The illusion of progress
Remember the days when people found out about proposing via those huge stadium scoreboards and it was all the rage? Now there’s someone who used his iPhone and some web app to propose to his girlfriend. Same story, different time, right?
The future husband is understandably upbeat about it:
The moral of the story? Apps don’t only solve problems; great apps can change lives
But there is a real problem when venture capitalists – who should identify novel technologies that have huge (commercial) potentials – are getting a bit overjoyed:
I loved this quote and believe it wholeheartedly. Think of the apps that have changed your life. You may even be using one right now…
I actually like this VC as he seems to be very down-to-earth. Still, what makes one say “think of the apps that have changed your life”? Are there any apps that have changed your life?
We shouldn’t confuse progress with the appearance of progress. What we as a society currently value is an illusion of progress, not the real thing.
Sure, it’s very nice to have new means of proposing to your girlfriend or whatever you can do with today’s awesome technology. It’s nice to get updated on the news on the go or answer emails anywhere you go. But it’s still not that different from centuries past. We indeed have new means of doing something – but we don’t have wholly new experiences or inventions that push the human race forward.
If you really think about what has fundamentally changed in technology in the past decades, there’s a lot to grasp. But the longer I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the Singularity is not near at all. Technology appears to be progressing way more than it actually does on a fundamental level.
The story of the Singurality is just wrong.
Peter Thiel was (willfully) misunderstood when he claimed that major technological research is turning out to be fraud.
As he said, 1969 may indeed have been the year progress died.
I believe that we, of the current generation, settle too soon. We expect research and progress and success to come too easily. We do not expand enough effort. We satisfy ourselves with immediate and superficial gratification.
We have been raised as entitled and spoiled kids. It’s time to get past the illusions and face reality.
