I like what you have to say in this part "Are these changes happening quickly enough to avert catastrophe? On paper, probably not... It is those wildcards that keep me going". Here's why. In my opinion, changes related to self-education and awareness/resistance to the controlled narrative are occurring due to technological changes. Having studied Ray Kurzweil's analyses of how technological progress advances at exponential rather than linear progressions, I believe that your hopes that it's all going to work out, in spite of the perceived slowness of the trend currently, is not ill placed. These things have a tendency to accelerate in their effects at the hip of the curve; and if you've been following another visionary like Stephen Pinker recently, you know that it's almost always to objectively positive effect on human quality of life. Using purely objective criteria, things are better than they've ever been for humanity, the technological drivers behind these positive changes are accelerating, and therefore we have lots to be hopeful about.