Slight off topic-Have you read "Blind Faith" by Ben Elton? Admittedly it is set in a slightly in the future flood devastated world but it shows how the human race constantly defeats itself.
On topic- One thing about having a variety of opinions is that at least some of these opinions are bound to conflict and mankind is pre-programmed towards violence to resolve these conflicts. Humanity has come very far in the past few years with staggering advances in micro-technology, nanotechnology, quantum physics, medicine, microbiology, zoology, genetics, combustion, nuclear technology, laser technology, communications technology, plastics-I could go on but it would be quite a long list. Okay so we don?t have personal jetpacks or a mars/lunar base but the ground work technology is there. In fact I would wager that if a corporation were to put their mind to it they could maybe not easily but quickly solve any outstanding issues (how to get to mars in under a year, how to supply fuel to jetpacks). The main problem are that no corporation would do it unless they judged it cost effective which is unlikely because currently it?s still cost effective to churn out overpriced and over hyped crap. As well as this mankind is in a constant arms race with itself meaning any new technology is quick re-designed or re-engineered into warfare purposes (if it didn?t start out as arms technology to begin with).
