Dishwasher - 1969. Saifedean talks about this example and how we’ve gone backwards because of regulations on water efficiency whereas back in the day manufacturers DGAF and just blasted dishes clean.

Air travel - 1969. We had the Concorde back then, Phil Collins played Live Aid in London then flew Concorde to Philadelphia and played the US part of the concert. Now the most recent Boeing 737 Max has been plagued with problems and took 10+ years to develop compared to 2-3 back in the day.

Nuclear Power - 1969. We had scientists coming through who wanted to advance nuclear, R&D was improving designs, we could have had cheap and abundant electricity if not for the US denying the technology to everyone and pushing their currency to be backed by Oil.

Peter Thiel talks about this - back in those days we considered all these things “technology” and humanity was making progress in multiple areas whereas now we essentially view “technology” as software and computing, the lens and focus has become much more narrow and as a result, progress has massively stagnated in other areas.

When you think about how deflationary even the gains we’ve had should have been it’s a sad state we find ourselves in today.