Ah, Ken, it's true; I am that curmudgeon.
Seriously though ... I have real trouble trying to think of any dramatically useful innovation from the last seventy five years that wasn't a derivative of a scientific breakthrough from the preceding seventy five. It would be true to say -- viewed from a strictly Western standpoint -- that the last six centuries can be split into four separate, but often overlapping, ages of human development, namely: The Renaissance; The Age of Exploration and Colonisation; The Industrial Revolution; The Technological Revolution.
I would contend that the technological revolution ran, haltingly at first from around 1880-1900 to around 1950.
Whatever epithet this "modern age" eventually acquires through historical perspective I believe it is fair to say it's already half over, given that all preceding periods generally lasted between one and two centuries. The best suggestion for naming the modern age that occurs to me is: The Space Age.
In that regard we started with a bang. 25 years from a sub-orbital V2 to Armstrong and Aldrin. Thanks to the colossal mis-management of NASA our development of space exploration hit the buffers when poor old Jack Swigert threw the switch on the faulty, but outrageously expensive, LOX stirrer. Then came Challenger, Columbia, missions to Mars marred by an idiot-inspired administration that allowed different teams to use different units of measure, a billion dollar telescope with myopia .... Frankly I have more hope that China will establish a permanent moon-base before anyone else ... and the first foot one Mars will undoubtedly be a Chinese one.
Meanwhile I continue to follow the science and technology news and goggle over the latest announcement of stunning breakthroughs and discoveries. But mostly there is just disappointment.
For example room temperature semi-conductors are just as much a fiction as they were twenty seven years ago when it was announced that a material had been found that did not need liquid hydogen (-253C) to function ... nah ... it was 20 or 30 degrees warmer ... liquid nitrogen territory. Since then the newest copper oxide compounds have pushed the temperature up to -140C ... still more than 60 degrees colder than dry ice.
Antibiotics are another disappointment. No new antibiotic type has been developed for 15 years -- and bear in mind that if one is announced today, it will take 5-8 years to gain FDA and European safety licensing. Meanwhile, MRSA,
C. difficule,
E. coli,
M. tuberculosis, to name but a few of the most deadly, are rapidly evolving immunity to every last one of the drugs that still do work. I've seen some stunning research which could yield amazing results -- two or three entirely different approaches -- but I've yet to see evidence that anyone is offering the multi-billion bucks investment needed to produce actual treatments from the theory.
Sadly, this modern age has an additional scourge to beat us with: climate change! Will that ultimately force us back on the road to the stars? It might, if it doesn't destroy us first. Perhaps it might lead to some clever clogs to create an artificial self-replicating photosynthetic unit which uses CO2 from the air, sunlight, and seawater to produce oxygen, carbohydrates, electricity, fresh water, fertilisers, and various salts for industry. Cover the Sahara, the Gobi, and Nevada with the stuff and watch CO2 levels plummet.
Ah ... dreams are good, ain't they?