Exponential Progress Then Plateau in Transport

On the slowing rate of technological progress.

Alex, George and contributing editor (and science writer) Leigh Phillips discuss David Graeber's 2012 essay, Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit. This builds on two of this year's themes: state capitalism (how planning and growth – or their absence – intersect with technology) and the pre-political (how technology shapes

•⁠  ⁠Were we right to expect jetpacks? And are we looking in the right place for technological advances today?

•⁠  ⁠⁠Has technical progress actually slowed in the way Graeber says? 

•⁠  ⁠⁠Are the explanations he gives for slowdown correct?

•⁠  ⁠⁠What political tasks does this reality impose on us?

•⁠  ⁠⁠What is the role of geopolitics and war in the rate of technological development?

Links:

• Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit, David Graeber, The Baffler

• Science Is Getting Less Bang for Its Buck, Patrick Collison & Michael Nielsen, The Atlantic

• /59/ Übermenschen of Capital Pt. 3 ft. Leigh Phillips & Michal Rozworski

• Progress is in the balance between innovation and implementation, Phil Bell, LSE

• Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (On Robert C. Allen)

• Engels’s Second Theory: Technology, Warfare and the Growth of the State