Holy Shit I didnt know!

[aaqucnaona]

Look at this - the processing power that would require 8.3 trillion dollars in 1961 now cost only 1.8$!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS#cost_of_computing

How come? Thats insane. I knew computational technologies were a massive field but how does it change this much? Would this mean that inovation can reduce the cost of pretty much anything over time? Would it become a Jacque Fresco kinda world where cars are made by fully automated systems from mining, refining, transportation and manufacture to online display and purchase and automated home delivery with humans only desgining the systems and the cars? Would cars cost just 10 dollars then? Would an airplane trip to china cost 5$ cost the plane runs on solar power like the Global hawk and the food comes from automated vertical farms and the people are chauffered by robotic delivery systems that deposite their food right into their laps from the seat-back in front of them? Would the sciences and the arts and some aspects of the humanities be the only means of employment? Would people work for money or would more focus be shifted to contributing to the human endeavours? Or would the easier life breed more slackers or ..God help us.. Hippies? Where are we headed [from both a technological and social perspective]?

[youreyes]

While innovation reduces cost, it also uses up resources, and is also available to select few. So once too many Indian geniuses programmers overhoard the Indian trains while the rice crops nearby deplete all the nitrogen in the ground...well its time for a war. All these rosy benefits coming from innovation come at hard price.

[Buddha12]

The more we create , the more we destroy.

[Jeeves]

aaqucnaona:
Would this mean that inovation can reduce the cost of pretty much anything over time?

The cost of one thing goes down, but at the same time, the same innovation may be causing other prices to go up, and pushing the complexity-gap toward a breaking point. For example, Google is one of - if not the - biggest consumers of electricity (while it produces nothing tangible), off a fragile, error-prone grid, and the global infrastructure of communications grows older and more vulnerable every day, while bearing ever-increasing loads.

On the other hand, you're right in supposing that innovation could solve a great many problems - very possibly produce a utopia. If only it were applied sensibly and according to a system of human-needs priorities. Two major obstacle stand in the way: profit and power. There was a functional electric car a hundred years ago, and it was strangled by the gasoline powered one (Imagine no oil spills!)
We have the birth-control technology - have had it for half a century at least - to reduce the population overload. It cannot be applied because of politics, religion, superstition, and fear. We've known about the dangers of human-caused climate change the same length of time, yet nothing can be done, because money interests won't allow meaningful action. And so on. As long as the people who put profit above survival are in control, we'll continue to spend public money on fighter planes instead of rapid transit systems.

BTW, I hear we're 20 or so years from being replaced, or at least displaced, by intelligent robots. The good/bad news is, that's a couple of years after the the planet surface will have been reduced to grey goo by self-replicating nanobots.

[R1D2]

There will always be a need for labors, an skilled individuals. Line men, tree trimmers, engineers, programmers, designers, cops, explorers. There is so many other jobs robots can't do. If we fight wars we will need boots on the ground. Even if we have drone planes we will need fly boys to pilot them. This world has changed so very much. It will continue to change an evolve. There are volcanoes that will erupt, that may wipe out the whole world. Asteroids that could hit, an ice ages to come.