Century-Long Tech Explosion - "it all happened so fast"

[Cabelaz]

This is probably a brainlet tier question, but while I was cleaning out my protein shake cup I realized just how far humanity has come in the last century tech-wise. I can wave my hand in front of my motion-sensitive sink and it dispenses gallons of water at my leisure.
So that leads me to my question, why did the level of tech explode over the last century? We went from letters to telephones to text messages in a matter of time that there could be a person who lived to see all 3 used in daily life.

 

[SSF2T Old User]

We went from letters to telephones to text messages in a matter of time that there could be a person who lived to see all 3 used in daily life.

You make it sound like it's a bad thing.

I'm just waiting till they finally invent flying cars.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The world wars, they created entire fields which were not there before.

 

[Alkaline Cab]

Technology is exponential, it builds on itself.

I would actually say it all started around the (late) 1800's (Letters -> Telegram -> Phones -> Cell). What was in that time period? Oh, the Industrial Revolution, which increased production, the active working hour (lightbulbs) , increased speed of communication (large scale literacy, telegram), etc. All these inventions made future invention quicker, easier, and more wide spread.
"Modern" inventions required great infrastructure to be made - infrastructure only developed after the industrial revolution. The electric grid, the internet, even to some extent cities and roads.
Relatedly, its pretty hard to grasp an entire new, revolutionary tech, than it is to expand on it. Once computers existed, it wasn't too much effort to continuously improve them, doubling every two years. It's pretty easy to see the snowball in the information age.

And glorious capitalism in its current state only really existed after the colonial era, and we know what market forces provide. Businesses, not just governments, have big incentive to innovate and expand as much as possible, so they do. Credit, largely adopted by the 1920's, also boosted the economy to incredible heights (and depressing lows), and allowed the common folk of the first world to get and use new tech (promoting development of newer tech, and the first major QoL change).

Also came the agricultural revolution and a booming population. More people = more ideas, more inventors (though both world wars put a dent into that)

tldr: industrial revolution and capitalism in many words

 

[shameful existence]

It's more like the past two centuries, since the industrial revolution.
Also, in some areas - like the space exploration since Moon landing - the progress has been underwhelming.

 

[mario if smoke weed]

That's when the aliens came to Earth and quietly integrated themselves into our society and made deals with the rich and elite to help advance our technology. They aren't generous aliens though, that's why they now pull the strings behind the scenes. We answer to the Jews, and the Jews answer to the shapeshifters. They are among us.

 

[Haim Arlosoroff]

This is probably a brainlet tier question, but while I was cleaning out my protein shake cup I realized just how far humanity has come in the last century tech-wise. I can wave my hand in front of my motion-sensitive sink and it dispenses gallons of water at my leisure.
So that leads me to my question, why did the level of tech explode over the last century? We went from letters to telephones to text messages in a matter of time that there could be a person who lived to see all 3 used in daily life.

I wonder how many people know how to make a motion-sensitive sink or even a plastic cup? More and more since mass urbanization, and then less and less suddenly until today. We went from a postal service worked by a labor force who could read their org chart, to a telephone network worked by wires understood by a few technicians, to wireless smart phones worked by AIs made by so many hands no one person understands exactly what they're doing.

Industrialization made the population boom and the required field hands on farms shrink. Freeing up the masses and educating them, into a new societal equilibrium where trades kept the world polished and functional and all could attempt to rise to the level of their intelligence. A wondrous age 1890-1990, I wish I had grown up and lived a bit before it ended. Too bad there are the downsides to unsustainable energy usage per capita and allowing a high mutational load among the population of every major nation while they undergone the weakest natural selection pressures in the history of mankind. Things are going to start breaking now to sustain the social grift of degenerates and the political grift of their elected patrons, along the edges at first, and then big changes are going to become the "New Normal". If the immigrants aren't even having kids, then the idiots are going to be the only ones until society or our climate doesn't support them doing so too.

Social selection pressures (fame and acceptability) overtook natural selection pressures (health and survival) on the average teen trying to get laid, boy trying to find a girl, boyfriend trying to woo a girl into marriage, and husbands trying to convince our wives to procreate until we all became some sort of third gender. Virile, fertile, sterile. Its unfixable unfortunately without winnowing our populations down to a level of a fertile, moderate population with enough self-control to not be given to degeneracy and to punishing low time preference people in order to maintain unhealthy lifestyles. Instead we get to live in a horrifying age, for it will be the mightiest that Western Civilization has ever known, or will know; it is the era from 1990-2090, from contending states to Empire, which corresponds in the Classical world to the time from Cannae to Actium. The private politics of men determined to rule at any cost will now transition liberal democracy into something else:

• The pacifying of the urban masses to gain power with gifts & entertainment leading to the parasitic theft from the productive parts of society.
• The endless searching for another victim group to add to their voter base by inciting class warfare leading to the political exploitation of peoples' jealousy.
• The leveling of society to suffocate creativity & individualism through myriad rules & laws leading to a childlike nation beholden to the state.

I wish we had never taught the average man to read.

 

[Lemmingwise]

I'm just waiting till they finally invent flying cars

We have them. They're called helicopters and they're too noisy for everyone to have one.

It's impossible to not be noisy, because no matter what they need to displace as much air to offset the weight of the person and device.

 

[SSF2T Old User]

We have them. They're called helicopters and they're too noisy for everyone to have one.

I was speaking more along the lines of this...