I don't think this is foolproof, but it _is_ a tool and a perspective for analyzing history, and one that runs counter to the most common narrative of increasing acceleration in technological development. The physics way of saying this is that velocity is always positive (we're always going up or near-neutral) but the rate of acceleration isn't spectacularly greater than the new ones. If we really are talking about the rate of change of economic/tech growth (the rate of change of market size/capability), then we're talking about acceleration!
Anyway, this was a whole rant, but my personal take is that we tend to underestimate the amount of turbulence in history, leading us to believe that the past was a stable, peaceful and simpler time, while the present day is going nuts. This kind of thinking has fueled messianism, apocalyptic cults, futurism, dreams and nightmares for centuries, and will continue to if we don't blow ourselves up. We forget that even in places like Ancient Rome the rate of change in tech and human growth was still positive and rapid, that during the Dark Ages science and technology were still exploding in the Middle East, that the differences between 1650 and 1750 were vast in terms of human thought, that between 1850 and 1950 they were seemingly greater. There was no time of mythological stasis before the present day, and it's unlikely that there ever will be as long as we're still human.