It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology. It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined

It's certainly not the high plasticity of the brain holding back technology. It's the average emotional intelligence of the human race in a given area combined with the average EI of another areas. Culture/areas/whatever that encourage a high amount of cognitive dissonance will give way to a "contagion" that gives rise to lower EIs through double binding communications between groups. It's better if you start out with a topic that is highly polarized, as that gives the contagion some energy to feed upon. You see this with Trump, as he is in constant disagreement with himself in what he says, which is dove tailed in behind whatever blaming remark he made when he first started talking. This gets the dissonance going in groups who are, in general, disgruntled about whatever it is they are disgruntled about. Sigh.