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Major technological changes are coming more slowly than they once did
Our century’s one signature technology achievement is the iPhone. And at this point, we’ve had smartphones in our pockets long enough to begin to appreciate their dangers. Meanwhile the list of potentially world-changing technologies that get lots of press ink but remain stubbornly in the prototype phase is very long. Self-driving cars, flying cars, augmented-reality glasses, gene therapy, nuclear fusion. Need I continue?
Wade Roush argues in the Scientific American that major technological shifts are fewer and farther between than they once were. One of the reasons: “The best minds of our generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”
longterm technological change megatrends transitions