Agreed. Big pictures are good. Hence: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-gram/

Maybe the "revolutionary" kind of technological progress has slowed down over the recent time, but I'd argue that end-user ingenuity has increased. From a technologistical viewpoint, maybe we've only seen incremental increases in technical progress (maybe due to a more systematic education and application of science, rather than the glorified free-thinkers of the past? They still exist by the way), but from a sociological perspective I think we've evolved. We see better and more refined and indeed, revolutionary ways in using our more and more powerful tools. We've seen computers and derivative technologies used for actually solving problems better, and finding solutions to new and unfound problems. And as for revolutionary tech, maybe we're just not noticing it? R&D takes time for a consumer to notice, and in the past, a lot of tech came about from needs and times of depression. We still see ideas being materialized, albeit in a more controlled way.

Rather than a focus on developing intelligence, I believe the degree of conformity and a fortification of the character, the individual, plays an important role in the childhood process, and realising this as a parent contributes to the same cause of "raising a smart kid", only much more efficiently.

I'm 17 years old, and my parents have always been very open-minded while raising me. Indirectly I have been encouraged to a way of autodidaction and philosophical reflection. While this may be a difficult thing to achieve, I think it's better to be slightly more subtle when trying to raise an "intelligent kid" as opposed to the dichotomy suggested in the summary - between the theory of a fixed intelligence and a mastery-oriented attitude, I think there's much more. More about the actual encouragement of free thought and individual reason. Having said that, it's naturally also important to motivate children, inspire them - both for the purpose of encouraging self-learning and the purpose of helping them find their interests and character. For example, introduce them to your interests, like computers or science. If they show interest themselves, further it by teaching them more, but also give them an overview of a wider array of hobbies and suchlike.