The author of the paper doesn't mean that the concept of linear types will change the world, but states that linear types combined with functional languages will be able to interact with and change the real world (I/O, graphics, etc). This is because functional languages have a hard time representing these concepts, and have alternate workarounds (monads).

Lisp ideas didn't caught on until 40+ years, so...

Not to mention that the first digital computer appeared in the 30s or so, and it took until 1980s and on to really say it "changed the world" (as opposed to merely improving the speed of some calculations).

Add 10 more years :)