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Is technological progress accelerating or slowing?

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Is technological progress accelerating or slowing?

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It seems that a large number of writers and scientists are arguing the latter. Far more are arguing the former than the latter. No matter which quantitative metric you care to use, practically every area of technological progress is accelerating. Better tools and theories allow us to create the next round of superior tools and theories more quickly. Arguments that technological progress is slowing often seem to be either thinly-veiled manifestoes about why the acceleration of technological progress is bad, or romantic throwbacks to the legendary founders of scientific or technological fields. On AccelerationWatch.com, John Smart provides a number of defenses for the notion that technological progress is slowing. Ray Kurzweil provides many arguments as well. Thinkers can examine both sides of the argument and decide for themselves. Of course, accelerating technological progress is not a necessary condition for a technological Singularity, as argued earlier. Question 12: What are your go

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It seems that a large number of writers and scientists are arguing the latter. Far more are arguing the former than the latter. No matter which quantitative metric you care to use, practically every area of technological progress is accelerating. Better tools and theories allow us to create the next round of superior tools and theories more quickly. Arguments that technological progress is slowing often seem to be either thinly-veiled manifestoes about why the acceleration of technological progress is bad, or romantic throwbacks to the legendary founders of scientific or technological fields. On AccelerationWatch.com, John Smart provides a number of defenses for the notion that technological progress is slowing. (His most recent can be found here: http://www.accelerating.org/articles/huebnerinnovation.html) Ray Kurzweil provides many arguments as well. Thinkers can examine both sides of the argument and decide for themselves. Of course, accelerating technological progress is not a nece

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Both sides exchange fire, but the debate makes little progress. Was progress in science and technology faster or slower in the last half of the 19th century than 2H of the 20th? How do we measure such progress? The pro-faster folks get more attention. Here is one of the few attempting to prove otherwise, with real data. “Entering a dark age of innovation”, Robert Adler, New Scientist, 2 July 2005 http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg18625066.500.html The Accelerating Studies Foundation has an excellent review of the debate here: http://accelerating.org/articles/huebnerinnovation.

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