I agree. Especially since we don't exist in a vacuum. Speaking from an American perspective, if we don't change and innovate, we're going to have our lunch eaten by cultures that
do.
The rest of the world isn't going to twiddle their thumbs while we decide to placate everyone's egos. (I'd say 'letting Elon run amok in our government' falls in this category as well - it's clearly an ego thing for him as a donor stakeholder).