It sounds like you and I actually have fairly similar opinions on a lot of things. For me, free people exchanging goods and services in a voluntary manner whil

It sounds like you and I actually have fairly similar opinions on a lot of things. For me, free people exchanging goods and services in a voluntary manner while respecting each other's property is ideal capitalism. > IMO, the capitalism = progress relationship is coincidental, not causal. So, this is the major point we disagree on. I believe that what we have today is crony capitalism, and that's why it's easy to believe that capitalism doesn't bring progress. At this point we barely have a capitalist society. This still doesn't get to the heart of why we're all addicted to smart phones and whatnot though. I think that's more to do with culture being curated by mega corps in conjunction with rapid technological progress. Culture would normally be enough that people would eventually reject unhealthy practices, but with culture all but forced on us, and the pace of technological growth, culture has not caught up. I don't know exactly what the solution is, but cord cutting as a movement was a major net positive. I think the next step may be something like leaving walled gardens for decentralized culture hubs.