That should be a new discussion.

You claimed that people ignore or outright oppose trying to accelerate the rate of technological advancement. Could it be instead that nobody has any idea how to do it?

Very, very possible.

An independent settlement seems quite beyond the possibilities of present and foreseeable technology.

I'm not saying its easy. I guess I calibrate my concept of foreseeable technology as sleeker, faster mobile devices being trivially predictable, fusion as possible, and general-purpose nanofactories as speculative.

On that scale, I would place permanent off-world settlements as closer than nanofactories, around the same proximity as fusion. Closer, since no new discoveries are required, only an enormous outpouring of resources into existing technologies.