I love your train of thinking, I recommended this film, falling down, to my gen z daughter very recently and she loved it, she saw the implications of it (How could we not!).

We seem to be on similar theme, I don't know why this film came to my mind.

Your obsevation that the dream doesn't exist now is very apt, imho, but we have a slightly different view of the reason behind why its gone (for now).

The seventies and eighties was the time of maximum availabilitiy of energy to extract.

This was dominated by fossil fuels, but affects all things we might extract energy from, food is another biggie that we don't put in the same category, but should, imho.

Its all done by money.

Money is energy, and everything is energy. With money we have more or less everything.

Difficulty of extraction affects profit.

I had a chat with ChatGPT where we devised a torque converter fucntion, representing the relationship of difficulty of extraction of energy vs time, given difficulty of extraction is like a hill we are negotiating in a car with torque converter.

The hilll is getting ever steeper, and the torque converter is silpping more and more, losing more and more energy to heat.

When we plot this funtion, it looks like a stone thrown, with the highest point at the point of maximum availability, like you say around the seventies / eighties.

The circumstantial evidence I quote for this key period of our "progression", is loss of supersonic commercial air travel, (Concorde) and loss of reusable manned spacecraft (Shuttle), but there are many, I'm sure you know.

I am probably biased, because I did work in aerospace, I still have a lot of friends there. To me it looks like aerospace is the most energy sensitive industry we know.

Anyhow, the solution is domestic and communtiy solar hydrogen for all, activated by permanent solar indexed stimulus for all.

I think we will do that, when those at the top realise they have no choice.

Nature is forcing their hand, it seems to me, nature is at check, with one move left to mate.