I would not rate the current news reporting as broad discussion. The discourse in the media is biased and not helpful with regard to the future.
It’s 80% parents complaining, bashing of food production plants, cooks going crazy and driving to the right edge of the spectrum. Reports of teens and young adults bashing glass on the week ends. All these reports burry the helpful discussions.
With regard to the scientific progress I have nothing to say as I’m not up to date. However producing high quality research takes some round trips to settle to an stable state. Nothing wrong with that process but the gained knowledge must be distributed back to the people. Currently this does not happen. Or: it happens and nobody is listening.
