Humanity currently possesses the capability to provide everyone their basic human needs (food, safe water, housing, sanitation, essential healthcare) and hunan rights, but not the willingness. People die preventable deaths because they lack access to basic, affordable healthcare while other people are getting plastic surgery. People are homeless all over LA and SF while QE printed trillions for Wall St. Doctors without Borders hospitals are bombed while Wolf Blitzer says ending war there is a "moral issue because it will cost US defense contractors jobs."
Ah, capability to feed, health care, etc., yes. We should be in a post-scarcity civilization with respect to basic needs. I seem to recall reading studies though that showed on a per-dollar basis, it was much better in the long term to boost the local economy rather than just give handouts in the form of food aid etc. However, my thought in response to that has always been that it frames the situation as though there were a choice between the two. My thinking is that if people are living in misery, poverty, disease, and death, why make this a choice? We can do both. It's a multi-decade project, but not intractable. It's also probably hopelessly optimistic, but I'm okay with failures that move the ball forward a bit.
I also think it is true that local economies have been devastated by hand outs. It's a complex issue but it's also not.
There is no real excuse here as far as human cognitive ability goes. The problem is with morality.
I think these examples show that as humanity goes forward I think moral integrity/intelligence/bravery is more important to develop than our purely technological and scientific capabilities.
