Many people nowadays admiringly quote the performance gains of modern computing (“so much data”) or telecommunication (“so much cheaper”)—but what about harvests? In two centuries, the human labor to produce a kilogram of American wheat was reduced from 10 minutes to less than two seconds. This is how our modern world really works. And as mentioned, I could have done similarly stunning reconstructions of falling labor inputs, rising yields, and soaring productivity for Chinese or Indian rice. The time frames would be different but the relative gains would be similar.
