I was recently watching a series called “Ancient Inventions”. It is hosted by one of the guys from Monty Python and is reasonably entertaining and informative. It was amazing to see how many things were invented thousands of years ago, completely lost and forgotten, then re-invented recently.
It got me thinking about all of the technological progress we’ve made in the past couple hundred years. There have been a number of amazing inventions that have changed the world, like trains, planes, cars, radio, telegraph, telephone, and many others.
But what world-changing inventions and technologies have surfaced since the 60’s?
Computers? Ha. That’s 1930’s technology. The microwave oven? Mobile phones? 1940’s.
Solar cells? Fibre optics? That was way back in the 50’s.
But what about the Internet? Nope. We were online in 1969 – 40 years ago.
What life changing technology has been invented since then? It starts getting really thin. Liposuction. Viagra. The iPod. Yeah, truly innovative.
Other than some dabbling in genetics and nanotechnology, all we’ve done in the past 40 years is make a lot more of the same crap cheaper, smaller and faster.
Maybe there’s a ton of really exciting stuff “just around the corner” but I’m getting a bit impatient.
I think it’s about time to wake up from our little 40-year nap, and start making some progress.