>>12697272People will point to something like the Concorde and say 'hurr it wasn't feasible' and that you can't use failed projects as an example of technological process slowing down, but I'd say that's bullshit. I'd say the aversion to risk over the last 30 to 40 years is definitely holding back technological improvement.
It's total fucking normie tech but look at smartphones. What constituted the absolute cutting edge of mobile phone technology prior to the advent of the iPhone in 2007?
Multiple variations of the traditional mobile phone with a button keypad that we'd had around for 20 years prior.
Sure, the technology involved improved occasionally, with better higher resolution colour screens (which were still tiny due to all the real estate taken up by the keypad), or the ability to play mp3s on them. But there were no big radical departures from the norm, no one wanted to take that risk. As much as I dislike Steve Jobs as a person, I can admire him for pushing the envelope and trying something new and adventurous.
Technological development and improvement isn't necessarily about how many transistors we can fit in a die or increasing the throughput of a jet engine by 1%, it's about how we utilise and apply those changes in our day to day lives. Technological advances don't matter for shit if we're still using phones with keypads because no one wants to be daring and try something different.
I'm drunk and not 100% coherent but I'm sure someone can get what I'm getting at.
