X-Message-Number: 32955
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:23:56 -0700
Subject: Technological Progress
From: Brian Wowk <>

In Cryomsg 32953 Mark Plus wrote:

> Brian Wowk endorses Scott Locklin's observations about the failure of
> technological progress in Cryonet #32937:

> http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32937

     I did not say that technological progress had "failed."  I simply
agreed that the lives of Americans changed less in the past 50 years
than they did during the 50 years before that.  Technological progress
has been, and continues to be, the most successful endeavor ever in
terms of improving the length and quality of life in human
civilization.  The rate of technological progress is just not the
monotonically increasing exponential that some people oversimplify it
to be.  Social factors can and have inflected the curve.  That doesn't
mean technology is anywhere near the limits of physical law.  It's not
even close.

     It's true that our generation is not going to live to see most of
the things we feel we were promised as kids.  That sucks.  But that's
no reason to trash the whole idea of technological progress.  We
should count ourselves lucky to see what we've seen.  Most of the 100
billion humans who've ever lived had it much worse than you and I.

---Brian

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32955