> its nonsensical to condemn the rate of progress because we didn't achieve a vision of science fantasy grounded in what people thought in the 1950s
That wasn't really the claim. The idea is that the ends of technology have been chosen by corporations, rather than what would have been most generally useful to humankind. Hardly an earth-shattering observation.
Sure, but those examples that you gave seriously undercut that. Antigravity, teleportation, those would be wildly profitable. And we've got an entire anti-aging industry investing billions into immortality drugs. In fact, the investments into immortality drugs right now is a perfect example of your statement that the ends of technology are chosen by corporations instead of what is most useful to mankind. Curing neglected tropical diseases and investing in equitable healthcare availability is what would have one of the (if not the) biggest impacts on humankind's health. Right now, what is most generally useful to humankind isn't science fantasy, we've got a few rungs to go up the hierarchy of needs before we get there. In fact, something like flying cars would absolutely be a net negative - more pollution, a new type of congestion, more types of accidents, all to solve a problem that would be solved better by functioning public transit. And in terms of usefulness to humankind - since when are innovations that are profitable orthogonal to human benefit? There are cases where its either or, but does it really make sense to go and tell someone with a disease that the treatment for the disease can't help them because it was developed by profit motives? Setting aside questions of logistics/funding models/regulations (since if we started bringing in those real world aspects then all of those sci-fi technologies fall apart) - looking purely at the technology, commercial motives developed things that are a net good for the world. There is overlap, and an overly cynical view ends up making no sense. We have it so much better than people did 100 years ago because of technology.
Read the Graeber article I linked earlier in case you haven't and are interested. Bio-tech is one of the industries he specifically mentions as being somewhat a degenerate case with regard to this argument.
In his essay, the the particulars of technological achievement (e.g. flying cars) are rhetorical. If it isn't our current economic system with for-profit corporations driving the direction of technological evolution, what is? The question that interests me, however, is how should we, as a society, make those kinds of decisions?
That wasn't really the claim. The idea is that the ends of technology have been chosen by corporations, rather than what would have been most generally useful to humankind. Hardly an earth-shattering observation.