This from a posting on another blog. Just 100 years.

"Here are some of the U.S. statistics for the Year 1906 :
The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.

There were only 8,000 automobiles in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st
most populous state in the Union.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year. More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home. Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound. Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo. Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason. The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza
   
2. Tuberculosis
   
3. Diarrhea
   
4. Heart disease
   
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't yet been admitted to the Union. The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30.

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet. There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day. Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school. Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

For the year, there were about 230 reported murders in the entire country."

If fertility is negatively correlated with education, then we'd better hope that education and intelligence are not positively correlated, because that would mean IQ dysgenesis. It's fortunate that, in any case, race has nothing to do with intelligence, because that would have all sorts of implications, some of them unpleasant or impolite. Gosh, I feel much better now. Thanks, oildrum!

>Younger people today do not recognize how society has changed.

That is a bit of an understatement. While I am much younger than you I still can easily see how far society is changing, and to me the changes are accelerating in the wrong direction.

>I do see a major shift in education from the sciences toward service stuff like medicine, etc.

I see it shifting away from the sciences entirely and into liberal arts and away from education that would provide them real job opportunities. A few years ago there were several articles about how the high school curriculum was simplified so its easy to obtain a A or B average with virtually no academic effort. When these kids reach college they are unprepared to meet the requirements and often change thier major into liberal arts. Today's kids have far more distractions then our generations did. They've been raised on game consoles and 100+ Channel cable TV. Interest in determining a future career is at the bottom of the list.

>It is likely the lessor educated will keep on making babies while the more educated will have fewer children.

This is always been true. When ever I hear about a co-worker or friend that just had a new baby, I find it depressioning to think about that child's future.  I doubt that anyone born today will ever have the opportunity to drive, even less, a decent education.

>I'd go to an Ag school and major in soil science...or, maybe, take the tuition money and become a speciality farmer.

I have one of the top hi-tech careers as you can get and I am in the process of giving it all up and going rural. I remember the oil shocks of the 1970s and I know that our economic system is not sustainable without cheap energy. My career is only as sustainable as the oil keeps on flowing.
In prepation, I have been spending the majority of my free time educating myself to become self-stainable.

 "I'd go to an Ag school and major in soil science"

U.C. Davis.

School has a weird knack for pumping out peak oil aware people too.

Best,

Matt