Its kind of understandable isn't it? The easiest problems get solved first, so people have to "go up the stack" if you will. Unfortunately going up the stack means one needs to get more and more educated or in some cases need to embed themselves in a specific context. But in general though, people are naturally ingenious, they will always come up with new ideas.
In the most recent past, the one "low tech" idea that blew me away is the concept of influencers. People understood Instagram and then understood the general psychology of people and then exploited it to create vast empires. I mean previously clout was something only celebrities had after doing extraordinary things like act in movies or be the best in the world in what they do. But people found a way to commoditize it and democratize it. And they didn't need any formal education for it. All they needed was a phone.
The easiest problems get solved first, so people have to "go up the stack" if you will.
The implication of this is that we're running out of problems to solve, and eventually we'll have fixed everything. That ignores the fact that a solution to a problem very often creates new problems, and some of them will be equivalent to the previous easy problems. In some fields you could be solving the "easy" problems forever.
In the most recent past, the one "low tech" idea that blew me away is the concept of influencers. People understood Instagram and then understood the general psychology of people and then exploited it to create vast empires. I mean previously clout was something only celebrities had after doing extraordinary things like act in movies or be the best in the world in what they do. But people found a way to commoditize it and democratize it. And they didn't need any formal education for it. All they needed was a phone.