The Gra predicted the Holocaust. He said the book of Deuteronomy is divided into ten sections. Each section correspond to 100 years of the the 6th thousand year period. That starts at 1240. So 1939 is the very end of the section called "Ki Tavo" כי תבוא". The end of the section are the curses.
When he was explaining this to his disciple Rav Haim of Voloshin Rav Haim asked him where is the Gra himself hinted at in the Torah. He said אבן שלמה יהיה לך a perfect stone will be to you. [That is a stone use as a weight for measuring. "A perfect stone" is the letters Eliyahu ben Shelomo.  Taking this a bit further one can see that it is  a command of the Torah to walk in the path of the Gra since it says " a perfect Stone (the Gra) will be to you."

[This ends at 2240 AD. Then a new cycle will begin, I assume on Mars. But it could be that will be to the stars.]

mankind to the stars

SLS  and Starship are two kinds of starships that are now being used to bring men to the moon and Mars. But I have to say that I can see the importance of settling on Mars, but I would rather if mankind could go to the stars. In any way is that possible? Well, there is no way of knowing until the Physics is clear. Faster than light is out. So what is left is a Einstein-Rosen bridge [Worm Hole].
How could you get this? The only way is through string theory--branes.  String theory needs to be clearer in order to see if branes can do something like that. Branes are funny kinds of things because they are in fact like strings, but in other ways not like strings. That is they are not under space time. They are in space time just like strings. But things in space time can effect space time. For example Gravity. Another example is the Aahronov Bohm effect that effects easily the nature of empty space easily and simply.  [Just put a solenoid near the path of a charged particle. It effects the very nature of empty space.]
See this paper by Tentyukov printed in Russia which discusses a worm hole that is possible to transverse. That is when the metric is not flat.

B Minor w93

The debate between Kant and Hegel seems to have come down to a debate between McTaggart and Leonard Nelson with Dr Kelley Ross.
Most of philosophy of the 20th was trash as Robert Hana shows in excruciating painstaking rigorous detail.  In his book THE FATE OF ANALYSIS: Analytic Philosophy From Frege To The Ash-Heap of History,
So what is left after all others are gone? Hegel and and Nelson.

There are plenty of problems however with both. I can see why people like Ed Feser simply want to get back to philosophy of the Middle Ages--Aquinas's approach to Aristotle in particular.
But that does not seem like the best idea. See Thomas Reid's discussion of Berkeley. Though he disagrees it also seems clear he would not get back to Aristotle.

R.Yochanan said an idol that broke by itself is forbidden for use. Reish Lakish said it is allowed [to use. [e.g. to sell.]
The Gemara [avoda zara 41b] asks on R.L. from a mishna that a ground up idol is forbidden. Answer: a decree from the scribes since it might be found and used. Rather it must be thrown into the sea.
Ritva: the same question of the Gemara applies to R Yohanan. [meaning the case RY allows it i.e. when the idolater  himself nullifies it. Answer: יאוש שלא מדעת אינו יאוש giving up without knowledge is not giving up.
Rav Shach notes that this causes the original question of the Gemara to revert to RL without the benefit of the answer of the gemara.
He answers that both RL and RY agree that in fact an idol that broke by itself is no longer an idol from the Torah. All one can do is perhaps have a decree to forbid it.
My question here is that the original question of the Gemara assumes if a ground up idol is still forbidden then all the more so with the pieces still in tact. I simply am not sure how this was answered.

For some reason people do not take the problem with idolatry seriously. Clearly this was the reason the Gra signed the famous letter of excommunication and yet that fact is universally ignored.

The major reason the Gra signed the letter of excommunication clearly is because of the problem with idolatry. The problem with worshiping a corpse is certainly no worse than worshiping a statue.

And just because people put on black clothing is that supposed to imply that somehow or other that is equivalent to keeping the holy Torah? Or supposed to make them smarter or superior to others?
So we can surely see the Gra was right  and it is about time to start paying attention even though it is a bit late. Better late than never. The reason is the effects of ignoring idolatry is still with us.
And it is not just idolatry. Worship of the Sitra achra [Dark Side] is surely a more severe kind of idolatry.

"All men are created equal" is a fiction but very often believing a fiction is better than not doing so.
After all the fact that this is the core belief of the USA is better than the opposite that people are created unequal which opens to door to not nice things. You do want to treat people according to their actions.

And this is  a general principle. Sometimes believing in  a fiction can be helpful since it will help protect you from other fictions that might be much worse.