[Moshineko]

We already have a semi-socialist system. That's why we have Unemployment and Welfare insurance. It's also why we can't get our defense departments to get together and work, why our education system is failing, and why no-one has learned how to save for retirement.

There are plenty of people progressing. You may not know names, but, they are. I'm doing much better than I did ten years ago. Simply because we don't have a major millionaire in the news right now doesn't mean it's not happening.

And NASA was only ever given enough money to build a half-assed space travel program because of our fear that the USSR and China would get to the moon first. They weren't given enough time or money to do a decent job, otherwise we'd have a fully-functioning moon base, rather than a shuttle exploding every few years and that tin-can in the sky that we call a space station. When the USSR collapsed, and China was no longer interested (at least obviously) in space travel, it got dropped. With no "space race", there was no interest from the population, and the whole thing fell apart.

The issue you're discussing in your aside to me is consumerism, which I agree, along with a failure to take the dark side of freedom with the good, is what is turning us more and more into children, rather than an adult society.