The enormity of WWII

[Anomalocaris]

WWII only seems more consequential than a host of other historical events because it occurred recently and dovetail with recency bias.    things like the black death, the greco Persian wars, the fall of the roman empire, the islamic conquest, the bronze age collapse, etc, all seem to me to likely be more consequential   to the long term subsequence development of human history than WWII might,

Although recency bias is definitely present, it's only a minor point when it comes to WWII. There were massive technological and military advancements, which culminated in Project Manhattan and the atomic bombings. The V-2 rockets were also unbelievable, the Allies competed to acquire their technology after the war.

I don't think anything in history before WWII can be compared to the military achievement of detonating nuclear weapons, these weapons can erase thousands of people in a few seconds. Any other military conflict in the past simply pales in comparison. Military leaders throughout history won battles by sending massive groups of mens to the battlefield and thereby overpowering their opponent, this idea obviously no longer works.

World War II certainly facilitated the dramatic, but relatively short-lived, acceleration in the development of many technologies. It may have compressed research and development that would have taken 10 or 15 years to develop into five years. But I think we need to keep the long term significance of a one time five or 10 year shortening of the technology development cycle in prospective.   I think the long-term demographic, social and economic consequences of World War II will be much greater and more enduring than its technological consequences.