Diminishing Returns for Pharmaceuticals?
One of my central arguments against Transhumanism is that technology, broadly considered, is not accelerating. Here I present a plot showing that multi-factor productivity (MFP), a measurement of technology growth, has actually been stagnant since the 70s. This plot shows that technology clearly is not accelerating and that, despite what everyone assumes, we are currently living through the doldrums of technology growth. However, MFP doesn't capture growth in medical technology.
The plot below (from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development) supports that medical technology is also slowing down and has been for some time. R&D expenditures over the last 40 years have increased 10 fold but the number of new drug approvals hasn't even doubled. This proves that we are well into the period of diminishing returns for technology and we probably can't expect much more growth in the future.
The plot below (from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development) supports that medical technology is also slowing down and has been for some time. R&D expenditures over the last 40 years have increased 10 fold but the number of new drug approvals hasn't even doubled. This proves that we are well into the period of diminishing returns for technology and we probably can't expect much more growth in the future.
I am not a transhumanist (more of a vanilla flavoured humanist) but I am interested in the extent to which technology is improving or otherwise, the human condition over time and I'm interested in models that attempt to measure that sort of thing.
Medical technology to my mind would include diagnostic technology such as xrays, MRIs etc, screening tests that give early warning for cancers etc. vaccinations. These things aren't picked up in a counting drug approvals measure.
I note that your measure of outputs from technologies is confined to the USA. It occurs to me as a non-American that perhaps the rest of the world might be of interest too (China, India) and that progress rates in America might not correlate particular well in recent times with human progress or "productivity" in the entire human aggregate.
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