I suppose that in a sense any non-playful attempt to change the state of affairs, whether directed at technical progress or not, is rooted in a "complaint": you imagine a possible future and judge that the current state of affairs is worse by comparison.

And you cannot simply ignore the present when you do this. Any attempt to bring that future about necessarily begins by taking stock of the resources available in the present: if you try to hike to a mountain peak without taking your gaze from that peak, you will stumble and twist your ankle. But that is not a judgmental, condemnatory way of perceiving the present; it is a factual evaluation of the means available to you in the present, similar to the factual evaluation of the possibilities that exist in a possible future.

So I don't know that I agree with your thesis that progress is rooted in dissatisfaction, though many people do.

> The amount of moaning we still have to do about this? If we fail at that task, this fire stuff will be sure to be the end of us.

This comment suggests to me that you do not yet adequately appreciate the risks of pervasive surveillance and precision-guided munitions, by comparison with which the risks of thermonuclear warheads pale.