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I like your post, Arbiter, basically my ideas, but said better than I would do it
Also, one more problem I see with the current system that it is becomming pretty decadent, people are losing perspective and only looking at small details around them, ignoring the big picture. Mass media supports that, by offering people what they want, so most of it is cheap unintellectual entertainment, not many documentaries on tv anymore. And that in turn makes people even more narrow-minded.
On the other side, some other mentalities and governments (China, India, Islamic world) have more perspective and unity.
I'll try to pull an analogy between Roman Empire and the USA today. After death of Julius Caesar and August, the society started to turn in on itself. There was no pressure from the outside, people were thinking only about their own problems, luxuries became more available...Old gods lost their importance, Roman agressive ideals were lost also... That situation, together with opressed peasants led to adopting Christianity as a side effect. There's no way christianity would have been adopted in rome 200 hundred years before. There were cults similar to christianity before, but they were irrelevant, due to strong national unity. The system started to grow weaker, there were many internal conflicts, but the system still functioned, more on inertia than anything else. Nut much more was achieved scientifically after that period also. Even later, about 200 AD, did it seem that there could be any other system in the world except the Roman Empire? And only 276 years later, primitive, unorganized tribes destroyed that world and made a new one. It was not due to their military might, although the Roman army wasn't what it was hundreds of years ago, it was due to decadence and corruption, it happened because people cared only about themselves, and not their country. The new world was not better, it was in fact worse in many ways, but a change did come, when 300 years ago it was unthought of, at least in that way.
USA has also gone through its pioneering years, there is no more threats from the outside, sort of a "pax romana" has been reached. People are becoming less interested about the world, education is suffering, the ideals of the american republic are either not the same, or used for corrupted purposes, so people don't have as much faith as they had in it 50 years ago. And also, here we have unsattisfied middle east, many primitive fanatical groups. But the problem is in the inside. Every now and then, a teenager gets a gun and starts shooting at everybody around him. Half the population has their own shrink, the other half is on pills. That is a sign of a society that is not functioning good anymore. Banning guns won't achieve much, the system must be changed. On the other hand people in the US are thinking mostly about what's going to be on the TV tonight. 13% of people aged 18-24 can pinpoint Iraq on a world map. The rest can't. And the situation is not improving, it is getting worse. Also, amount of scientific research and project is dropping. America abandoned its space program, mainly concerned about its wellfare and self susteinance, so now India and China are taking over.
So it seems for me that this system is also going to go forward for a while based on inertia, but sooner or later it will fall. Whether the new one will be better, I don't know.
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