While this is true, I think you’re not appreciating the metaphor.
Humankind tried to break the 4 minute mile for hundreds of years - since measuring distance and time became accurate enough to be sure of both in the mid-18th century, at least - and failed.
In May 1954, Roger Bannister managed it. By late June it was done again by a different runner. Within 20 years the record was under 3:45, and today there are some runners who have achieved it more than 100 times and nearly 1800 runners who have done it at all.
Impossible for hundred of years, and then somebody did it, and people stopped thinking it was impossible and started doing it themselves. That’s the metaphor: sometimes we think of barriers that are really mental, not real.
I’m not sure that applies here either, but the point is not that progress is continuously exponential, but that once a barrier is conquered, we take on a perspective as if the barrier were never real in the first place. Powered flight went through this. Computing hardware too. It’s not an entirely foolish notion.
Humankind tried to break the 4 minute mile for hundreds of years - since measuring distance and time became accurate enough to be sure of both in the mid-18th century, at least - and failed.
In May 1954, Roger Bannister managed it. By late June it was done again by a different runner. Within 20 years the record was under 3:45, and today there are some runners who have achieved it more than 100 times and nearly 1800 runners who have done it at all.
Impossible for hundred of years, and then somebody did it, and people stopped thinking it was impossible and started doing it themselves. That’s the metaphor: sometimes we think of barriers that are really mental, not real.
I’m not sure that applies here either, but the point is not that progress is continuously exponential, but that once a barrier is conquered, we take on a perspective as if the barrier were never real in the first place. Powered flight went through this. Computing hardware too. It’s not an entirely foolish notion.