Can technological progress continue to provide for the future?

Abstract

As an historian, I am obligated to point out that technology did not progress very rapidly for most of man’s history. Until the last two centuries, technology developed irregularly and at so slow a pace that, for most of human history, the mass of mankind lived in a world of scarcity and deprivation. The Industrial Revolution ushered in an era of rapid technological advance. In accelerating measure since then, technological developments have increased man’s control over his environment, ministered to his animal needs and creature comforts, rescued him from the ever-present fear of starvation, increased his mobility, lengthened his lifespan, and, in general, made work easier and life more comfortable for most of the population in the industrialized nations of the world.