The problem with taw's argument is not that outside view has failed, he has simply made a bad choice of reference class. As noticed by a few commenters, the method chosen to find a reference class here, if it worked, would provide a fully general counterargument against the feasibility of any new technology. For any new technology, the class of previous attempts to do what it does is either empty, or a list of attempts with a 0% success rate. Yet somehow, despite this, new tech happens.

To use outside view in predicting new technology, we have to find a way to choose a reference class such that the track record of the reference class will distinguish between feasible attempts and utterly foolish ones.