Many of the cultural advances commonly associated with civilized society (universal suffrage, free speech, public education, public healthcare, a living wage an

Many of the cultural advances commonly associated with civilized society (universal suffrage, free speech, public education, public healthcare, a living wage and a reasonable work week, etc) were all inconceivable just 150 years ago. Today, they are a reality for a large, growing part of the world's population. These changes all took a concerted effort from the population to realize, but did not require pie-in-the-sky level advances in technology. Moreover, unless we want to reproduce our current quagmire on whatever planet we colonize, we'll need these reforms to happen anyway.