Hmm... I'm not really sure I'm comfortable agreeing with the way you're defining paradigm shift. But I'm not really clear on how exactly you're defining paradigm shift, so perhaps I'm better off asking for clarification rather than charging in with a rebuttal. How are you understanding the idea of a 'paradigm shift in terms of technological development', that you're saying that we can't see them coming?

Just to try to guide you in the right direction of my objection, it seems to me that our inability to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity inherently signifies that a paradigm shift is coming. But that is not necessarily a 'paradigm shift of technological development', which is what you're asserting is unpredictable. So I seek clarification.

As to your second point, I'll avoid saying more until I finish (up to page 700 now), but yes, I understood it to be about ideas period, because of some principle as yet to be clearly laid out to me that combining syntactics and semantics is inherently dangerous. (callback to Snow Crash, somehow?)