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Comment by peterlk | Hacker News Reader

No it isn’t. “Tech” is only slowing down for a very narrow definition of tech. Perhaps we forget that rather recently the world created a vaccine for a novel virus using cutting edge techniques, that genome sequencing costs continue to fall, that genome construction costs continue to fall, that synthetic meats are on the horizon, that infrastructure for electric vehicles is now present in much of the world. Tech innovation continues to flourish, that growth just isn’t focused in computer hardware any more

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> genome construction costs continue to fall

On the other hand, construction construction costs continue to rise. Housing is of greater practical importance. It's a large chunk of every household's budget.

1. "Does construction ever get cheaper?", https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/does-construction...

That’s anecdotal though. For an opposite anecdote, airplanes have been pretty much the same since the 70s.

Airplanes are a relatively poor anecdote. They have advanced in small but steady changes over time. The prevalence of the single aisle, 6 abreast seating of the 737 and A320 came about because airlines could reliably fill short to medium haul flight and were cost effective in other ways. We have more efficient engines, systems have gotten safer, etc. There is a lot of work behind the scenes with aircraft.

Wright's brother's first flight happened in 1903. Within 15 years there were dogfights in WW1. In 31 years the first commercial service over the Atlantic started (cargo) and 5 years later (1939) the first commercial passenger transatlantic line was opened. Three decades later, the man got to the Moon. A few years later Concorde started regular supersonic commercial transatlantic flights.

After that we got what? Less noise, improved fuel efficiency, increased range? I started flying about 25 years ago. I don't remember that flights were noisier. As for efficiency and range, I don't give a hoot. I care about ticket prices and flights happening on schedule. Prices have gone up, innovative fees piled up on top of them, delays are oh-so-common. As for safety, 25 years ago planes were crashing about as frequently as now. For regular people like me, the advances in safety were imperceptible.

A lot more passenger miles are flown then 25 years ago: there are more flights and they go further. Fatalities per passenger mile are something on the order of 5-10 times less than in the 90s.

You also hear about every single one of them now, partly as they're rare and exciting to the media and partly because the Internet makes everything "nearby", whereas in the 90s you'd have probably only gotten a quick radio segment and a mid-paper article on a remote air crash.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fatalities_per_reven...

I can’t tell if you’re serious or not, but airline flights seem incredibly cheap to me and substantially safer than 40 years ago. It’s true that most of the safety in US scheduled aviation had been achieved by 2000.

In the 60s, 70s and 80s, flights were expensive and rarely taken by regular people. Now, they’re readily accessible to most everyone. (I can recall calling to book a “bereavement fare” to attend a family funeral and having to be prepared to send proof of death because a regular fare from BOS to PIT would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. I don’t know if those even exist anymore because the economy fares are so cheap.)

To be fair, every single one of your complaints can be attributed to innovations of capitalism. You’re experiencing fewer innovations not because they’re not happening, but because they’re serving an insatiable demand for profits for centers or capital.

That’s not to say it isn’t disappointing! Just that your marginally-the-same flight experience is that way because improvements in flight are designed to enhance the lives of executives and investors rather than passengers. If anything, they’ve made the flight experience worse for you and me as much as we'll bear, while improving flight objectively at the same time… because profits demand ever more growth.

Looking at the DoT’s stats on financials of 24 US airlines, I dunno if this critique is rooted in reality. I think domestic airlines aren’t doing a great job for their investors, either. Can’t comment on executives.

Being bad at capitalism doesn’t mean capitalism is not their MO. I don’t mean this argumentatively, just so that point is clear: I’d apply the same logic to the various banking and investment shenanigans which lead to the housing market crash in the aughts, despite the fact that those services to capital ultimately proved highly counterproductive in many cases.

We've improved fuel efficiency by a factor of 8 since 1970: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aviation_Efficienc...

> Jet airliners have become 70% more fuel efficient between 1967 and 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#Histo...

I'd agree that aviation improvements have slowed way down, but they've certainly gotten dramatically better in that time frame.

And, while passenger airplanes do look similar to how they used to, we now have all sorts of drones flying around, some of which would have awed people in the 70s.

They may look the same, but they've changed a lot when it comes to safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#/media/File:Fa...

Except they aren't. Not when it cmes to noise, fuel consumption or safety. Or weight, or range, or reliability.

> airplanes have been pretty much the same since the 70s.

you need to back your claims

Since the Concorde was grounded, arguably we've regressed.

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