I think there is a ton of innovation occurring. Biotech is exploding right now with CRISPR-CAS9, optogenetic application to mind-machine interfaces are already in rats and monkeys. Medicine, despite covid, is doing great stuff. I'd bet that the large scale testing we're doing will be somewhat sticky and our risk tolerance at the FDA will expand a lot. EE is about to take off again when someone can come up with a cheap and workable memristor; it'll completely change how we do logic at the substrate level, going from discrete to 'analog' math. We're revolutionizing history and literature with tools like google trends. I think a lot of the 'malaise' is just cyclical. Innovation comes in spurts, we're at the end of a business cycle, it's kinda normal.
That said, yeah, the elephant in the room is the massive concentration of wealth and regulatory capture. All the innovations I just mentioned are kinda happening in the back-rooms and on obscure boards like HN. Getting these things to markets and in the hands of professionals is really just terribly difficult. I get the FDA pushing back on things (and largely agree with it), but the big players just seem to push down really hard on innovators. I mean, look at the App-store, it's nutters. Paradoxically, more government intervention is needed, but against the big fish.
That said, yeah, the elephant in the room is the massive concentration of wealth and regulatory capture. All the innovations I just mentioned are kinda happening in the back-rooms and on obscure boards like HN. Getting these things to markets and in the hands of professionals is really just terribly difficult. I get the FDA pushing back on things (and largely agree with it), but the big players just seem to push down really hard on innovators. I mean, look at the App-store, it's nutters. Paradoxically, more government intervention is needed, but against the big fish.