The footsteps of giants [Reflections]

The author muses that his own generation has had two decades to prove itself. Many of my contemporaries have made names for themselves, but somehow they don´t seem as notable as those illustrious names of the past. He considers how much harder it must seem for the new generation: tens of thousands of new EEs starting their careers in a world laden with complexity and filled with large projects that subsume individuality. Is it possible for them to be as famous as names from the past? He posits two theories. The first theory says yes to the question. If the new EEs wait their turn in line, the inventions, the promotions, the great discoveries, and the fame will follow. The second theory says no. The world has changed fundamentally. Complexity has increased so much that large teams of people are now required to create and design - or even just understand - ordinary systems. Under these circumstances, how is individuality to manifest itself? He concludes that what has happened is that the standard deviation has diminished steadily through all these years. In other words, fewer people stand out as exceptional. Humanity is definitely improving in skills of all kinds, but there is a limit on human performance that moves more slowly. This limit is like a wall to the right on a graph of the distribution of batters or engineers. As we improve, more and more of us are scrunched closer to that limiting wall. The standard deviation narrows, and fewer of us stand out. In other words we too are giants. But we live in a land of Gullivers with nary a Lilliputian in sight.