On the contrary, humans are keen on extrapolating "linearly", ignoring that progress is discrete, and that the next discrete step isn't on any guaranteed timeline. See: humanity's idea of the next twenty years of space exploration in 1970.
Technological growth is an S curve. Exponential at first but hitting a point of diminishing returns after. The 747 is roughly equidistant from the Wright Flyer and the 787. Aviation hit the wall before we got, for example, routine supersonic flights. In computers, the 1.5 GHz Pentium IV is roughly equidistant between the 8 MHz 286 and the i9-9900k (which clocks up to 5 GHz, but that’s not even a fair comparison because the 286 dissipated under 15 watts, the Pentium 4 was a 60W chip, and the i9 is nominally a 95W chip but in reality can dissipate much more than that during boost.)
