We are going though iterations of societies/empires/cultures. Each round has the same issues but we get to learn from- and bring solutions from the previous one. The collective is much stronger than influential individuals but there has to be a collective will to change the game. It seems to me that we are more humanitarian than many previous cycles but I'm afraid we wont show much of an interest in [epic] game design until things get truly terrible. (Cheran pops to mind: That Mexican town of 16k that got rid of police, politicians and mobsters)

This time we did get game design down to an art with fine mechanics and cheap execution. Perhaps someone with a sharp pen can draw the parallels for us. Surely (if the will is there) it is easy to design something better than the stupid formula where we pretend Personal gain = Collective gain.