The biggest issue I've got with this is at the beginning many goalposts are set and our lack of performance is then paraded out without any regard to how silly they are.

The author bemoans that we haven't done better than the jet engine, but honestly we're probably as far along the mechanical design of that problem domain as possible. The fact is, in very many fields, fuck, we've hit them to death. Concrete is pretty well understood, as is analog electronics. Some fields are simple innovated-out, and all that's left is making them more efficient or cheaper or simply more widely deployed.

(This fact, incidentally, is why I ended up doing computer stuff instead of being a mechanical engineer.)