Has the increase of narcissism after the Cold War slowed down tech development?

[CmdrShepN7]

Cold War American society wasn't perfect but it achieved things like the Interstate highway system, the Moon landings, a rudimentary version of what would become the internet, vaccines, the Space Shuttle, the Hubble space telescope, etc.

Impressive achievements still happen in the world of spaceflight and space exploration but I lament the state of American infrastructure.

Has society become too narcissistic to build on the greatness that was achieved in the past?

I lament the increase of vapid attitudes and behaviors among the younger generations.

What if instead of being inspired by vapid "influencers" America's young people were inspired by astronauts like Victor Glover and Deniz Burnham?

And I lament the state of Russia. Once they had a space program to be reckoned with. Now they only have a taxi cab for space station astronauts and satellites.




Their youth seem more interested in material things then aspiring to a bigger and grander future.
https://www.rferl.org/a/1097925.html

[whitelancer64]

“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.
...
They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”

Rhetoric, Part 12, On Youthful Character, Aristotle, 4th Century BC

“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.”

Book III of Odes, Horace, circa 20 BC

"The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress."

Attributed to a sermon preached by Peter the Hermit in A.D. 1274

“Whither are the manly vigour and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt…”

Letter in Town and Country magazine republished in Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, 1771

“Never has youth been exposed to such dangers of both perversion and arrest as in our own land and day. Increasing urban life with its temptations, prematurities, sedentary occupations, and passive stimuli just when an active life is most needed, early emancipation and a lessening sense for both duty and discipline…”

The Psychology of Adolescence, Granville Stanley Hall, 1904

[Nomadd]

 I bemoan the laziness and lack of direction in young people now days.
 (Said some old guy in ancient Babylon and old guys in every generation since)
 

[Coastal Ron]

Has society become too narcissistic to build on the greatness that was achieved in the past?

NO!

I lament the increase of vapid attitudes and behaviors among the younger generations.

Then you are hanging around the wrong segment of "the younger generations".

I grew up being around people that had been born as far back as the late 1800's (my grandfather), lived with my parents, who officially spanned the "Greatest Generation" and "Silent Generation", was part of the "Baby Boomers", and have relatives and friends of Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. So I have a pretty wide view of the generations.

I see the same characteristics across all generations, and if anything I think the young people of today give me great hope, because they seem to be LESS narcissistic than older generations. And that might actually be a characteristic of all generations when they are young, but it is certainly true today too.

[whitelancer64]

Just to go point by point...

The US Interstate Highway System was created when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act into law in 1956  ...  and the system was officially declared to be complete in 1992.

Oh, and it was preceded by the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1952. Then later came the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, and the Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974.

The Apollo Moon landings were from 1969 to 1972 and we are finally starting to go back now that we are no longer mired in LEO by the Shuttle, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about now.

We have many more, and much more effective and safer vaccines now than we did in the 60s. Healthcare in general has significantly improved. Diabetes, AIDS, and many other diseases are no longer a death sentence.

Hubble then, JWST now... along with several other telescopes in space. Again, I'm not sure what you have to complain about there. It's not like we've stopped designing, building, and launching space telescopes.

I suppose you forgot the ISS was constructed from 2000 on... The Large Hadron Collider... Landing rockets launched to space... The Mars rovers... Massive satellite constellations are being deployed... Nearly everyone has a computer in their pockets and can communicate with people all around the world...

It's not like the past 20 years have been devoid of significant engineering achievements.

[su27k]

There is definitely a slow down in tech development, at least in western countries. "where is my flying car?" gets regularly asked, and there are also much stronger opposition to progress, such as the anti-nuclear movement. Whether this is related to narcissism or the younger generation is debatable, I'm not aware of any data supporting this hypothesis.

You could come up with other hypothesis, such as the end of Cold War which means technological superiority is no longer life and death, or 9/11 and the war in middle east which consumed vast amount of national wealth.

[Vahe231991]

There is definitely a slow down in tech development, at least in western countries. "where is my flying car?" gets regularly asked, and there are also much stronger opposition to progress, such as the anti-nuclear movement. Whether this is related to narcissism or the younger generation is debatable, I'm not aware of any data supporting this hypothesis.

You could come up with other hypothesis, such as the end of Cold War which means technological superiority is no longer life and death, or 9/11 and the war in middle east which consumed vast amount of national wealth.

The Cold War space race began to fade in the late 1960s and early 1970s not only due to Sergei Korolev's death impairing the Soviet manned lunar program by ensuring that the N1 rocket failed on all four launches and making the US the ultimate victor in the space race, but also Japan and China launching homegrown SLVs in 1970. The Constellation program that would produce the Orion spacecraft and result in the only launch of the Ares I rocket somewhat came under financial strain due to the Iraq War.

The flying car was invented back in the 1930s when Waldo Waterman created the Waterman Arrowbile and the Autogiro Company of America AC-35 began flight tests in the 1930s.

[woods170]

I bemoan the laziness and lack of direction in young people now days.
 (Said some old guy in ancient Babylon and old guys in every generation since)

Most of you propably know that one of my daytime jobs is in the IT industry. I see lots of young people coming and going in this industry. And yes: I see the same things Nomadd mentioned. But on top of that I see something else as well: a rather unhealthy sense of entitlement among many of those young people.

[dondar]

There is definitely a slow down in tech development, at least in western countries. "where is my flying car?" gets regularly asked, and there are also much stronger opposition to progress, such as the anti-nuclear movement. Whether this is related to narcissism or the younger generation is debatable, I'm not aware of any data supporting this hypothesis.

You could come up with other hypothesis, such as the end of Cold War which means technological superiority is no longer life and death, or 9/11 and the war in middle east which consumed vast amount of national wealth.

there is no slowdown in tech development. The complexity of the "new tech" grows exponentially both financially and the required efforts. It is just much more difficult (in engineers' hours) to build modern jet than it was in the 1940s.

BUT: there is fundamental shift of the social dynamics and "expected" social "aspirations". Mass-media and informational space is much more fragmented  and in the same time it is also significantly more assertive and self-isolated from "other opinions". Basically we have normalization of "hyper-normalization".

[laszlo]

"What has the future generation ever done for me?"

Every narcissistic old guy justifying his lifestyle ever.

[Bob Shaw]

The OP is worthy of Quora, and not in a good way.

[Eric Hedman]

History repeats itself over and over.  We go through cycles of good and bad times.  The bad times strengthen people and the good times weaken them.  What is constant is that we fail to learn much from the past to avoid these cycles.

I see no slow down in the advancement of technology.  The advancement has been uneven as it always is.  We didn't go on to Mars after Apollo for a number of reasons that have been debated on here more times than I care to count.  While we didn't jump to Mars, so much else has been moving forward in other areas; cell phones, robotics, biology, materials science, etc.  Sometimes technology pauses for a big breakthrough that lead to a flood of advances.  Examples: CRISPR gene editing, high temperature superconductors, photonic circuitry, machine learning, reusable rockets, robotics, etc.  As much as I see little advancement in human beings, I still see massive gains in technology with more to come as some of these fundamental breakthroughs are going to lead to big changes in technology in our everyday lives.

As has been posted above, people have complained about young people and these problems for thousands of years.  Until we start learning from history, this cycle will continue for generations to come.

[Vahe231991]

There is definitely a slow down in tech development, at least in western countries. "where is my flying car?" gets regularly asked, and there are also much stronger opposition to progress, such as the anti-nuclear movement. Whether this is related to narcissism or the younger generation is debatable, I'm not aware of any data supporting this hypothesis.

You could come up with other hypothesis, such as the end of Cold War which means technological superiority is no longer life and death, or 9/11 and the war in middle east which consumed vast amount of national wealth.

there is no slowdown in tech development. The complexity of the "new tech" grows exponentially both financially and the required efforts. It is just much more difficult (in engineers' hours) to build modern jet than it was in the 1940s.

BUT: there is fundamental shift of the social dynamics and "expected" social "aspirations". Mass-media and informational space is much more fragmented  and in the same time it is also significantly more assertive and self-isolated from "other opinions". Basically we have normalization of "hyper-normalization".

The obsession with nuclear power in the 1950s becoming an American forte caused American aerospace engineers to conjure up the idea of nuclear-powered spacecraft, as exemplified by Project Orion.

There's no denying that quantum leaps in speed were speed as a yardstick for the future trajectory of airliner development because some people expected the Boeing 2707 supersonic airliner to make the 747 obsolete, only to temper such forecasts after the Boeing 2707 was canceled without being built and the 747 scored a good sales record. While the Soviets initially got a head start in space exploration and technology with the first satellite, first man and woman in space, and the first space station, the increasingly creaky and stagnant command economy of the USSR caused financial strain on the construction of the Energia and Buran, as well as development of the Mir-2 space station.

[GmP]

I bemoan the laziness and lack of direction in young people now days.
 (Said some old guy in ancient Babylon and old guys in every generation since)

Most of you propably know that one of my daytime jobs is in the IT industry. I see lots of young people coming and going in this industry. And yes: I see the same things Nomadd mentioned. But on top of that I see something else as well: a rather unhealthy sense of entitlement among many of those young people.

Not quite sure how to read your comment referring to Nomad? I was reading it with the context of his byline. Just the moaning of the older generation about the younger ones, as has been the case since  before time.
I work also with a lot of younger people in the high tech industry (semiconductor design, for 40 years, still going), and don’t see any entitlement behavior. Yes, they prefer a better work life balance, and don’t always chase the maximum increase in income as a consequence, but in my view that is healthy. I missed many birthday from my younger kids with the excuse “work doesn’t allow me to take a day off” where that was not a rule, just acceptance of group behavior in those days.
Maybe you have better examples of entitlement?

[whitelancer64]

There is definitely a slow down in tech development
*snip*

Quantify that.
A slow down - compared to what?
In what fields?

Do you have any graphs, charts, numbers to show what you mean?

Etc.