It's one of those things that dates from a period in the 1960s when the oceans were seen as worthy of exploration as the Moon. People talked about undersea cities. But only a few very tiny undersea research habitats were ever built. There just wasn't a use case.
FLIP was all about those undersea sound waves, thermal gradients and sloping ocean bottoms.
Less underseas cities, more total atomic warfare.
- Nuclear power
- Access to Earth orbit
- GPS
- Mapping of the world's oceans
- Miniaturized circuits
- The Internet
- Interstate road systems
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Earth observation satellites
- Destruction of the current human civilization
Although I agree that it is nice that we scrapped some benefits out of it along the way