The price of knowledge is constant.
Have you heard here and there that everything is so expensive, and especially when comes to applied science. Producing software ranks as the third highest paid field currently in USA.
I noticed plenty of young people starting as programmers with salaries unimaginable for the majority of hard working Americans. A number of these young people did not even graduate, and yet, they make more money than PHD professors, work on a flexible schedule and for them, the sky is the limit. What accomplishment they complete all day: they type a quantity of characters that turn into an expensive massive stream of software products that bombard the population. These programmers are the product of the society. They only respond to the demand, or to say, the thirst for knowledge.
Humanity swings as pendulum when comes to discovering and science. From the ancient library in Alexandria to the modern day tribe mentality the quest for discovery continues. and yet, I argue that the price for keeping this quest is constant. If inflation is removed from the equation, we would find that tens of centuries ago scribes would be part of royal courts, often exempt from taxes and in high demand. For example, 4 scribes would be paid in one year equivalent to what would cost to build three to five story building just to craft a copy of a book. In addition to scribes, there were painters who helped decorate copies of the books who also were paid exceptionally healthy. Can you imagine a rich businessman commission a copy of a book and pays 2 million dollars today for it and have it done one year later. You would say, no way. If you substitute the word book with software, you would end up in the same boat as the ancient aristocrats who understood the value of knowledge.
A direct correlation between the physical gravity that is preventing a tree to grow more than 150 meters and the amount of money the population spends on knowledge seems to be bonded. If the population decides to exceed these "150m" of knowledge height and over invest in knowledge, it will backfire and collapse. On the other hand, as Bulgakov had written: "manuscript don't burn"( рукописи не горят) and it takes just one seed to grow another giant tree of knowledge for the same price as 4-5 thousand years ago.