Peter Thiel asked himself the same question. If you subtract screens and style, how do know you‘re not living in 1973?
I think Yuval Harari was onto something when he said that what guides the vision of a society and thus science spending is ideology, religion and politics.
See medieval churches, the Manhattan Project, the moon landing. I could put a name on it, but better to leave politics out of HN.
As someone who kind of remembers 73 in England, the coffee is way better now. Also we had some epic strikes and power cuts back then and a splendid 73% market crash. After decades of relative economic decline we decided to join EEC, the predecessor to the EU after which things recovered economically from the 'sick man or Europe' to the fastest growing economy in Europe until we recently voted to go back to the good old days.
Only joining the EEC had little, if anything, to do with the recovery and change of coffee.
You remember a country still suffering from WWII and loss of world leader role (and colonies), in a much poorer global period. For starters, the '70s had a global recession and oil crisis, and many countries were affected, not just England. Have a look at pictures of New York of the same period -- it looks like a third world country [1].
In the 80s and 90s, countries that didn't join the EEC, as well as countries that joined EU much later, had the same economic uplift.
(And of course several countries that did join the ECC/EU had economic decline and crashes, e.g. the P.I.I.G.S).
Yeah there were many factors. The UK used to be quite socialist in the 1945-1975 period which was OK for the NHS but many other things like British Leyland didn't work so well.
I would glance at my local grocery store, shopping malls, cars, empty cemeteries, and inflight wifi.
First off, most manufactured things are incredibly cheaper now, due to real, complex behind-the-scenes advances.
We have a global supply chain that largely removes the constraints on geoghraphic locality for foods and manufactured goods.
That's paired with an almost-always-online wireless mobile internet, (that works up to 7 miles up in the sky!) that is absolutely amazing and darn inexpensive.
Our cars are much better at not killing us.
Many more diseases are treatalbe, and injuries curable.
Finally, why subtract screens? Modern screens are great.
I think Yuval Harari was onto something when he said that what guides the vision of a society and thus science spending is ideology, religion and politics.
See medieval churches, the Manhattan Project, the moon landing. I could put a name on it, but better to leave politics out of HN.