- Political effort may accelerate it (as in the case of china), but barring war or disease, people with sufficient resources will just copy technology and improve their lives. And even large dedicated effort may be only partially successful, as in Africa [1,2,3].

- I was joking about flying cars but i don't understand your objection to them. Cars are a lot more dangerous; i 've never seen 2 birds collide.

- It's a good thing that people "don't appreciate" that what they have is all they could have; that's what generally drives things forward.

1. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-cnalp3t9UeS1QEfNt--ZG6ATQ...

2. http://lh4.ggpht.com/fhuebler/SCW62SGJMiI/AAAAAAAAAU4/nIiCXa...

3. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Li...