What did they do for shelter in the previous century before those living standards had so much improved? Pile rocks on top of themselves at night?

But, OK, let's say, just for the sake of argument, I accept the notion Western multinationals have naught but the purest intentions in the perpetually "developing" but never "developed" world, just as I did the notion that the poverty, starvation and disease plaguing the majority of the world can be easily and inexpensively eliminated with existing technology. Even if the only obstacle is the ambition killing effects of international welfare and brutal Somali warlords eating Bill Clintons lunch, my point stands: Whether or not we CAN ensure "decent comfort" for most of the world, the fact is we DON'T do so for anything like a majority of the planet, because of the very flaws common to our species. We can indulge the conceit that those flaws are so uncommon in the West as to be incomprehensible in the West yet systemic in the Third World, if that makes us feel better, but they're still at the root of the very real problem, and all the technology in the world (literally) can't change that, because it hasn't.

MY admittedly limited experience, however, has been that people are pretty much people wherever you go; the cultural norms vary and they may not speak the same language, but they still like pretty girls and full bellies. Again, that's not really good or bad news, just the way it is. It can have negative as well as positive effects though, such as Western governments and multinationals propping up even the most "jealous, greedy or paranoid" "big wigs" who promise (sincerely or not) reliable access to valuable raw materials, energy and/or cheap labor. Calling that "stability", while strictly accurate, is a bit of a euphemism. A company may only get a couple nickels from spending ten grand to irrigate villages, but giving the local strong man the means to ventilate villagers is quite profitable if they're sitting on a lot of oil, diamonds or iron. Even if they aren't, the labor cost of a hundred ten year olds and an armed guard is amazingly low. Unsurprisingly, our governments habit of subsidizing things like that either for geopolitical ends or simply to satisfy demands of multinationals with no limits on campaign donations hasn't made any of us popular overseas. That's why I get to have conversations about the end of Americas manned space program that go like this:

Go to most places where people are held in impoverished subservience by the local bigwig and you usually can't swing a dead cat without hitting an American multinational or State Dept. keeping him in power with massive aid; often he's getting it from both as payment for the formers access to cheap, plentiful and valuable materials and labor and the stability the latter desires to maintain that cheap and lucrative commerce.

China's economic success has been dramatic, but didn't stop Tiananmen Square or stuff like this (note Yahoos role in helping Chinese authorities). It bought them a retrofitted Soviet aircraft carrier; that's about it. Remember, China was my first example of the miserable job we're bringing "decent comfort" to 2/3 of the 6 billion people we've got WITH fossil fuels, and thus a good argument we can't do it for 20 billion without fossil fuels. Driving to work in a fancy new car no Westerner would be caught dead in doesn't make doing it in a surgical mask and hoping YOU won't be caught dead criticizing the government "decent comfort". If a 1948 American read Orwell and concluded, "Wow, everyone in the future has a TV!" he badly missed the point.

In the generation or so since every US president has maintained Nixons policy of ignoring Chinas human rights abuse so American multinationals could reap huge profits opening plants there and closing them here, Chinas economy has flourished at Americas expense . Human rights abuses have, unsurprisingly, only gotten worse (but the government is STABLE!) and make Egypt look like an angry PTA meeting. Yet speaking of Egypt, long before the Obama administration withdrew support from Musharraf it was on the phone making sure the protesters didn't face any of the M-16s we've been selling him (to maintain stability) since he took over from Sadat in the '80s. In the interest of full disclosure I'll reiterate that I wasn't sold on Musharrafs departure (and still am not) because I feared it would only destabilize Egypt without reducing government oppression, but if you could promise me the former would accomplish the latter I'd host his going away party.

There's a lot more to it than just lack of ambition or diligence among natives whose callous and unscrupulous leaders keep them cowed. The strong men hand out plenty of bribes and are rife with corruption, but a lot of that corruption is based on bribes they RECEIVE from multinationals who can't make a dime off natives living in "decent comfort" but can and do make millions exploiting them, their nations natural resources or both. Western governments those multinationals fund even more heavily know that, too, and support the most reliable strong man directly or through military aid despite human rights records; in some cases, BECAUSE of them (e.g. the CIA recruiting Saddam to assassinate an Iraqi PM for the great crime of trying to nationalize the oil industry--which Saddam did anyway in the early '70s). In a word, it's human nature (OK, two words) and, no, I still don't think that presages a future with 100 quadrillion humans spread across a utopian Solar system any more than it's created a present with 6 billion spread over a planetary utopia. Again, even with fossil fuels most of humanity lives on the margins of existence NOW, and if the technology and will to change that exist, one can't help wondering why that promise remains forever in the making but never fulfilled.