The Next Age of Invention, by Joel Mokyr in City Journal, is a nice antidote to the many neo-Luddite doomsayers lurking within the social sciences. Some highlights (for me) were his discussion of some of the ways in which national income accounting understates the benefits of new technologies, reasons why we might be poised for dramatic advances, the trend toward (and variety of) potential “small” innovations, and technological “bite-back” and how it spurs additional improvements. Last but not least, this article was fun for me because Mokyr takes on my former thesis advisor! He does not discuss the mechanisms by which the benefits of future innovations will be diffused, which is somewhat controversial, but I have no doubt that they will be diffused widely with time.