I think this point of view ignores all the boring, unsexy, non-headline-grabbing progress that has developed 1950s inventions into what we have today. Progress is the aggregate of millions of very small advances.
Yes, and you could also argue that if our progress rate was sampled at a rate proportional to the total duration of human progress, the period from the 1950's to today is really one sample and the curve at this moment is just beginning to look like a hockey stick.
