Comment by sandspit

Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge explores this idea and where it takes us in 20 years. The book is set in a pre-singularity world where technological progress in every field is tethered to advances in computing power, and new fields emerge and die in a few months. I don't think this is particularly implausible, eventually. In any case the idea that you can get a job at an auto manufacturing plant and stay there for the rest of your life, get a fat retirement check etc without ever really having to worry about change, has clearly been smashed by globalization (via technology) in the last 30 years, and I think the same process is accelerating in other fields. Of course not "[losing] the desire to learn" is exactly what the author is prescribing here, and I think as usual many people are just talking over one another.