepare it? As an adult, when I learned how to cook vegetables, suddenly vegetables were actually kind of ok instead of green-colored pudding.
My point is, the biggest tech advances are the ones you do not notice because they quickly become incorporated and normalized into social patterns. So, yes, I think we are in for some big changes soon as the implementation of some fundamental technology improvements will be the advancement rather than the tech itself. I was a geek for having email access on the my Palm VII but now I'm a luddite if my phone cannot hail a taxi or order takeout.