more profound than just the fall of a civilization

Idea that civilizations rise and fall.

In seeing the magnificence of the pyramids the Egyptians must have had a sense of forward motion, advancement, progress, development. The “Greatness of Egyptian Civilization” carries through Cleopatra and then it’s all decline … and the feeling in the streets must have been quite different … depressive, maybe even despondent. The “Glory That Was Rome” carries through Constantine, and then the feeling in the streets must have been quite different.

An indication of how the feeling can change: The smallpox and diptheria and polio vaccines were just about universally venerated as indications of advancement and progress. The Covid vaccine, rather, is getting a bad rap. Government: bad rap. Media: bad rap. In the streets: disgruntlement and distrust; disparagement and disrespect.

But this is not just the start of a decline of an empire [the United States has been the most dominant imperial power in all of history … far beyond, more global than, Rome, Spain, England]; not just the start of the fall of a civilization [modern Western Civilization].

It’s the beginning of the end of the period of anthropocene civilization in general … the latter being characterized by human domination of the biosphere, human “conquest of nature,” human totalitarian control of habitat: “terraforming;” hyper-development resulting in mega-cities, mega-states, mega-empires, mega-institutions, mega-technologies.

* * * *

Musk will see to it that, during his lifetime, a crew of humans will go to Mars. They’ll be stranded there. And then the folly of the endeavor will be recognized. That recognition will open the door to the more general and fundamental recognition of the folly of It All. And then there will unfold the Great Settling Back.