> "self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side of it is unknowable"
It is not even the first time this happen. There was something fitting this description starting the Neolithic, that people are not sure what exactly it was. There was writing and the big civilizations that happened through it. And there's the scientific/industrial revolution that we can argue endlessly if it is or isn't just a part of what is happening now (but falls just outside of your timeframe).
Re: writing. Lots of the oldest clay tables are rants about how 'our laws are the best' and 'other cities' laws will make you work too hard'. Apparently writing really took off when it got used for PR!
It is not even the first time this happen. There was something fitting this description starting the Neolithic, that people are not sure what exactly it was. There was writing and the big civilizations that happened through it. And there's the scientific/industrial revolution that we can argue endlessly if it is or isn't just a part of what is happening now (but falls just outside of your timeframe).