>Your focus on consumer gadgets is incredibly narrow and overlooks so many other things where innovation happens and brings true progress to the world.

I find the world worse than 30 years ago, so I'm doubtful about this "true progress". Our progress is just moving along without a clear goal.

>Also, you can't stop human curiosity and the drive to improve and compete.

You can cut off the economic motives for those things, which turn them from a human thing into an inhuman cut-throat compulsion.