Saying "silverware is a mesopotamian technology" may sound insightful, but it's also a lie. Henry Patroski spent a full chapter on the fork in the Evolution of Useful Things. "Silverware" as we know it is only about 150 years old. More than that, its evolution is entirely traceable and observable. This is why I hate Nic Talleb - he likes to wave his hands and say "disruption!" when in fact, history is quite clearly a jagged stairstep of piecemeal innovation.
I'll give him a pass on the silverware thing because I think what he is trying to say (in so many words) is that humans have been using tools to eat with for a long time now. Or at least we think so. There is in fact so much about the human record that anthropologists have simply just inferred without any real proof. Even 'Lucy' has yet to be officially identified as a female. We just think she was. Describing history as a jagged stairstep is very helpful and quite correct. The truth is, most anthropologists like to regard their own discoveries as a paradigm shift in evolution mostly to garner respect from the academic community when in reality it only appears that way because so little of the fossil record has been discovered. My issue with the article is that I disregard his idea that efficiency isn't a technology. He describes new running shoes as technology which reverses technology, but eschews the intelligence in such a product. Knowledge is technology, because knowledge is inherent in the tool. But mostly though, his writing just isn't much fun. Innovation wasn't born out of content, nor pragmatism for that matter. A boy can dream can't he?
My problem (one of my many problems - I've had f'ing Black Swan thrown in my face so many times I've got hives from the feathers) is that in the first few paragraphs he says 'the future will be the present minus some stuff' while nearly simultaneously saying 'nobody has ever properly predicted all the disruptive shit the future brings.' Meanwhile, glass is ancient so nothing changes, never mind, oh, plastic water bottles. "Had someone in 1950 predicted the same thing..." dude, science fiction writers have been predicting meals for a hundred years and usually they introduce some odd flavor and leave everything else the same. Then he bitches that we don't have flying cars while listening to himself talk for 1000 words. I think people like Nick Talleb because they aren't clever enough to notice that he has nothing to say... but he says it gregariously.