Revolutionary technology is still moving too slow.

We are only seeing something truly impressive and society altering every once in a decade.

The Iphone and youtube were the 2000s

4g, apple watch, ridesharing, and crispr where 2010s

AI reaching human level intelligence and starship rocket will be 2020's

Moon base will be 2030s.

We are a species whose brains have been dopamine boosted to the point of expecting great changes every single year but technological innovation is still moving at a rate of once every decade noticeable improvements.

The world is moving too slow for the human mind to feel satisfied.

That is what is causing that sense of misery even as the quality of life keeps going up.

Humanity has become an absurd caricature of itself and the only way this works out is if there is a bottom class to do all the hard work to keep improving the quality of life of everybody else.

It is human nature to desire slaves, because the growth that a man desires cannot be achieved without sacrificing everything else, unless you are having somebody else making all of the sacrifices.

The US is the only nation state that managed to optimize growth to be always consistent at around 2.5% per year average.

Any developed society trying to force itself above this mark would more likely than not collapse, going mad being overworked to keep profits up.

Even the 2.5% growth forever is not sustainable as population grows at a slower rate than GDP, so every .1% of the 2.5% next year has to be reached with ever fewer ratio of people.

For example. you start with 100 people and 100 resources. 100 people grow by 1%. that's 101 people. 100 people grow economy by 2.5%. thats 102.5 resources.

Now 101 people have to grow 102.5 resources by 2.5%. That's fewer people having to create increased growth when population grows slower than economic growth rate.

If we start with 100 people and 100 resources, then in 50 years, 164.46 people would have to grow 343. 71 resources by 2.5%.

In the long run it was never going to be sustainable.

Currently the US population growth rate is even worse than the example at 0.4% with a 2.5% GDP growth rate.

It is not a sustainable model and having something more advanced than a human is the only way to keep this growth rate going for centuries to come.

Which is why the future lies in the hands of AI. Current systems have already become complex enough that no single human or even team of humans can by themselves keep growing things consistently anymore.

This is why we can see that the leading companies in terms of market capitalization today are all technology companies. Only innovation at breakneck speeds can lead to further growth and prosperity.

Even companies like Saudi Aramco are going down year on year.

In conclusion:

AI and robot labor is the next step in keeping GDP growth at 2.5% and above year on year for the next century or two.

China will not be able to overtake the US as their individual productivity levels will have to grow year on year at levels even more unsustainable than the US without the same lead in AI or robotics.

The US is surprisingly behind in semiconductor manufacturing and made the right decision by shifting Taiwanese factories to the US. One of the key security areas for the US would be to develop their domestic chip manufacturing capabilities to levels capable of competing with Taiwan.