Re:Why are there so many humans?
by chadcmulligan on Thursday June 11, 2020 @10:01PM
(#23495243)
I look back to the 50's in the US (and most western countries I believe) - a time when science and education were respected and educating and housing the citizenry was the goal. As a result of this and other events the booms of the 70's occurred.
There seems to be a reversal of this - science is actively disregarded by a large part of the population, education is not respected, a large and growing part of the population is disenfranchised and so on. These are not good portents imho.
> It's why the never-ending expectations of our national demise and erosion, going all the way back to our formation, have always turned out so embarrassingly wrong. They're wrong now as well.
History has shown us that nearly every civilization that flourished and prospered also managed to vanish over a really short period of time. Societies are a lot more fragile than you would believe. American success is not based on some jingoistic manifest destiny; it is a country that has managed to get its fundamentals right. However, even the best prepared civilization can collapse in short order; its happened before, and there is no reason to believe it won't happen again.