In summary, outside of the medical field, I don’t see any conceivable realistic technological innovation that would be as transformative as the flush toilet, vaccinations, birth control, telephones, cars and airplanes. We might have exhausted the low-hanging fruits in our desires.
I remember being surprised when hearing someone talk about Reagan’s tax cuts- their basic argument was that because Reagan had cut taxes by over half, there was no possible tax decrease that would have as much impact as the Reagan tax cuts, which seemed sensible. And I do think that this argument does apply to many situations- when it comes to sanitation, I do think the problem is over half fixed (counting toilets and refrigeration here as part of ‘sanitation’), and I think that minor routine improvements are much better than rare flashy improvements (as the saying goes, refrigeration has saved more lives than surgery).
But it seems likely that there are many areas where life could get significantly better, and I don’t think I would class them all as “medical.” C4 rice, for example, seems like it could be a second green revolution, dramatically increasing living standards and the number of humans we can support on Earth- but while it uses biology, it’s not really medicine. Raising the ‘sanity waterline,’ as the saying goes, might also have tremendous benefits, and several innovations could contribute to that. (Here I’m mostly thinking of positive psychology and related things, perhaps taught widely in schools.)
I notice that at least two and arguably three of Tyler’s examples are medical (sanitation is mainly about public health), which seems to break some of the symmetry in his argument.
The link to Tyler’s interview should point here.
I remember being surprised when hearing someone talk about Reagan’s tax cuts- their basic argument was that because Reagan had cut taxes by over half, there was no possible tax decrease that would have as much impact as the Reagan tax cuts, which seemed sensible. And I do think that this argument does apply to many situations- when it comes to sanitation, I do think the problem is over half fixed (counting toilets and refrigeration here as part of ‘sanitation’), and I think that minor routine improvements are much better than rare flashy improvements (as the saying goes, refrigeration has saved more lives than surgery).
But it seems likely that there are many areas where life could get significantly better, and I don’t think I would class them all as “medical.” C4 rice, for example, seems like it could be a second green revolution, dramatically increasing living standards and the number of humans we can support on Earth- but while it uses biology, it’s not really medicine. Raising the ‘sanity waterline,’ as the saying goes, might also have tremendous benefits, and several innovations could contribute to that. (Here I’m mostly thinking of positive psychology and related things, perhaps taught widely in schools.)
I notice that at least two and arguably three of Tyler’s examples are medical (sanitation is mainly about public health), which seems to break some of the symmetry in his argument.