Back to the Future
On Stagnation, I think the argument is very weak. Compare 1970 to today and we don&#x27;t have any invention better than running water. Sorry what? If you want to compare centuries go ahead- but I think it&#x27;s almost inarguable that life has changed much more significantly 1900-2000 than 1800-1900. Information is basically now costless to store, communication with anyone on earth is practically free, and we can literally travel to any point on earth in a matter of days. The idea that we&#x27;ve stagnated just seems frankly absurd to me. Are all those achievements less important than running water? I don&#x27;t know, running water probably saved more lives - but Alexander Fleming was hardly a slouch in the 1920s.<p>If you want to <i>only</i> compare 1969 to now, I&#x27;d like to point out that there&#x27;s a really obvious problem. We don&#x27;t have 200 years of hindsight to say &quot;Oh that invention completely changed the world&quot;. How are we feeling about Genome sequencing, how about the plethora of green energy generation technologies? How about the Electric Car? The Internet?<p>I just feel like the stagnation assertion is ridiculous.