But since 1750 or so things have been different. The pace of economic change has been so great as to shake the rest of history to its foundation. For perhaps the first time, the making and using the necessities and conveniences of daily life--and how production, distribution, and consumption changed--has been the driving force behind a single century’s history. Even in the most long-established of professions, the pattern and rhythm of work life today is so very different from that of our ancestors as to be almost unrecognizable. It is these changes in production and also in home life and consumption, and the reactions to them, that make up the center ring action of the history that has made us who we are.

(In the title:  Past or Passed?) There are many better paragraphs to mine, so read.  :-)

Great read! And the title should be Passed.

Yes, things are far different.  Yes, the drivers to most societies are mostly different.  Yes, this is related to the singularity.  But this is just the whisp of the curve to singularity.  Either this guy doesn't understand the term, or he doesn't have enough imagination.  Read more scifi buddy.  And learn enough about tech, machine learning, and human psychology/sociology to extrapolate reliably.  And read my forthcoming book!  (Real soon now.)

Adam stashing it in History of Tech! puts this article in its proper perspective.  It's a long view back, not forward.

Geege, that's very true.

Steve, you're writing a book?!

Pre-writing for the most part so far.  But have been getting increasingly serious, have researched a bit, and I spend some free cycles on it regularly.

That's awesome. Feel free to practice here.