kac-moody groups generalize lie groups but are typically infinite dimensional. this defense will quickly introduce discrete and topological kac-moody groups and outline a direct comparison between complex topological kac-moody groups and discrete kac-moody groups over the algebraic closure of the field with p elements. this result uses newly constructed homotopy decompositions for the "unipotent" factors of parabolic subgroups of a discrete kac-moody group in terms of unipotent algebraic groups. additional applications will be given and the topics of infinite coxeter groups, bn-pairs, and root group data systems will be visited.