Thoughts about ruin and collapse

Yes, there does seem to be, of late, a heightened sense of foreboding, and thus more chatter about collapse. But I have to wonder how unusual it actually is. Haven’t there, for eternity, been guys walking around the megalopolises of civilization wailing and holding up signs saying “The End Times Are Near”?

And isn’t that because our complex civilization, with its attendant Technosphere, sitting atop the world of natural ecological limits and balances, hovering over the basic community of life, is felt by humans, on some level, to be blatantly unnatural? artificially fabricated, over-developed, in violation of those thrive-providing, perchance sacred, God-intended balances?

And, thus, almost . . . sinful? . . . warranting ultimate retribution, ruination, collapse . . . ??

Hasn’t that always been a subterranean intimation, deep in our psyches, since Sumer???