Probably only true if we allow the “hinge” to be a process that spans several centuries, perhaps starting around 1800 with the beginnings of industrialization and gathering pace in the 20th century.
If we look at the 21st century so far, it just hasn’t been... that interesting! Indeed some scholars of technological change (to take just one metric) actually think the pace of change has slowed. The 20th century gave us flight, the Haber-Bosch process, nuclear weapons, antibiotics, space flight, computers, the Pill, the Internet. The 21st? The iPhone? Meh.
Think long term. Expect a humdrum next decade and an interesting next century.
- Instant high fidelity communication and work/business;
- Private and ever-cheaper space flight;
- True automation (it's only the beginning of the 21st, I bet on automation hitting hard mid century);
- AR/VR (which will likely become the escape of choice for much of the world later this century);
- Renewable energy that most can afford (it's already realistic for everyone to be self-sufficient);
- Viable artificial/grown organs (for use in medicine and food production);
And more. It's already been a hell of a century. If your life is boring, it's most likely because it's easy. There's no lack of choice when it comes to excitement, but we're risk averse at the core. The media is full of over-exaggerated bad stuff because it's exciting to watch (and again, risk-free). I hope we don't fuck it up.
I agree; life is easy and a little bit boring for more and more people in the 21st century, unless they specifically choose to do risky things. I think that is a very good thing. I also agree that the media tends to report on bad things and downplays progress. However, I think what is underreported is not the 21st century inventions you mention, which get media coverage, but rather deep long-term global health improvements that began in the 20th century and have been continuing since then: metrics like infant mortality, food security, life expectancy, the eradication of polio. A great source for this is: https://ourworldindata.org/
As for specific 21st century technologies, let’s take those you mention one by one:
> Unprecedented access to information;
Yes. Although this was the growth of the internet and the web, both late-20th century technologies.
> - Instant high fidelity communication and work/business;
Same as the first point.
> - Private and ever-cheaper space flight;
To do basically 20th-century things like putting satellites into orbit... but cheaper! I hope we do something genuinely new this century like going to Mars - but that’s some way off.
> - True automation (it's only the beginning of the 21st, I bet on automation hitting hard mid century);
You’ll need to be more specific but sounds like this isn’t here yet? I agree automation has been improving but again, it’s a long-term trend.
> - AR/VR (which will likely become the escape of choice for much of the world later this century);
Sure, although sounds like this is more about future promise than what we have now, which is a fun but niche entertainment.
> - Renewable energy that most can afford (it's already realistic for everyone to be self-sufficient);
This is good but... again 20th-century tech becoming better and cheaper.
> - Viable artificial/grown organs (for use in medicine and food production);
Promising research but still a way off from becoming a routine medical treatment.
So... I think all of these things are great but, as I mentioned in another reply, they just don’t have the world-historical impact of key 20th century tech like the Haber-Bosch Process, or antibiotics, or powered flight, or effective birth control. I think we are in a phase where we’re mostly improving what we already have (which is great!). Maybe a novel 21st-century technology will come along with that kind of impact, but I don’t think it’s here yet.
> - Renewable energy that most can afford (it's already realistic for everyone to be self-sufficient);
I agree with your comment except this one. I don’t see anything that has come close to the benefits of fossil fuels, and I don’t see the political will to tax fossil fuels sufficiently to curb consumption sufficiently to curb climate change. Any reduction of fossil fuel use in developed countries with the luxury of being able to spend more on less polluting sources of energy will be made up in increased consumption in developing countries.
I was talking more about solar and wind installations, as well as battery tech and the low power consumption of modern tools.
20-30 years ago, if you wanted a stable ~3KW supply, you needed a generator and diesel/petrol. Lights, computers, power tools consumed an immense amount of power compared to today.
Now you can have one turbine and several solar panels coupled with a battery bank and you have the same supply of electricity without burning anything. It can power your whole house and everything you own for decades.
I'm a fan of decentralized energy production, though.
Humph. I think the iPhone (actually, smartphones) is right up there with the biggest changes of the 20th century. It's what put humanity on the Internet. That may not be so obvious to someone from developed countries, where pretty much everyone already had a PC with Internet connection by then, but that was only about 1 billion out of our nearly 8 billion population... about 6 billion more were connected by smartphones over the last decade. The final billion can't afford those yet, but that's changing fast.
The thing is, the smartphone wasn't just cheaper than a PC; it's more accessible and provided greater motivation for connecting people. Messaging like WhatsApp has lowered the cost of what people were already considering essential (staying in touch with friends and relatives) enough to justify the higher initial cost, and voice commands and voice messaging made it usable even for people who were essentially illiterate. The impact on billions of people's daily lives has been enormous.
Only 20 years in (or is it 'already 20y in'?), and there's already reusable rockets, CRISPR, 3D printing and the combo deep learning + astonishingly both powerful and affordable CPU/GPU/TPU.
I would say this is already an interesting century, invention-wise.
Also, one could argue that the 21's internet is not the same as the 20's, in which case modern, cheap and massively deployed internet can be classified as a 21st great invention.
But we're splitting hairs. Centuries are an artificial construct. Measuring pace of change by such a crude method makes no sens to me.
I find it very concerning that all your (excellent) examples of progress are not just 20th century inventions, but entirely before 1970. I do believe progress has slowed down.
We can debate its cause... I'd go for financial incentives drawing smart people to banking and advertising instead of more socially beneficial pursuits.
IMHO iPhone (or smartphones) are under valued. Yes, they do not give you more (like antibiotics give more life or nuclear more energy) but they absolutely help you to lose less time (e.g. navigation that helps you to avoid traffic jams and get lost in unknown place). That replicated in billions of people changes the world’s pace drastically.
To be clear, I’m not saying the iPhone isn’t useful or valuable. It just simply does not compare to the key technologies of the 20th century in terms of transforming the basic parameters of human life on earth.
My favorite example is the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen and producing synthetic fertilizer (invented 1910). Surely a far more “undervalued” technology than the iPhone! It enabled us to scale up global food production to feed at least an extra 3.5 billion people who otherwise would never have been born, or would have starved.[1] Antibiotics are another great example. Several hundred million lives saved.
With respect, I think this is in a different league from saving some people a little time waiting in traffic.
My 99 year old grandma says that the greatest invention in her lifetime was the washing machine, freeing up an incredible number of labor and hours wasted every week in every household (and usually by women) for more productive tasks.
Different kind of improvement. A smartphone (not the bloody iPhone) has fundamentally changed everyone's life directly.
For the vast majority of people, food production is something that just "happens" out there. They don't grow anything, they just get it from a store.
I've seen people on the Internet who can't afford a simple boiler or an indoors toilet (but they have a phone/computer)... and that's sad, but also amazing.
I agree, they are different kinds of impact. That’s why I like to emphasize the Haber-Bosch process, because it is largely invisible. Mostly people have never heard of it.
Because the impact is different it’s very hard to compare. One interesting thought experiment that can help is to imagine the technology disappearing and think about what the consequences would be. Thinking that through for smartphones and the Haber-Bosch process is left as an exercise for the reader.
>My favorite example is the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen and producing synthetic fertilizer (invented 1910). Surely a far more “undervalued” technology than the iPhone! It enabled us to scale up global food production to feed at least an extra 3.5 billion people who otherwise would never have been born, or would have starved.
It also kept Germany going in WW1 far longer than otherwise, by compensating for blockades on saltpeter for explosives.
Lets also add vaccines to that. I also wish there were a process like Haber Bosch for phosporic fertilizer (of course it cant, since phospor is not in any quantity in the athmosphere)
If we look at the 21st century so far, it just hasn’t been... that interesting! Indeed some scholars of technological change (to take just one metric) actually think the pace of change has slowed. The 20th century gave us flight, the Haber-Bosch process, nuclear weapons, antibiotics, space flight, computers, the Pill, the Internet. The 21st? The iPhone? Meh.
Think long term. Expect a humdrum next decade and an interesting next century.