The point is that the difference between 1900 and 1960 is fundamental on every level.

Carriages -> Cars

Land Travel -> Aerospace

Iceboxes at best -> Modern refrigeration

Pen and Paper -> Computers

Newspapers -> Ubiquitous electronic media.

Living at the mercy of infectious diseases -> Antibiotics/vaccines.

Coal (at best) -> Nuclear

Outhouses -> Modern Plumbing and sanitation

Etc. You could make similarly great comparisons between 1840-1900.

What do we have now? Looking at atoms? WTF does that matter in any practical sense? And even if you want to get sciency, it's clear that 1900-1960 was when the big changes in physics occurred, at least since Newton.

All of the big practical changes since 1960 have mainly served to isolate us, as amusing as they might be.

If we accept the point that were just in the middle of the transition , and look a little bit forward, we'll see:

1960 -> 2025

Air travel -> life quality telepresence and group meetings globally

Expensive education -> free, high quality education for all

Antibiotics are great(but easy) -> tons of very difficult medical innovations(transplants,printing organs,cancer treatments,diagnostics, AI in medicine ...)

Everything needs workers -> So much can be done automatically, at extremely cheaper cost and extremely rapid pace.

Dirty energy -> Clean energy at competitive price(at least available if not deployed)

Manual cars -> automated cars (?)

We love lucy -> Extreme variety of content

Monopoly -> addictive digital experiences

It's easy to see big changes when you look over 60 years.

| Pen and Paper -> Computers

Computers existed in 1960, but they didn't replace pen and paper (and electric typewriters) until the 1990s.

| Newspapers -> Ubiquitous electronic media.

This obviously happened after 1960. I do not consider TV and radio in 1960 to be functionally the same as the internet.

| Coal (at best) -> Nuclear

The first commercial nuclear point plant in the US was in 1958, and had a very primitive design. Nuclear power as we know it came about after 1960.

| What do we have now?

Several of the things you mentioned as coming before 1960, for a start.

In the future people will look back at comments like this and wonder how we could be so blind. But that's because what will be obvious to them is not so obvious to us. We are immersed in our history, we are distracted by flashy short-term trends and comparatively blind to subtle, long-term trends. Partly because we lack the foresight to see which trends will win out in the long run.

However, let's look at how the very nature of the world has changed in the last half century and how that might play out over the next few decades.

Let's look at the developed world. 50 years ago that was pretty much just the US/Canada and Western Europe, with smatterings of incomplete industrialization elsewhere. Today Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea are unarguably developed, first world nations. And the coastal parts of China as well as Chile, Brazil, and several other countries are well on their way to that status and will join it within the next decade or two.

Meanwhile, war is becoming less common, and average quality of life as well as longevity is, overall, increasing everywhere in the entire world. This is an unprecedented event in human history, we are becoming more peaceful, wealthier, and healthier. And not just a small elite portion of the world, all of it (see Hans Rosling's TED talk for more on that).

Let's look at trade. In 1960 trade was remarkably limited. The world population was about 3 billion, gross world product was about 7 trillion USD (compared to 70 trillion today). In between the world grew by about 2x and got about 10x richer. Part of this is due to the invention of containerized shipping, which brought about a revolution in international shipping, increasing shipping tonnage by an order of magnitude or more. Today the total value of goods being transported internationally on the oceans is twice the value of the entire world economy in 1960.

Let's look at communications. Even in, say, 1980 the world was still a relatively disconnected place. Most people on Earth had never made a single phone call, and news of the world was still hard to come by. Today the world is knit together by a world-spanning instantaneous communications network, and the power of communication has been put into the hands of the world's population. It is not unusual nor terribly expensive to carry on a conversation in real-time with a person across the world, not just in the "1st world" but in the "3rd world" as well. News from all parts of the world now comes in the form of first hand reports and cell phone videos as much as it does from reporters repeating accounts from interviewed locals.

And that revolution in communications that has largely taken root only in the last decade has had a transformative effect on the world, and on geopolitics. Look at the revolutions of late, how quickly they spread, how they are still spreading, and how much they have overturned about the way we thought the world worked. The geopolitical landscape of 2015 will be unrecognizable from the perspective of 2005, and much of that is due to communication technology.

Let's look at business. In the US there has been an explosion of entrepreneurship on a massive scale. Many of the largest and most influential companies of today (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) were created not just within the last half century but even within the last 30 or 20 years. And new companies are sprouting up all the time (such as facebook). Meanwhile, a great many people are acquiring the capability to work for themselves on their own projects. The internet has made it that much easier for people to run their own businesses. Musical artists have found out how to be successful without signing on to a major label. Webcomic artists have discovered how to make a living without working through the syndication companies or being employees of large comic book corporations. Craftspeople have discovered how to sell their wares directly to the public through etsy or ebay or their own websites. And so many folks of many varying talents have taken their careers on a sharp detour via crowd-funding systems such as kickstarter. Already hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars are flowing through this new economy of self-made businesses, and it's growing at a fantastic pace. How fundamentally will this change the economy? In the next 20 years will it be more common for people to be their own boss and work as independent contractors than to be employees of a large corporation?

Let's look at medicine. AIDS was discovered in the 1980s. Throughout all of human history the only effective "treatment" for a lethal virus has been a vaccine, and yet scientists managed to develop effective treatments for AIDS within a matter of years. And today AIDS can be treated as a chronic illness. And too our understanding of biology and biochemistry has exploded. We've decoded the genome of not just homo sapiens but many other species and we've only just begun to understand biology on that level. But we've been able to experiment with amazing things, lab-grown organ replacements, genetic therapy, etc. Today someone with insulin dependent diabetes can buy actual, human insulin for a very affordable price. And this is because the gene to produce that insulin has been taken from humans and placed into bacteria which are then grown in vats and the insulin is extracted and purified. This is an amazing, futuristic achievement, and yet it is bog standard ordinary for today's world.

Let's look at technology and manufacturing. Computing power, of course, has exploded, and it will continue to do so as we develop new technologies like memristors and other breakthrough ideas. Manufacturing is in the midst of a sea change, as computer powered CNC machine tools, 3D printing, and much more are paving the way toward vastly accelerated cycles of development (whereby the time-frame between coming up with an idea and seeing that idea borne out in mass-production manufacturing has been shortened to a matter of weeks if not days, in the near future that will be measured in a matter of hours or minutes). And that will pave the way for fully automated manufacturing and fully configurable manufacturing. Imagine if anyone could visit a website, fill in a form, upload a few 3D models, pay a modest sum of money and have a bulk shipment of manufactured goods that were defined by that data (say, laptops, or smartphones, or bicycles, or automobiles) loaded onto a boat in a matter of days. What happens when a company with, say, 5 employees can build iPhones of the same quality and in sufficient volume to challenge Apple? What happens to the undeveloped world when we can make factories that run on solar power and bulk materials and output industrial goods (like tractors, cars, refrigerators, power stations, and water purification equipment), or when factories can produce factories themselves?

The world is a much different place than it was a half century ago, and it is on track to become an astoundingly different place than we can scarcely imagine. And the roots have been planted right here, right now.

P.S. Also, a tremendous amount of social change has happened in the last 50 years, both in the US and in the world. Much of that was enabled or assisted by technological change. It's easy to miss this because when comparing across time we tend to compare like with like, however we should remember that the lives we are comparing to in the 1960s aren't necessarily average lives, they are probably elite lives (e.g. straight christian white males with high-paying jobs).

That's was quite surreal to read. Thanks for taking your time to share such a nerve-rattling history of advancements in science and technology. I will probably print it out and frame it on my wall and remind myself that we are already living in the future even though much remains to be seen and accomplished.

Also, is your perspective in this topic synonymous with the law of accelerating change? http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

"In the future people will look back at comments like this and wonder how we could be so blind."

Are you trying to suggest people are going to look back on your comment and wonder how you were so blind? I'm kind of wondering that right now.

I think it's obvious what "this" I was referring too. However, I do include myself and my post in that comment (which is why I said "we"). I have pointed out some ways in which our world is changing and has changed, but I certainly can't predict the future. Looking back from the perspective of the year 2040 there will no doubt be many trends that in retrospect are blindingly obvious but are not apparent to me.

35 days ago, you said that we need to focus on constructive comments.

Isn't that a result of relative stagnation in the 1800's? When things like better microscopes, advanced plumbing, higher speed trains, electricity, phone, radio and other staples of today's world were just being researched and used by a handful of people (with the others wondering why tf does it matter).

Right now, we're paving the way for much more powerful computers (quantum & "living" computers, HUD glasses), cheaper space travel (via privatization of space travel), effective transportation (electric cars, efficient airplanes), medicine (stem cells, man-machine interfaces), energy (nuclear fusion, efficient batteries) production (3D printers, robotics, faster prototyping and research), and other stuff.

And just like the radio, it will be at least another 50 years before we actually use it all on a larger scale, in my opinion...

Stagnation in the 1800's? Keep in mind this was the century that saw the invention and spread of the railroad, the invention and spread of a nearly instant global communication medium with the telegraph, the telephone, the moving picture, photography, the typewriter, large-scale mechanized factories with the spread of steam power, etc.

To me, it feels that it's the everyday life that isn't changing much.

* I got my first computer 16 years ago

* I bought my first mobile phone 9 years ago

* I drive a car that is 18 years old

* I still shop in physical stores

Today :

* I can surf on 20 different websites at the same time as downloading a movie in 1080p

* I can search wikipedia from my phone

* I can have a car that parks itself

* I can shop for some things on the internet

But these aren't revolutions. I like what I got now and wouldn't trade it for what I had 10 years ago, but it hadn't changed my life much. They are improvements that I've come to like. I feel that with so much knowledge and some much technology a real revolution should come faster. I'm not nostalgic, I'm impatient.

Everyday I face problems that I've never solved before. I can query a nearly complete repository of human knowledge and find solutions nearly instantly.[1]

When I'm exploring a new city I have satellite maps of the entire world tied to a searchable index of millions of places, all on a device that fits in my pocket and is more powerful than as a supercomputer was 25 years ago[2].

There's an electric c on the market that rivals gas powered vehicles from Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche in luxury, power, and price. [3]

I'm plugged into a network that can notify me in advance of an earthquake that's going to reach me.[4]

Cars that drive themselves have been approved as street legal vehicles in several states.[5]

[1] http://bit.ly/Qs14ZG

[2] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/mark-hurd-is-still-...

[3] http://www.teslamotors.com/models

[4] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/earthquake-twitter-use...

[5] http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/09/06/self-driv...

There's so many to add to the list, but nothing feels like a revolution to me. Do you feel they changed your life, I mean really changed your life ?

Here's a list of a few things I might do on an average day that I couldn't do when I was in high school.

* Call home from the grocery store to ask if we're out of Provolone.

* Check my shopping list and see that items have been added to it since I left the house.

* Find a new restaurant with good reviews and make a reservation in mere minutes.

* Take pictures that rival 35mm film and make them available to friends in minutes (with me, it's usually hours or more, but it could be minutes).

* Find my way home from a random location without asking for directions in a gas station.

* Carry weeks worth of music and years worth of reading in my pocket.

* Order a new coffee maker online and expect it the next day.

* Buy a movie online and watch it instantly.

* Get answers to random medical questions.

* Find documentation for damned near anything.

* Work from home with access to everything I would have at the office.

Yes, many of these are indeed life changing. Could I live without these things? Absolutely, but I could also live without cars, and without air conditioning, and without a lot of things that were revolutionary. Electricity, indoor plumbing, and wired telephones took decades to make their way into average people's homes. If anything, the "digital age" is permeating lives faster and more broadly than the major changes that preceded it.

Ansolutely! I used to carry a Thomas Brothers guide to San Diego in my car. When I got lost it would take me 5 minutes just to figure out where the hell I was. The first time I drove to LA for my college orientation I had a map of California but not one of LA, and I got lost driving back from Westwood to UCLA and ended up in the middle of bel air. Today, it's hard to even remember that frustration.

The other day I was stumbling my way through configuring a server and thinking to myself: "how the hell did anyone ever accomplish anything before Google?".

Self driving cars undoubtedly will once they become publicly available, which seems inevitable.

Life now is clearly better and more interesting than it was 100 years ago. But the pace of innovation is much, much slower. 100 years ago cars, household electricity and recorded sound were all brand new. Every one of these things represents a huge leap forward, giving mankind entirely new capabilities. And all of them were developed and brought to market in the same 20-30 year period.

What have we produced in the last 20-30 years that's even close to providing that kind of new capability? The only recent innovation on that level is TCP/IP, and we've been iterating on that ever since.

"Things are good now" is never a reason to not get better. We've gotten very good at making incremental improvements, but fallen way behind on the pace of breakthrough innovation.

Wireless global communications for the masses is an enormous leap forward.

Cars and planes let me easily move 1500 miles away from where I grew up. And then modern communication technology and video/audio compression lets me communicate, with video, in real time with people back there, from anywhere I go with phone coverage. That's pretty damn significant.

The author of the original article is basically also assuming that none of the interesting things that are currently being researched are going to amount to anything. It's a bizarre mix of sampling problems, observational biases, and cynicism.

Edit: I thought of another pretty huge one: imaging, especially medically (look at how much less invasive many surgical procedures are now than they were 30 years ago), but also for stuff like mapping. We now have collections of images taken from airplanes and satellites of most (all?) of the world. When has that kind of information ever been available in the past? What kind of cool stuff will we be able to do in the next twenty years with all this information that has only seen widespread availability in the last ten years or so?

And then there are the medical procedures that weren't even possible thirty years ago...

Or, in short, when familiarity stops breeding contempt. Don't hold your breath.

That's exactly how I feel whenever I look at my tablet. It's a piece of glass that does things! If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.

Was going to add a rebuttal to the linked article but no need :-) I really liked Warren Ellis' take on it.

"Science Fiction Condition". What an incredible way of putting it. Thanks for the link!