Comment by butlike

A little tangental, but I'm not entirely convinced the things you list at the end are improvements, per se. Clothing is so cheap because it's polyester, which is essentially plastic and is demonstrably bad for the environment. Same thing with 'computers in the pocket.' They're so cheap and refreshed at such a rate they become disposable when they really shouldn't be. E-waste is a real problem. Flying across the country...the train is better from a last-mile perspective.

In a sense, looking at photolithography, textile manufacturing, or aircraft as you suggest, does show they plateaued, at least to me.

Are we sure we want to be making things so cheap they become discardable in the ever-growing landfills of the world?