Prometheus Unbound and the Great Pumpkin Theory of Technological Innovation

[I wrote this back in 2023 and only came across it recently, but it still feels relevant, particularly now that Klein is on the talk show circuit hawking Abundance.]

The following is a bit of an unfair oversimplification of the techno-optimist philosophy, but not that unfair. Stripped down to its basics, the pitch we see again and again from Mark Andreessen, Noah Smith, and even to a degree from as Ezra Klein is that we are on the verge of an age of unimagined prosperity where all of our problems will be solved and all we have to do is set free Great Men and destined forces and then simply keep the faith. Think Ayn Rand by way of Silicon Valley with the added requirement that we all need to clap our hands to show that we really and truly believe in the Übermensch (or, as they are known in the valley, founders).

We've previously hit on the apparent contradiction of having a class of visionaries/innovators/entrepreneurs/ technologists who are capable of solving all of the major problems that face us, from global warming to colonizing the planets and yet who can be brought to their knees by almost any obstacle we put in their way, be it regulation or progressive taxation or even mild criticism. 
 
The weirder part is the theory that technological innovation has ground to a halt because we have lost the capacity to dream big. This is the hypothesis that has launched a thousand TED Talks and made untold fortunes for various motivational speakers. From Klein:

We have lost the habit of imagining what we could have; we are too timid in deploying the coordinated genius and muscle of society to pull possibilities from the far future into the near present.

This has been a fundamental part of  the basic pitch for every credulously reported the-future-is-now story of the 21st century. Mars One, hyperloops, Theranos, the end of aging, and countless other promises that we were about to "pull possibilities from the far future into the near present," all of which turned out to be costly frauds and failures. 

These "we need to dream again" talks and think pieces take as a given the less-than-shocking observation that people were more excited by technology when technology was doing more exciting things, and flip the arrow of causality in the counterintuitive direction.

Despite not making a lot of sense and lacking historical support, this theory has continued to gain popularity over the past few years until it is more or less conventional wisdom by this point. We are all sitting in the pumpkin patch with Linus being told that if we show any sign of doubt the great venture capitalist will not bring us fusion reactors and space elevators.