The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) set up a study group chaired by Harvey Brooks, a Harvard engineering professor. In a 1971 report, the group argued that developed societies were fast approaching a condition of near saturation. Even in higher education, people were suffering from information overload which risked stifling the production of new knowledge.Somehow or another, new knowledge was produced after 1971, but perhaps not by this guy and his buddies.
The future is dire . . .
. . . and always has been. From The Age of Global Warming: a History, by Rupert Darwall, about the "small is beautiful" movement that inspired a lot of environmentalists to abandon not only capitalism but the very idea that an economic system should be evaluated by its ability to produce growth and prosperity:
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Now that's interesting -- the book claims that the 'second wave' of the environmentalist movement died because of the Yom Kippur War and subsequent energy crisis. I'd have thought that nothing would make it easier to live like an environmentalist than hugely expensive energy. I guess people got tired of it.
Is that what luddites are calling themselves now, the environmental protection movement.
Used to be the Quakers, Amish, and Christians, supposedly.
To be fair, there likely are quite a few people who think they are creating new knowledge but aren't really. Then again, that's likely always been true.
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