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There's an argument that the world of atoms stalled decades ago and most growth since then has been in the world of bytes. If that's true, why? What happened i

There's an argument that the world of atoms stalled decades ago and most growth since then has been in the world of bytes. If that's true, why? What happened in the world of atoms?

dividefuel 3y ago
My naive theory is that we're well into the diminishing return stages of the S-curves of many of our technologies. We need major breakthroughs that can start new S-curves.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  This feels intuitively correct to me, but I’d have trouble clearly explaining why. I’m interested to see where bio-tech goes in the next ten years though.
mcstafford 3y ago
I'm a little curious, but haven't heard a word of what you're referring to. A quick search for 'atoms stalled' didn't result in anything that felt helpful. Do you have a link that would clarify?
- dontwearitout 3y ago
  I assume they mean "atoms" as in physical material. I think they're saying physical sciences are stalling out and computer science is responsible for most growth now. I'm not familiar with this term though, and disagree with the sentiment.
  - Qem 3y ago
    In other words, we expected flying cars, but then we got Facebook instead.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Market consolidation happened. Our technology started favoring really large companies again, ending the era of innovation that was the late 19th and most of the 20th centuries. People just can't start from nothing and create something on the real world.
lr4444lr 3y ago
This is Peter Thiel's thesis, and his answer is basically overregulation born of a cultural fear and pessimism of science bringing doom rather than progress that crept in slowly after WW2.
- runlaszlorun 3y ago
  Not to be semantic, but you meant that this is his answer as to what the cause is? Or that’s his recommendation? I don’t really follow his stuff much but I’m guessing the first. Btw, I have to be skeptical of the thesis here. Certainly the tech world is not full of “overregulation”. And I think it’s quite a stretch to say “cultural fear and pessimism of science bringing doom” given the broad glowing admiration of whatever the industry hype flavor of the month is. Not to mention the cult-like levels of belief and worship among the singularity peeps et al. While back down here on earth, many of us are scratching our heads about what we can possibly do in the face of climate change, a polarizing and surveillance enabled internet, millions of lines of technical debt that have little chance of keeping a persistent cyber threat at bay, and various other second order networks effects that we never seem to foresee in our first order money opportunities. Heck, I’ll throw in one more that certainly has been a cultural trope for a while but prob isn’t given enough airtime these days. If you take the recent advancements in drones (swarms especially), autonomous vehicles, near realtime satellite imagery and internet communications… and link that up with a current global geopolitical trendline that’s clearly not looking overly rosy… you’re racing directly at the Skynet-ish scenario cliche of autonomous machines that kill. I don’t think that swarms of cheap drones will allow us to keep the man-in-the-loop control given a global race to the bottom. And I say these things as an MBA and former army officer who would prob have laughed at these claims even 10 years ago. Heck, I’ll go ad hominem here. Given that I have libertarian leanings myself, Thiel does seem to come across as someone who has made his money in an industry gone south, but now simply doesn’t want to pay his taxes. Apologies… that escalated kinda quickly. I actually started this diatribe intending to ask for clarification. And perhaps you were merely stating Thiel’s thesis and my ire is completely unjustified. But apparently these days I have little patience for the weak sauce party lines that have been parroted for decades. ~ edited for an egregious typo
  - 3y ago
Michelangelo11 3y ago
Bytes are just much more tractable, that's the root of the opportunity/problem. And nothing happened in the world of atoms, it's just that the first somewhat useful things spawned by the world of bytes appeared in the mid-70s or so and, bytes being so much more tractable, capital and intellectual energy started flowing to that world in massive amounts.
neovialogistics 3y ago
Growth as some kind of synonym for quantified (how?) technological progress: I'm unqualified to answer but I suspect it has something to do with reconciling macroeconomics and the ecological concept of net primary production. Growth in terms of $ equivalent, adjusted for inflation: even for the mere world of atoms, this is untrue. Global GDP roughly dectupled from 1950 to 2008 and there's no way that's solely attributable to digital services.
eru 3y ago
What does that even mean? And what statistics or other evidence do you have for that view? To take one perhaps naive interpretation: For example, encyclopedias used to be sold as a collection of dozens of heavy volumes. Producing them was a lively business. Nowadays, everyone gets free access to Wikipedia, which has more content than your shelf of Encyclopedia Britannica could ever hold and gets updated all the time. When you bought Encyclopedia Britannica that showed up in gdp statistics. Wikipedia doesn't.
ETH_start 3y ago
>>What happened in the world of atoms? Regulatory regimentation by centralized authorities. Just one of many examples: 5 percent of occupations required a license in 1950. Today, around 30 percent. In every sector, professional and industry groups have become adept at locking down the market by manufacturing consent for regulatory restrictions. See what the Hotel Lobby did to stem the disruptive potential of Airbnb: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hotel-industrys-plan-to-combat-airbnb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot... In the housing market, the effect of mounting regulatory regimentation resulted in the US having an estimated 36 percent less GDP growth between 1964 and 2009: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388
andromeduck 3y ago
Energy production/consumption started plateauing because people were afraid of nuclear.

There's an argument that the world of atoms stalled decades ago and most growth since then has been in the world of bytes. If that's true, why? What happened in the world of atoms?

dividefuel 3y ago

My naive theory is that we're well into the diminishing return stages of the S-curves of many of our technologies. We need major breakthroughs that can start new S-curves.

ch4s3 3y ago
This feels intuitively correct to me, but I’d have trouble clearly explaining why. I’m interested to see where bio-tech goes in the next ten years though.

mcstafford 3y ago

I'm a little curious, but haven't heard a word of what you're referring to. A quick search for 'atoms stalled' didn't result in anything that felt helpful. Do you have a link that would clarify?

dontwearitout 3y ago
I assume they mean "atoms" as in physical material. I think they're saying physical sciences are stalling out and computer science is responsible for most growth now. I'm not familiar with this term though, and disagree with the sentiment.
- Qem 3y ago
  In other words, we expected flying cars, but then we got Facebook instead.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Market consolidation happened. Our technology started favoring really large companies again, ending the era of innovation that was the late 19th and most of the 20th centuries. People just can't start from nothing and create something on the real world.

lr4444lr 3y ago

This is Peter Thiel's thesis, and his answer is basically overregulation born of a cultural fear and pessimism of science bringing doom rather than progress that crept in slowly after WW2.

runlaszlorun 3y ago
Not to be semantic, but you meant that this is his answer as to what the cause is? Or that’s his recommendation? I don’t really follow his stuff much but I’m guessing the first. Btw, I have to be skeptical of the thesis here. Certainly the tech world is not full of “overregulation”. And I think it’s quite a stretch to say “cultural fear and pessimism of science bringing doom” given the broad glowing admiration of whatever the industry hype flavor of the month is. Not to mention the cult-like levels of belief and worship among the singularity peeps et al. While back down here on earth, many of us are scratching our heads about what we can possibly do in the face of climate change, a polarizing and surveillance enabled internet, millions of lines of technical debt that have little chance of keeping a persistent cyber threat at bay, and various other second order networks effects that we never seem to foresee in our first order money opportunities. Heck, I’ll throw in one more that certainly has been a cultural trope for a while but prob isn’t given enough airtime these days. If you take the recent advancements in drones (swarms especially), autonomous vehicles, near realtime satellite imagery and internet communications… and link that up with a current global geopolitical trendline that’s clearly not looking overly rosy… you’re racing directly at the Skynet-ish scenario cliche of autonomous machines that kill. I don’t think that swarms of cheap drones will allow us to keep the man-in-the-loop control given a global race to the bottom. And I say these things as an MBA and former army officer who would prob have laughed at these claims even 10 years ago. Heck, I’ll go ad hominem here. Given that I have libertarian leanings myself, Thiel does seem to come across as someone who has made his money in an industry gone south, but now simply doesn’t want to pay his taxes. Apologies… that escalated kinda quickly. I actually started this diatribe intending to ask for clarification. And perhaps you were merely stating Thiel’s thesis and my ire is completely unjustified. But apparently these days I have little patience for the weak sauce party lines that have been parroted for decades. ~ edited for an egregious typo
- 3y ago

Michelangelo11 3y ago

Bytes are just much more tractable, that's the root of the opportunity/problem. And nothing happened in the world of atoms, it's just that the first somewhat useful things spawned by the world of bytes appeared in the mid-70s or so and, bytes being so much more tractable, capital and intellectual energy started flowing to that world in massive amounts.

neovialogistics 3y ago

Growth as some kind of synonym for quantified (how?) technological progress: I'm unqualified to answer but I suspect it has something to do with reconciling macroeconomics and the ecological concept of net primary production. Growth in terms of $ equivalent, adjusted for inflation: even for the mere world of atoms, this is untrue. Global GDP roughly dectupled from 1950 to 2008 and there's no way that's solely attributable to digital services.

eru 3y ago

What does that even mean? And what statistics or other evidence do you have for that view? To take one perhaps naive interpretation: For example, encyclopedias used to be sold as a collection of dozens of heavy volumes. Producing them was a lively business. Nowadays, everyone gets free access to Wikipedia, which has more content than your shelf of Encyclopedia Britannica could ever hold and gets updated all the time. When you bought Encyclopedia Britannica that showed up in gdp statistics. Wikipedia doesn't.

ETH_start 3y ago

>>What happened in the world of atoms? Regulatory regimentation by centralized authorities. Just one of many examples: 5 percent of occupations required a license in 1950. Today, around 30 percent. In every sector, professional and industry groups have become adept at locking down the market by manufacturing consent for regulatory restrictions. See what the Hotel Lobby did to stem the disruptive potential of Airbnb: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hotel-industrys-plan-to-combat-airbnb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/technology/inside-the-hot... In the housing market, the effect of mounting regulatory regimentation resulted in the US having an estimated 36 percent less GDP growth between 1964 and 2009: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388

andromeduck 3y ago

Energy production/consumption started plateauing because people were afraid of nuclear.