We have indeed had fewer innovations in consumer goods that take up visual space in a living room.<p>However we have had massive innovation in medicine--many diseases that were once a death sentence are now treatable.<p>Cars, though still totally recognizable as cars, are much safer than they were. Airplane flights are both cheaper and safer.<p>Infant mortality has dropped. Certain diseases have been eradicated.<p>Due in part to the ability to communicate and coordinate economic activity on a global scale, the number of people in extreme poverty has declined since 1950--Not the percentage of people, the absolute number of people.