Celebrate progress - restore its popularity

AS A KINDERGARTEN student a half century ago, I read the same book over and over again, nearly every day. My favourite in our classroom's little library, it had a title imbued with confidence and promise: You Will Go to the Moon. Needless to say, I have not done so.

So I sympathise with science fiction writer Neal Stephenson and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, whose new books lament the demise of grand 20th-century dreams and the optimistic culture they expressed.

"I worry that our inability to match the achievements of the 1960s space programme might be symp…