I agree. The threshold for becoming the “dominant species” of a planet is so low that the species still has its primal wiring for tribalism, competitiveness, etc. by the time it can build rockets. We humans should’ve had more time in the evolutionary oven to become more empathetic and cooperative for longer-term survival. Instead we have people willing (and able) to literally burn the world down to become richer or more powerful. And we have most of society cheering them on.
We’ve been on the verge of destroying ourselves for decades now, and humans have just barely started doing space stuff (a blink compared to the life of the universe). How in the world can anyone expect us to get to Dyson sphere levels of progress with how fragile our existence is?
The dairy industry and the meat industry are two sides of the same coin.