Yes, the pace of fundamental inventions has slowed down, but that has nothing to do with progress.<p>I think the author confuses two ideas: progress and technological inventions. Progress is not defined by the appearance of new &quot;fundamental&quot; inventions. A lot of it comes from how we use technology. Sure the Internet was just a bigger network, but by being a world-wide network instead of a LAN, it has enabled many things previously not possible. The author&#x27;s take on technological inventions is very narrow. He&#x27;s only looking for new &quot;fundamental&quot; inventions.<p>And new inventions have nothing to do with progress. You know what I call progress?<p>&quot;Economic growth over the last 200 years completely transformed our world, and poverty fell continuously over the last two centuries.&quot; -- <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;data&#x2F;growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity&#x2F;world-poverty&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ourworldindata.org&#x2F;data&#x2F;growth-and-distribution-of-pr...</a><p>That&#x27;s the only real, measurable progress. Everything else he lists as &quot;fundamental&quot; inventions are simply a means to an end. They are not progress itself. Finding the cure for smallpox isn&#x27;t progress. Progress is curing smallpox. Nuclear fusion isn&#x27;t progress. Progress is getting it developed enough for it to become a real energy source and getting people to use it. Even the author acknowledges this, but he&#x27;s way too confused on inventions vs. progress.<p>Finally, he adds a section on social progress. It&#x27;s hard to argue that at all. Yes, we&#x27;re more open to differences ... in the West. But obviously, the author has completely forgotten about such nation-states as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Afghanistan, China ... yeah, I really don&#x27;t need to keep going. Global social progress is indeed a myth, but I do think certain parts of the world are making some progress. Finally, he also ends up equating decline of &#x27;social progress&#x27; with lack of progress which is ridiculous because social progress is only local and just because something reverts back to the way it used to be doesn&#x27;t mean progress wasn&#x27;t made for a time (although this is a rather popular, yet extremely wrong idea in the US).