Capitalism is the nature in which technology got naturally selected.

[citation needed]

You know its funny because almost all academic advancement has not been in a capitalist system.

What kind of academic advancement are you referring to? Marxism?

This sentence does not make any sense to me. Would you care to elaborate?

Technological progress is enabled by capitalism.

Is there any evidence of that claim available?

As a counterexample, I'd like to point out the Soviet space program.

Soviet spies were quite active and accomplished at stealing technological advancements from private firms in the West.

Spying is a regular part of being a government. Are you claiming that American spies didn't steal technologies from other nations?

Sure but what would they have to steal from the Soviets?! I mean the West had A/C, cars, color TV, computers and so on while USSR was struggling to feed its people. Reminds me of the old Soviet joke brilliantly included in the Chernobyl series:

"What’s as big as a house, burns 20 liters of fuel every hour, puts out a shit-load of smoke and noise, and cuts an apple into three pieces?

A Soviet machine made to cut apples into four pieces."

American memes aren't accurate history sources.

Soviets have had a very strong educational system, and a large number of scientists and engineers. Even mathematics, on which all the other science rests, was actively developed by the Soviet. E.g. Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov basically invented the modern probability theory.

To claim that their engineers have done nothing but wait for spies to come back with US knowledge is a little absurd.

How much of the technology in your car was developed by the Soviets? How about the last airliner you flew on? How about your computer? How about your phone? How about your TV? How about agriculture?

> American memes aren't accurate history sources.

I speak from my personal experience of being born and living the first part of my life under the horrors of communism.

> Is there any evidence of that claim available?

Yes, the techonology created by free market countries. The evidence abounds. Your computer, for example.

> As a counterexample, I'd like to point out the Soviet space program.

Yes, the Soviets did have some technological successes. But look around you. How much in your home is communist developed technology? I can't think of any in mine.