Thanks, but I try to avoid politics as well. It seems mostly divide and conquer currently.

There will always be those enforcing social and cultural norms, as well as those pushing every boundary. Motor and steering.

As for religion, I didn't have a lot of pressure there, being Episcopalian. Though I did marry a Catholic teacher. Once a priest and in-law cornered me, but after a few minutes, he crossed himself and walked away.

As for prosperity, wouldn't you address economics directly, if that's the issue?

As I see it, people are linear, goal oriented creatures, in a cyclical, circular, feedback generated reality, so while markets need money to circulate, people see it as signal to extract and store, but a medium doesn't make a good store. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. Given it functions as a social contract, enabling society, storing the asset requires generating debt to back it.

The medium has become the message.

Among all the other issues, the financial markets couldn't function, without the government borrowing up trillions in surplus investment money. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth. The wars are just a burn pit. They are entirely driven by the bond market. Consider how the Depression was cured by World War 2, if you want to understand the last 75 years.

You have to understand causes, before you can cure the effects.

It's politics all the way down, but it's economics all the way up.

Knocking people for their cultural mythologies seems like a distraction. Especially when it's a form of anthropomorphism. It's pretty hardwired into the vast majority of people, as a sense making device and thus common denominator for cultural habits.