The main difference seemed to be car traffic and tourism. It's just unrecognisable nowadays (and even from the 1980s tbh).
Such a revolutionary time though - to go from biplanes to jet aircraft, radar, computers, mobile phones, etc. - I can't imagine we'll see a similar rate of change.
There's an even better cognitive bias than this describing your «optimism» about the future, but I fail to find its name.
Like it's hard to imagine an even faster passenger aircraft than the Concorde for example.
I think it’s an allocation of resources problem.
Pre 80s a lot of the best and brightest worked in engineering.
Post 80s they went into finance and then tech. The latter a mixed bag - brought us Google maps etc but sadly mostly focused on selling ads.
That’s the risk I see. We either need to change incentives or change culture to get back to a focus on progress / exploration rather than exploitation.
We simply have a lot more best and brightest in everything. There's so much talent it's unreal. There's not enough money to hire everyone, or technology to equip them in engineering.
It's kind of like art (pictures, movies, music, anything) - there's so much of it, so high quality these days that there really isn't anything that will stand out on its own. Same for celebrities, for that matter. Actors/singers/presidents? Meh, go to Instagram and OnlyFans and take your pick.
The only reason people 100 years from now will show something as an example of early 00's is marketing and survival.
Those people still live and survive - they're just optimising ad spend instead of working on engineering problems or medical research, etc.
>Post 80s they went into finance and then tech. The latter a mixed bag - brought us Google maps etc but sadly mostly focused on selling ads.
So you havent been able to tell if search engines make or break a company, product or service with the results it delivers?
As weapons go, controlling the economy of other countries through search engine results would be novel and advantageous to the US military!
Why can't we fly on a Concorde? (I know why obviously). I guess I am sad to see that tech that truly changed people's lives doesn't happen as much anymore.
Airlines seating (minus first class) has on average become smaller in both business and economy class during the same timespan that relegated the Concorde to history. The airlines decided what they wanted. For most of this time airline tickets weren’t as competitive a market either with more flag carriers and less budget airlines cutting the costs at the bottom of the market.
Apparently people are happy choosing both slower and cheaper even if it costs them legroom (up to a point obviously, since Ryanair famously wasn’t allowed to try the standing room only short haul <2hr flights)
Per your next sentence, customers decided what they wanted. Which was to pay less.
>For most of this time airline tickets weren’t as competitive a market either with more flag carriers and less budget airlines cutting the costs at the bottom of the market.
https://bigthink.com/pessimists-archive/air-space-flight-imp...
Does any science claim or even attempt to estimate its own comprehensiveness?
It's all the same bias. We're living in the stone age.
I'll be happy if I get to see a scramble for the solar system thanks to some sort of anti-gravitational device or full dive VR tech (or isekai-as-a-service by Mitsubishi).
I didn't know what Isekai was, so I looked it up: [0]
Isekai (Japanese: 異世界, transl. "different world" or "otherworld") is a Japanese genre of portal fantasy and science fiction.
I think about this, perhaps more than I should. My great-grandmother was born under monarchy, in a mud hut, somewhere along the Danube. When she was 14, she got stolen on a horse by the son of a band of real highwaymen. She and the son built a house by hand (that still exists, modernized). They had no electricity, no cars anywhere around. Her husband traveled for maybe some tens of miles out of town to the nearest towns. Herself, not even that.
The first time she saw a car, it was passing by, and all the children were running after it smelling the fumes; they had no idea what it was or that there was a human inside. It belonged to an industrialist from the nearest city who made a chicken farm in the area.
World wars came and went, biplanes, radar, the transistor... the village was bombarded, and the state became a popular republic, then a socialist one. Industrialization started. The beginning of globalization, cinematography, and mass media. They still had lights only on the main street. She became a sort of accountant for the collectivized farm and raised her sons and granddaughters.
The Berlin wall fell, and the regime changed again. Democracy. She discovered capitalism, global mass production, and consumerism. Post-communist corruption tore down the town and sold it for scraps. By this time, yours truly came, and she went to the city to help my parents while they were studying and working.
Together, we discovered the contemporary world. Quickly traveling to other countries, computers, internet, QR codes, VoIP, HD media, WiFi, social media, mobile devices, global media streaming, mRNA vaccines, and probably so much more that I can't remember now.
God, this post got long, and it teared me up. I've considered not posting, but I will. I'm unsure if I'm terrified or comforted by the thought that I might not live through so much change, though it feels like the world is changing even faster.