Tigermoose wrote:Innovation? We have only seen the beginning. We have just put through the largest group of young people in the history of the world through college. We have people like Elon Musk developing ideas like the "Hyperloop"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperloop If you read this, you will notice how engineers can effectively work together on an open source project. The Internet is bringing together ideas and people from around the world. We have just begun the internet revolution -- a technology just as, or even more, disruptive as Gutenberg's printing press.
There is a big academic literature around the argument that fundamental rates of innovation have declined. If I find the cites, I shall post them. I do not have a strong view.
I take the view that the real measure of innovation is *adoption*. There, I believe that since only 1 billion or so are on the internet now, when it gets to be 3-4 billion (via the phone, not the PC) then it will be a different world.
Similarly things like solar cells and electric cars are only in their infancy. Explaining to our grandchildren or great grandchildren what a filling station was, or what a payphone was, will be amusing.
What you do see is that sometimes in emerging markets, like China and India, the rate of innovation adoption seems faster than here (UK and USA). South Korea is way ahead in ultra fast broadband, for example.
If I look at the real 'biggies' of the last 50 years, they are all about massive invested capital. Shipping containers (needed new ports, totally different ways of working), computers (needed 500m+ computers and phones), interstate highway system (largest public works project in American history), air travel (hundreds of billions in planes and airport infrastructure), municipal sewage (*the* great innovation of the last 150 years was municipal sewage collection and disposal and water supply-- ironically one the Romans (and the Moors in Granada in Spain) had 2000 years ago). Antibiotics you needed mass production and distribution of pharmaceuticals-- ditto mass vaccination, the other great innovation of the last 100 years).