We’re in the very early beginning of one. But they will also be short and closer together. One could successfully argue that despite it faults, capitalism has led us to a point where we will forever be living in constant breakthroughs. Enough Rich people have seen richer people get their wealth from having early control over the next technological break through; Gates with computers, Bezos with the internet, Musk with EVs, hell, Andrew Carnegie with steel. As much as many of us complain, myself included, believe that science isn’t funded, it’s really a complaint that science isn’t federally funded, so the breakthroughs aren’t owned by the populace, but by someone who can gatekeep it and make a personal fortune off of it. But that being said, science is being funded to a degree we’ve never seen before, it’s just being done privately, gambling on the promise of future riches. This isn’t a new concept, look at Bell Labs, Marconi Labs… but there seems to be much more of it. As long as this continues, our research discoveries, and by extension our technological breakthroughs will happen constantly, and we will move to a period of constant breakthrough.

Another way of looking at this is most people alive today have only experienced this constant rapid breakthrough. Almost every decade since 1900 has looked vastly different from the previous in terms of tech and consumer products. We’ve only known constant growth, and if you look at just the 2000’s, it’s more like every 5 years looks vastly different from the previous 5. We’re changing so fast.

we’re still dealing with the understanding of quantum mechanics since the 1900s and that is going to keep us busy for a long long time. That led us to what people are calling the silicon age or the information age, both of which are good descriptors, but AI/ML. There is concern about a stall in recent physics discoveries because we haven’t made a catastrophic leap like we did in the early 1900’s, but those are the anomalies, progress typically takes steady incremental changes, which is what we’ve done since. Made hypotheses, proved them wrong or accepted the conjecture, and then adjusted our perspective on how the physical world works.

Sometimes, we have the knowledge and don’t have the capability. LEDs are a good example. First invented in 1907, took over a century to become a mainstream consumer product. Beam forming in wireless communication is another… we had the math do that over a century ago, but the didn’t have the need or the manufacturing capability to utilize it.

Ok, enough history as precedent. Aside from the Information Age, aside from the break through a in healthcare which are the most impressive and largest leaps, we’re also knocking on the door of a space revolution. Mining on the moon, minimums asteroids, those leads to space vessel manufacturing in orbit, that leads to colonies on other planets. Necessity being the mother of invention, that’s how new drives are discovered, how new air purification/oxygen scrubbers get invented… I mean… there’s an endless pool of potential breakthrough here. Necessity being the mother of invention, we’re going to see new desalination techniques to being using ocean water to provide potable water, we’re going to see techniques for removing CO2 and pollutants from our atmosphere (something that is totally possible with enough energy, we just don’t have enough energy cheaply enough to make it financially viable.) enter Fusion, which have had some serious progress in the last few years, but also nuclear power is a great source for both desalination and de-pollution because it’s a constant power draw. Nuclear is difficult for municipalities because demand wavers so much; that wouldn’t be the case with desal and de-pol.

I mean… I can keep going. Battery tech, John B Goodenough synthesized the first Lithium Ion battery in the 70s, and it took 30 years to hit mainstream and it has edged out lead acid as the leading battery. Goodenough, although 100 years old now, is still researching and is working on new battery tech, solid state glass electrolyte batteries, that would decrease manufacturing cost, rely on minerals that don’t have such toxic mining operations, and increase energy density, decrease charge times, and are not susceptible to the degradation and shorting that lithium ion is.

We’re going to have a massive shift in the way we eat. Our climate is going to become hostile to traditional farming techniques and lab grown or synthesized proteins and and vegetables are going to become even more commonplace.

But we’re back to the capitalists making money theme here with some of them; fresh water, clean air, adequate food supply… these are global problems that we’ve ignored for so long. We’re going to solve world hunger the moment rich people think they can make money off it. We’re going to solve the fresh water problem, the moment rich people think they can make money off it. We’re going to solve the climate crisis the moment rich people think they can make money off it. It is the saving grace of techno-optimism. It allows capitalists the be greedy and still do a good thing.