In 2005, I listed five stories that I thought would have long-term significance: productivity; cognitive neuroscience, solar power, cancer therapy, and mainstream media meltdown. All five were areas where the trends were not clear. My inclination at the time was to take the optimistic view in all areas (in the case of the mainstream media, being optimistic to me means believing that the meltdown will be rapid).
Today, I would be less optimistic. Moreover, I think that the unsustainable fiscal outlook and its consequences have become one of the most important stories.
In 2003, I wrote one of my favorite essays, on what I called The Great Race between Moore’s Law and Medicare. There is an optimistic scenario for economic growth (think Ray Kurzweil) which would make all concerns about the long-term budget outlook seem foolish. However, other scenarios are less favorable. Recently, the budget situation has been deteriorating faster than the technological outlook has been improving. In terms of the great race, the wrong horse is gaining.
Productivity actually did increase this decade, at least until the recession. I think there is another big burst coming, as the internet really starts to take off. Not sure what you ever saw coming out of cognitive neuroscience, the ability to control your TV by thinking “change the channel?” 😉 Not much of value there. Solar power could take 10 years, it could take 30, difficult to forecast breakthroughs, cancer therapy also difficult to predict. The mainstream media meltdown is in full effect, though I wish it were happening even faster. 🙂
While it may someday be true that a tech boom will make our current budget hand-wringing seem foolish, it’s also true that the current bloated budget almost certainly delays that future. By heavily taxing investors like Jeff Bezos, who wrote one of the first checks to fund Google, we allow less of such success stories to take place. It’s not just a matter of throwing govt money down the drain, though there’s a lot of that, the biggest impact may be all the serendipitous successes that are delayed or averted because of the outsized govt budget, which crowd out such private sector success which really improves our lives. So whenever that boom gets here, it’s likely that it would have been much sooner, if not for the govt taking that money and flushing it down the drain in the meantime.