Debate - What New Technology Has Been Developed in the Last Twenty Years?

2-19-2003 | Milwaukee_Guy

[Milwaukee_Guy]

Despite the bluster associated with our technological society I fear we may have fallen back in the development of new technology. Look how far we have come in the last 200 years. What have we accomplished in the last twenty years? I dare say little, if anything! Here are some points to consider,

- The Space Shuttle was designed in the late seventies and built in the early eighties. Do we even have a viable replacement on the drawing board ready for production?

- Cellular phones date back to the seventies. First common utilization as VHF and UHF amateur repeater systems.

- The Internet started out as a Department of Defense redundant communications system in the seventies.

- The lead acid battery in all of our cars dates back to the 19th century. All we have done is create more exotic chemical variations of the battery. We are still not a truly mobile and wireless society. Whoever controls the wires, controls you!

- What happened to fuel cells, cold fusion and maglev? We still burn gas, oil and coal.

- Rocket design and propulsion dates back to the 30's courtesy of Werner von Braun. Fuel and an oxidizer. What has changed? How will we ever get to the stars?

- Firearms still use smokeless powder invented back in the late 1800's. All weapons still go bang!

- Medicine - All of our antibiotics are becomming germ resistant, including Cipro. Cancer, viruses, bacteria are still the scourge of the planet. Name one disease we have stopped in the last twenty years. Smallpox was eradicated planetwide in the '70's. Now we are utterly helpless to prevent an outbreak.

- Electricity dates to the late 1800's. Despite a valiant effort by Nikoli Tesla we are all still dependant on a copper wired grid. Where is the cheap endless power future generations need?

- Microwave ovens are old news. British radar technicians popped popcorn back in the 1940's.

- Entertainment Media. We still read newspapers, listen to AM radio and use archaic video technology. DVD's? Big Deal! Laserdisks go back to the late seventies.

Well there you have it. I am starting to fear that we have let an entire generation of technological development slip through our fingers. We work harder, pay more and appear to have less than only a generation ago. Lot's of reasons for this but the primary one is a lack of technological innovation.

What have we invented in the last twenty years that has improved our lot in life?

Bet you can't find one thing!

I'll stand by for your comments...

[Milwaukee_Guy]

Chia Pets do not count in this discussion! :-O

Really, I bet we can't come up with one breakthrough over the last twenty years.

[Shermy]

Reality television. Botox.

[11th Earl of Mar]

How about intern-friendly office furniture?

[Milwaukee_Guy]

Somehow I don't think Fox's new "When Good Riots Go Bad!" qualifies for this discussion. :-)

Try again....

[PatrickHenry]

Cloning. But it's being outlawed.

[Servant of the Nine]

Anyone can play the same slly trick and find the roots of everything we have today in the English enlightenment of the 18th century and then say nothing new has been developed since then.

So9

[Milwaukee_Guy]

You might be getting warm!

My only guess a this point would be the "Wonder Bra".

Go ahead and laugh. My wife is a 38D.

VaVoom!

[Straight Vermonter]

Many products (technologies) do not mature enough to be broadly accepted until years after their invention. Take cell phones and microwaves from you examples. In 10 years many of the inventions of today, like gene therapy or bluetooth wireless, will be hot items in the marketplace.

[RightOnline]

Palm pilots. The explosion in microelectronics and many, many thousands of applications. There have been vast improvements in medicine.....aviation / avionics.........telecommunications..........hell, anything involving digital technology. There have been more things invented in the last 20 years than all previous years of human history combined. That's a fact.........even if many are "invisible" to the untrained eye (know what an AGP slot on a workstation is for?......or what an ASIC is?).

[11th Earl of Mar]

My only guess a this point would be the "Wonder Bra".

Just wait. I'm sure that Wonder Briefs [for men] are coming soon.

[Brett66]

We have rocket propulsion systems that could make interplanetary travel practical but NASA is an agency that doesn't have a mandate to do such things. They're content with flying shuttles to over-priced space stations and going nowhere but low-Earth orbit. Our only hope is private enterprise to get us into space, there is some new thinking in this area and we should see new designs flying soon.

[bert]

Canon ink jet printer technology is used in both canon and HP printers. Perhaps others also, I am not that familiar with epson.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

"Anyone can play the same slly trick and find the roots of everything we have today in the English enlightenment of the 18th century and then say nothing new has been developed since then."

I appreciate your comment, even though I have no flippin' clue as to what it means! Is that something from Monty Python? Not?

Take the challenge my friend, name one new technological innovation invented over the last twenty years.

Waiting.......

[Future Snake Eater]

Two words: Com puters

[SC_Republican]

G
P
S



Q.E.D.

[Milwaukee_Guy]

"Palm pilots. The explosion in microelectronics and many, many thousands of applications. There have been vast
improvements in medicine.....aviation / avionics.........telecommunications..........hell, anything involving digital technology.
There have been more things invented in the last 20 years than all previous years of human history combined. That's a
fact.........even if many are "invisible" to the untrained eye (know what an AGP slot on a workstation is for?......or what an ASIC is?)."

A Palm Pilot is an expensive $400 notepad that displays no new technology. A computer, wires, chips.

Name -one- new innovation over the last twenty years. Refinements are what you mentioned. How about something entirely new?

[Glenn]

There is something to be said for a period of incremental improvement. Being a beneficiary of that, by way of heart stents and gentamicin injections instead of having a hole drilled in my head, I appreciate that there are event horizons aplenty but they are reserved for but a few people who somehow connect the dots differently than the rest of us. The incredible will still happen in good time.

[Billthedrill]

Gene therapy. Quantum computing. Practical worldwide computer networking that is available with means so easy to use and at a price so low that poor people can walk into a public libraty and employ it. Immunological system manipulation that has already given rise to marketable therapies in muscular dystrophy and rheumatoid arthritis. Laser eye surgery. Michael Jackson's nose.

It's a bit much to ask for examples of technology based on pure, basic research that took place in the 90's because such applications typically take decades to come to practical application. If you'd asked this question in the 70's, none of the examples cited would have been mentioned then.

Besides, the government can only release the secret technology they got from the Roswell saucer so fast...

[Milwaukee_Guy]

"Com puters"

Well over twenty years old. Try again please!