And not just at the gizmo level. This is to be expected. There are more scientists and technologists alive today than in the whole of previous history, and they have as much right to a happy and productive life as the rest of us. If only we knew what they were going to do next. Because it doesn't always come up roses.
Medical miracles lengthen our lives and take national welfare provision to the edge of crisis.
Electronic globalization moves jobs elsewhere. Up to now, this has been the way you were obliged to play the game. From a social point of view, innovation has been a case of having to take the occasionally rough with the generally smooth, partly because of the interactive nature of invention described above, and partly because for centuries we have lived in a directionless culture of scarcity. At no time was there either need or resources available to share the intellectual wealth beyond a select few. There was no point, for instance, in teaching literacy to the masses without an adequate number of printing presses to provide them with texts.