We had hype all the time. It's not recent invention. And in 48 years after 1973, per capita GDP increased 2.18x which, extrapolated to a 103 year interval (as between 1870 and 1973) means 5.32x increase which is almost as fast (6.7% slower, which is very easy to explain knowing that U.S. primary energy supply stopped growing in 1973 after skyrocketing in the century before).<p>In the last 50 years, Western civilisation learned how to do more with less. In the century before, we simply invented new and new ways of throwing more and more non-renewable resources onto all problems we had. Which isn't really all that hard to do - for as long as you may come up with sources for those resources.<p>Now we do better.