This article seems to ignore the speed at which things can be done nowadays, which makes all those &#x27;familiar&#x27; things that bit more amazing to a 1950&#x27;s traveller. It also seems to set the metric for progress as the visible physical changes in the world around us. This ignores the amazing things we can do today.<p>Need to get to the other side of the world? 24 hours max. Need to write to someone other side of the world - instant email. Need to face to face with someone on the other side of the world - instant video.<p>Live TV from everywhere, instant access to the worlds information fight in your pocket, instant social networking when needed too.<p>Need something built for you? Commission anyone from anywhere in the world in moments. Maybe even 3D print your complex project overnight.<p>Got a problem? Ask for help and get responses from people around the world in seconds. Got a complaint? Publish your grievance and have it shared around millions of times, maybe even get together with your countrymen and bring down a tyrannical government using just the power of social communication.<p>What about simulation and the power computing gives us to &#x27;get it right first time&#x27;? We can do incredible things with minimal physical testing thanks to computer simulation.<p>And medically - the author skips over almost the entire field of transplant surgery as just one single example. We&#x27;ve progressed amazingly far in medicine. Even in the last 15 years huge advances have been made in trauma care (thanks in part to Iraq&#x2F;Afghan wars) that would be astounding to doctors of the 1990&#x27;s let alone the 1950&#x27;s.<p>We live in a wondrous world full of things that we take for granted. Maybe the author doesn&#x27;t realise just how much more connected we are nowadays and just how much more empowered an individual is in terms of knowledge and creative potential. And that&#x27;s not to speak of the incredible advances in energy, materials science, social progress, reduction of poverty, transport, communication, education and scores of other fields.<p>Just because there aren&#x27;t such highly visible physical changes immediately apparent (though they&#x27;re there), that doesn&#x27;t mean 2015 would be any less of a stunning place.