It’s not terribly specific, but you’d probably enjoy “Where Is My Flying Car?” by J. Storrs Hall. There’s a review here: https://rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car

It was also reviewed at Scott Alexander’s place, and very briefly by Tyler Cowen.

“What went wrong in the 1970s?” is the central question of the book. Hall is an interesting, passionate, engaging, and technically-minded writer.

A more specific book is George Hoberg’s “Pluralism by Design: Environmental Policy and the American Regulatory State.” It examines the transition between the vague and informal New Deal regulatory regime and the bureaucratic and legalistic regulatory regime that picked up in the late 1960s, on Nixon’s watch.

Your preoccupation is exemplified in your inetpretation of the line about opportunity, seeing it focused only or primarily on myself, as you yourself are focused only or primarily on myself.

On the contrary, the opportunity is for every body that heretofore has had to suffer existence operating under the influence of the wilsonian empire as if a given – it ceasing to be a given, with ever more accelerating rapidity.

You’re clearly very knowledgeable about this subject. What single book, or small handful of books, would you recommend for someone looking for the bird’s-eye view of the “Nixon Shock Doctrine” as it pertains to the proliferation of the American regulatory state?

Adept: “Things definitely went haywire on Nixon’s watch, and we’re suffering through the consequences.”

Is it possible, in your opinion, that the regulatory state as it exists is a consequence of Nixon’s failure? Or do you think that he intended to foster such a beast?

Adept: “It’s also true that some of these inventions don’t seem to have, on net, benefitted humanity. But that could be because of the ways in which they were forced to develop.”

That’s an excellent point.

Adept: “Never trust a lawyer.”

Words to live by.

You pretend to be high and mighty and poised for seizing “opportunity” (i.e., power) from “the Damnyankees” but the interesting thing is that each time I prod you a little bit you invariably revert to certain distinctly working-class linguistic tics. It’s difficult for me to imagine anyone I know saying “stop blowing smoke out of your ass”, but the dead giveaway is the use of “ass” as an emphatic modifier, as in “grown-ass man”.

I can practically hear the Deep South blue-collar drawl from here. Are there cigarette butts in the picture?

Be honest, now, you hear?

Thank you for recognizing my clear posting superiority. My vast output, crystal-clear prose, and biting wit do indeed put me on another level to mere mortals such as yourself. I will go down in history as one of the greatest commentators of the Internet Age. Will history even remember the name of Contaminated NEET?

(In other words, who are you, and why are you interjecting in a no-stakes duel between Internet-commenter ostensible equals?)

Bluntly, I am going to ruin my diet by eating too many calories and I blame your writing for forcing me to surrender to gluttony.

I’m terribly sorry; my post count must be too low to address someone like you.

It was a poorly selected list, I agree. I would however suggest that we had nuclear power, but the regulatory state strangled it in its cradle.

A better list would include:
- Penicillin and antibiotics (1942)
- Nuclear power (1951)
- The transistor (1947–1959)
- The internet (1969)
- The solar cell (1955)
- Cellular data networks (1947–1973)
- The shipping container (1955)
- Information theory (1948)
- Digital physics (Conrad Zuse, 1969) — the only interesting philosophical theory of the 20th century.

Alongside penicillin, honorary mention could be given to corticosteroids (1949) — the development of which, and indeed the development of synthetic steroids in general, was entirely linked to the development of The Pill. (The guy mostly responsible for The Pill, Carl Djerassi, is also responsible for dozens of anabolic steroids and corticosteroids.)

It’s also true that some of these inventions don’t seem to have, on net, benefitted humanity. But that could be because of the ways in which they were forced to develop. The post-Nixon regulatory state strongly penalizes building things in meatspace and potently, however indirectly, promotes a solipsistic digital economy and an almost wholly parasitic “service” economy. That our brightest young minds waste away inventing better ways to generate clickbait, and increasingly sophisticated zero-sum financial constructs, is a tragedy of world historical proportions.

Things definitely went haywire on Nixon’s watch, and we’re suffering through the consequences. Rule number one ought to be “never trust a lawyer,” and Nixon was one, through and through.

Concretely, you can stop blowing smoke out of your ass any time.

It’s really unfortunate seeing a grown ass man act like a gossiping high school girl. I earnestly suggest you get over your preoccupation with me. We can talk about things men care about instead.

How much of this is due entirely to the U.S. government’s then-newfound ability, courtesy of the aforementioned Richard Milhous Nixon, to print infinity money?

This is not a rhetorical question.