This from Eurekalert: You may think that with faster internet
connectivity, internet phone calls and iPods, that we're living
in a technological nirvana. But according to a new analysis we
are fast approaching a new dark age. The results show that the
number of technological breakthroughs and patents peaked a
century ago and have been falling steadily ever since. But this
is a controversial view not held by most futurologists. The
reason why an observation like this is controversial is that
futurologists take a determinedly optimistic view of the future.
I suspect this is a survey of American patent applications.
There is a subjective increase in the wealth and comfort of
Americans that leads them to think that they must be in a golden
age. But wasn't Rome similar prior to its collapse? The Romans
had become decadent, they suffered from an internal rot and
cultural decline. They embarked on fruitless foreign adventures
as a means of distracting an overlarge, and underused military.
The recent resource wars in