I suspect two connected factors.

The first is economic. Look at this graph:

http://www.prep-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/oil-pric...

We are paying exponentially more for energy than our grandparents even when the prices plateau.

That acts as a halter on the whole economy because clever young men and women can't get their gig together and do something different to their parents.

Anecdotally I know I'm poorer than my parents, despite achieving things they never did such as successful stock market investing, elite university and winning science prizes. The truth is that if I worked a min wage job from 16 to my present age I'd be rather more well off. This realization is going to occur to more people over time, which means we're going backward. Remember that former civilizations have gone from mostly literate to mostly illiterate, and this is how it happens. It is a sort of creeping thing. It does not get headlines except incidentally as the symptoms develop.

The second is cultural. It is worth taking seriously but also with a grain of salt at the same time.

This harder to prove empirically but society in the West went under a change around the time of the oil shocks. Today this is change is represented as progress when it may be sign of the opposite. It is political dysfunction caused by wrongheaded cultural ideals. After all, if you have the wrong idea and there is no feedback telling you you're wrong, it takes a while for the consequences to catch up.

This concern with battery technology (very poor results) and renewable technology (mixed results) while completely ignoring the source of energy (fusion and fission). Very curious.

This concern with the evils of colonization in Africa, but a complete neglect of the stagnation it sank into after the colonizers left it. The richest states are now failed states on any objective metric but this is not acknowledged. Curious and curiousness.

This concern with this nebulous outside threat of 'terror' while our infrastructure is crumbling. Roads with potholes, poisoned water, falling bridges. Curious and curiouser!

These are all classic signs of a civilization in decline. Bemoaning the past wrongs while ignoring present problems while the barbarians sneak around the peripheral as they sense weakness. Ignoring reports from the outlaying provinces. It is just classical. The Roman empire had a lot of high technology just before the lights went out. Not many people realize that.

There is a list of people in Silicon Valley as long as your arm, in fact it might be most of the people who own or run the corporations and institutes believe in some version of this. If you're interested in finding out more from their perspective I'll provide a list of sources.

I know very well the newspapers don't believe in this. But journalists have short attention spans. I know that most of the middle class believe we're 'progressing', but they take their opinions from opinion forming organs. They all think the same things and are synchronized by mass media. The Internet of course has shaken this up, or I wouldn't have the views I hold today.

Ask those people to name a single technology outside of computing in the past 30-40 years. I repeat: outside of computation. Electronics, AI, robotics are out.

They exist, but it's not very convincing because most of them have not had serious qualitative and quantitative effects. I like that solar has improved in performance and price, yet my island nation imports 98% of its electricity from a power with nuclear stations. It claims by the way, to be a nuclear-free zone. It is a curious tying together of the economical and culture failings.