I no longer believe in progress...

I'm a Star Trek fan. Scratch that. I love Star Trek. I love the hopefulness of Star Trek. I love the earnest joy Star Trek takes in mankind. I love the effusive optimism of Star Trek. I love everything about (good) Trek.The future Star Trek promises us is only achievable through progress. And I genuinely believe that if our culture, our society, and our nations were structured in a way that encouraged progress (which many of them used to be), there are human beings alive today who could live to see a Trek-like future.Probably not Klingons and Romulans, warp drives or transporters, per se... but the less sci-fi, more grounded social thinking behind Trek. The Paradise Earth.Maybe that makes me an optimist? Maybe that makes me a fool. I'll leave that for you to judge. But for a time through my young adulthood, a moment littered with Xbox 360s and Wiis, of monumental social moments like the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, of new identities coalescing around globe-spanning culture,…