We're sitting on
70 years of anesthesia

In 1772, scientists discovered nitrous oxide and spent decades using it for party tricks. It wasn't until 1844—seventy years later—that Horace Wells finally thought to use it for pain relief. For seven decades people endured agonizing surgeries, waiting for someone to join the dots.

This keeps happening. The gap between what's possible and what we're actually doing is what I call technological overhang. And right now, we're living through one of the largest overhangs in history.