You might be right. You better be right :-). Energy should be a solvable problem on a planet drenched (quite democratically) with sunlight. Lots of other challe

You might be right. You better be right :-). Energy should be a solvable problem on a planet drenched (quite democratically) with sunlight. Lots of other challenges piggybag on energy tech... and so forth. The pessimism is just a reflection of how successfully we have managed to actually not use technology anywhere close to its potential for so long and how tech "naturally" gravitates to its worst possible use. E.g., we don't have drones for delivering anything useful but we do have drones for delivering munitions and visiting death. The channels that would help unleash the positive potential are missing or severely limited and there is little indication that this is going to change in the short term. Fundamentally the reason for this irrational and emotionally broken behavior is that the absolute state of the human condition and any deficit versus a theoretical optimum is not a relevant concern. Politics and the overwhelming energy and effort associated with it is about managing relative status. Persistently poor or even deteriorating conditions for the entire collective are not a problem unless they threaten an existing social organization. So "progress" proceeds at the "minimum required" pace.