The last 20 are already mindblowing to me, to the point that I am a bit overwhelmed. Just reading to keep up with all of the tech developments is basically impossible today.

Yeah, recently I've remembered my computer from 1995 had about 1GB HDD. Now I can much more cheaply buy a SSD which will transfer 7GB/s. Mind boggling.

I paid 2500 $ for a 500 MB harddrive and $750 for 64 K RAM at some point. To me the world we live in is utter science fiction, and yet, every morning I seem to wake up and it is all still there.

I just spent $1600 on a 4090 … :-) the bleeding is still pricey but the goal posts keep moving further and further faster and faster.

In terms of basic tech, other than CRISPR what are you thinking of? Smartphones + internet are important, but are more combinatorial. Early quantum computers are cool, but niche (and even if perfected, seem to have application for breaking PKI). Reusable rockets are great, but not fusion. The standard model is locked in, at least up to LHC energies modulo sensationalist PR.

GPUs have been huge, unlocking so much more compute than was possible with CPUs. Most of the burgeoning AI industry is thanks to that cost decline, which is only getting started.

Every field of science has had breakthroughs in the last decade or two. Even superconductors (check out 'H2S', though it isn't without problems), medicine, genetics, quantum computers I'm not yet all that impressed with but they're too early stage to be really judged, the energy transition is really happening (sub-subject: the price of solar and wind power), semiconductors (every time we think it's over...), GPS (check out how it works under the hood), so much in materials science that I can't begin to keep up, phased arrays, lidar, the insane increase in computational power that you can stick under your desk, battery tech (one more breakthrough there and we will see all kinds of effects on other fields as well), solid state lasers the size of grains of sand, fiber optic transmission rates, the James Webb (ok, 'old tech' by now, but that's one impressive thing they pulled off there, especially the delta between the hot and the cold side of it) and on and on.

As for the future:

Fusion would be huge, but I'm not all that hopeful for cost efficiency there once you get to net power out but I'm not going to talk down the people that are doing the work and the research. And yes, the basic physics seems to be pretty stagnant, we're really waiting for a unification of the two major fields there but even if we do get that unification it may not lead to new practical tech, it could simply nail things down once and for all without moving the needle in terms of costs, speed or new materials science. It may have some implications for various computer models used in those fields and it probably would have impact on astronomy.

Fusion is progressing well, just look at MIT SPARC. Better (conventional) superconductors and better supercomputers are pushing the field forward.

Back when ITER was the only game in town it looked like workable fusion was never going to happen, but things are looking more hopeful now.

mRNA vaccines would be on my list. I don't know if we'd consider that basic or more combinatorial tech.

Yes just think of the joy of living between 1903 (Wright brothers) and 1943.

Well, as an European, with 2 world wars in that period, I would not trade now for that.

Yes, that's how I feel about now. :-)

In 100 years people will be pondering what it would be like to live between 2003 and 2043 :)

Uh oh, did I just jinx 2043?

The Oppenheimer movie equivalent of 2123, but it's about someone in Gen Z, so their name is Brayden or something.