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Sure, jumping multiple levels on the technology tree is not easy, but a real world analog would be China, which has turned from a “backwater” to one of the biggest competitors.
… because they have access to the materials.
I feel like you just ignored the major factor in their statement because it conflicted with your point of view.
I am not sure why you think I skipped something.
Their point is, that we can’t make super awesome tech X because it requires awesome tech Y, and we can’t make Y because it requires cool tech Z.
My counterpoint to that is that yes, we may not have the technology, YET. But knowing it exists, we can acquire it a lot faster, than having to invent it ourselves. For example, China hasn’t started by building world leading electric vehicles, either. They started out as a cheap manufacturer of simple items and gradually accumulated more expertise in more and more advanced fields.
In case you are talking about raw materials? Let’s give Toni Stark a bit more sophisticated equipment than a stack of books to balance his particle accelerator on and I bet you he can fix that problem too.