And yet you miss the entire point. I don’t deny that certain societies have made “progress” more than others, if we define progress in a particular way. And I can even grant your argument here: that science and freedom/liberty are important to that process, and social goods, generally speaking. And yet my point is, perhaps we might want to reconsider this notion of progress. After all, science made nuclear weaponry possible. Science has made possible the toxic chemicals that are poisoning the planet as we both sit here writing. The market and the state are implicated in that, by the way. So progress and science can be good to a point, but unless well regulated they also can bring a planet to the brink, as is the case with ours. Your definition of progress and advanced societies begins with the notion that technology = freedom = good = superior. I’m questioning not your notion of what produces more of that kind of superiority; rather, I’m questioning your taxonomy of superiority itself.