Category Archives: Decline of the west

Over valuing private goods and undervaluing public goods

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Capitalism, Decline of the west, Social democracy, Social Justice

 

 

For a long time, it has been my opinion that people under value pubic goods and over value private goods. For example, good schools, hospitals, libraries, parks and many others are really important and valuable.  One of the problems with some rich people, like those who bought condos in the missile silos of Salina Kansas, was that most of these privileged people no longer recognize the benefits–the mutual benefits–provided by the commons. They have either forgotten how important they are or they never realized it.  They really believe only private goods count. Only private goods are really good. Public goods are irrelevant.  Robert Johnson who Osnos interviewed for his  New Yorker article realized  this was not the case. He said,

“If we had a more equal distribution of income, and much more money and energy going into public school systems, parks and recreation, the arts, and health care, it could take an awful lot of sting out of society. We’ve largely dismantled those things.”

 

It is difficult to discern why the privileged are so fearful. What do these ultra-wealthy people have to fear? If money does not buy happiness, surely it buys security. If one thought that, one would be wrong. As Osnos reported,

“As public institutions deteriorate, élite anxiety has emerged as a gauge of our national predicament. “Why do people who are envied for being so powerful appear to be so afraid?” Johnson asked. “What does that really tell us about our system?” He added, “It’s a very odd thing. You’re basically seeing that the people who’ve been the best at reading the tea leaves—the ones with the most resources, because that’s how they made their money—are now the ones most preparing to pull the rip cord and jump out of the plane.”

In other words if people valued the common good as much as they valued their own private good, there might be a lot less anxiety.  When the über rich are so fearful it really make you wonder about the stability of the system. Do they know something the rest of us don’t know? Or it that guilt poisons their perception? Or do they just not understand what is important?

Sometimes the most. important things we have are the things that we share.

 

 

A Deeper Crisis

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Capitalism, Decline of the west, Social democracy, Social Justice

It is also interesting how the privileged classes have selected things to worry about.  As Evan Osnos reported in his New Yorker article:

 

“Élite anxiety cuts across political lines. Even financiers who supported Trump for President, hoping that he would cut taxes and regulations, have been unnerved at the ways his insurgent campaign seems to have hastened a collapse of respect for established institutions. Dugger said, “The media is under attack now. They wonder, Is the court system next? Do we go from ‘fake news’ to ‘fake evidence’? For people whose existence depends on enforceable contracts, this is life or death.”

 

It is also interesting how the privileged classes have selected things to worry about.  As Osnos reported

 

“Robert A. Johnson was another person that Osnos interviewed.  He saw the fear of his peers as “the symptom of a deeper crisis.”[2]  I agree with that. I too see the fear as a manifestation of fundamental unease about their place in modern society. They are unmoored and their wealth, which often is extreme wealth, is not able to fill the void. Johnson was the manager of a hedge fund. He was also the head of a think tank. He called himself “an accidental student of civic anxiety.”From my own career, I would just talk to people. More and more were saying, ‘you’ve got to have a private plane. You have to assure that the pilot’s family will be taken care of, too. They have to be on the plane.’ ”

 Johnson saw the fear of his peers as “the symptom of a deeper crisis.”  I agree with that. I too see the fear experienced by the über wealthy as a manifestation of fundamental unease about their place in modern society like those who bought condos in a concrete missile silo in Kansa. They are unmoored and their wealth, which these days often is extreme wealth, is not able to fill the void. Johnson was the manager of a hedge fund. He was also the head of a think tank. He called himself “an accidental student of civic anxiety. More and more wealthy people were telling. him, ‘you’ve got to have a private plane. You have to assure that the pilot’s family will be taken care of, too. They have to be on the plane.’ ” Escaping the apocalypse is not easy.

Osnos analyzed this situation this way,

“By January, 2015, Johnson was sounding the alarm: the tensions produced by acute income inequality were becoming so pronounced that some of the world’s wealthiest people were taking steps to protect themselves. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Johnson told the audience, “I know hedge-fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway.”

Johnson is like some other wealthy people that have not entirely lost their sense of empathy or their sense of justice. Osnos described their situation this way,

“Johnson wishes that the wealthy would adopt a greater “spirit of stewardship,” an openness to policy change that could include, for instance, a more aggressive tax on inheritance. “Twenty-five hedge-fund managers make more money than all of the kindergarten teachers in America combined,” he said. “Being one of those twenty-five doesn’t feel good. I think they’ve developed a heightened sensitivity.” The gap is widening further. In December, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a new analysis, by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, which found that half of American adults have been “completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s.” Approximately a hundred and seventeen million people earn, on average, the same income that they did in 1980, while the typical income for the top one per cent has nearly tripled. That gap is comparable to the gap between average incomes in the U.S. and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the authors wrote.”

If you are the fortunate beneficiary of such largesse, it is difficult to believe that that such extreme inequality is justified. It takes a special kind hubris. Or perhaps blindness. The result is fear that some day that injustice might be rectified.

Apocalypse Insurance

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Decline of the west, Social democracy

 

There are different types of apocalypse insurance. Pascal said you should bet on Christianity. Many of the über rich, like those who purchased condos in a former Titan missile silo near Salina Kansas, believe that money can buy you anything. Everything is for sale. After all, if your own soul has been sold, everything must be for sale.

 

No one knows exactly how many wealthy Americans have bought into the fear that the west is headed towards a Russian style revolution event, but the numbers are not insignificant. Many of them see New Zealand as a refuge. It is far enough out there to satisfy them. Evan Osnos, writing about this phenomenon for the New Yorker, asked Steve Huffman the 33-year-old founder of Reddit to estimate what share of fellow Silicon Valley billionaires have acquired some level of “apocalypse insurance,” in the form of a hideaway in the U.S. or abroad.  He guessed 50%. That is pretty good chunk of the wealthy.

One of the things that scares survivalists and also that scares me is Artificial intelligence.  “The fears vary, but many worry that, as artificial intelligence takes away a growing share of jobs, there will be a backlash against Silicon Valley, America’s second-highest concentration of wealth.”  Many of them, like Huffman asked “Is the country going to turn against the wealthy? Is it going to turn against technological innovation? Is it going to turn into civil disorder?”

There is something inherently barbarous about ultra  rich people taking such extreme measures to protect themselves from hazards that their own reckless disregard for benefits to other classes has wrought. Max Levchin, a founder of Paypal and of Affirm, a lending start-up, admitted this to Osnos, when he acknowledged,

“It’s one of the few things about Silicon Valley that I actively dislike—the sense that we are superior giants who move the needle and, even if it’s our own failure, must be spared.”

It shows the deep injustice of their wealth and the deep justice of their fears! If only these multi-millionaires and worse spent some of their money helping others, or even if they moderated the exploitation of workers and the system in their own favor, and spent less time worrying about how they can survive the impending troubles a solution to the problems might actually be found. That is perhaps the saddest thing about this profoundly sad movement.

Levchin told Osnos that he prefers to shut down cocktail party discussions on the subject by asking people instead,

“So you’re worried about the pitchforks. How much money have you donated to your local homeless shelter?’ This connects the most, in my mind, to the realities of the income gap. All the other forms of fear that people bring up are artificial.”

In his view, this is the time to invest in solutions, not escape.

“At the moment, we’re actually at a relatively benign point of the economy. When the economy heads south, you will have a bunch of people that are in really bad shape. What do we expect then?”

We can try to escape or we can try to solve the problems we face. Which makes more sense?  When the wealthy and powerful are overcome by fears, this a  pretty good sign of decline. Or even collapse.

Investing in Escape or Solutions?

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Decline of the west, Social democracy

 

Well now that I have concluded a 10 day meander through the films nominated for the Best Picture, it is time to meander back to the issue I was dealing with. That was the startling fact that very wealthy people have been buying up condo units in an old Titam missile silo near Salina Kansas which Chris and drove near to on our trip to Arizona. I have been more than puzzled by this extraordinary phenomenon. I have mused that I thought the fears of the wealthy had a connection to guilt.  Guilt breeds paranoia. Evan Onos wrote a fascinating article about this phenomenon in the New Yorker magazine which I have been drawing on.

 

While most captains of industry are unable to see anything that is not in their own immediate advantage, a few, a rare few, do recognize that there are vulnerable people out there who have been screwed by the system and many of them may seeks “solutions” to their problems that may involve insurrection, as far-fetched as that may sound to some of us. As Robert H. Dugger, a lobbyist for the financial industry told Evan Osnos, “Anyone who’s in this community knows people who are worried that America is heading toward something like the Russian Revolution.”  When you hear that you must conclude the guilt is oozing out of control.

 

Many of the über  rich think, as the aristocracy of France did before the French Revolution that the poor can eat grass. Others fear revolution that might upset their privileges. Dugger said,  “People know the only real answer is, fix the problem,” he said. “It’s a reason most of them give a lot of money to good causes.” At the same time, though, they invest in the mechanics of escape.” Investing in justice is just something that does not come naturally to the super-rich. It is the last thing they think of. Escape is something that leaps to mind.

Elite fantasies of escape are often exactly that–fantasies. There are all kinds of logistical problems. Many of the wealthy cannot see these problems. They assume there must be a way for them to escape. Can’t money solve all problems? After all they deserve that escape. They have earned that right to escape. So at least they think. Why do they have all this money if they can’t use it to escape. That is the only form of justice many of them understand.

Dugger told Osnos about a lavish dinner in New York City after 9/11 and the bursting of the dot-com bubble, “A group of centi-millionaires and a couple of billionaires were working through end-of-America scenarios and talking about what they’d do. Most said they’ll fire up their planes and take their families to Western ranches or homes in other countries.” One of the guests was skeptical, Dugger said. “He leaned forward and asked, ‘Are you taking your pilot’s family, too? And what about the maintenance guys? If revolutionaries are kicking in doors, how many of the people in your life will you have to take with you?’ The questioning continued. In the end, most agreed they couldn’t run.” You can run, but you can’t hide.

It is also interesting how the privileged classes have selected things to worry about.  As Osnos reported,

“Élite anxiety cuts across political lines. Even financiers who supported Trump for President, hoping that he would cut taxes and regulations, have been unnerved at the ways his insurgent campaign seems to have hastened a collapse of respect for established institutions. Dugger said, “The media is under attack now. They wonder, Is the court system next? Do we go from ‘fake news’ to ‘fake evidence’? For people whose existence depends on enforceable contracts, this is life or death.”

 

All of this shows that guilt can lead to paranoia.  If you fear that the tables will turn, no ideas are too far out there.

 

Banshees of Inisherin

art, civilization, Decline of the west, Ireland, Movies, violence

 

 

 

This film shows how easy people can become estranged and how easily that estrangement, even among friends, can lead to violence. In this case shocking violence. Perhaps nowhere is that better understood than Ireland where former friends and neighbours have repeatedly come to blows, and worse, over minor disagreements. Sometimes the more minor the disagreement the more deadly the response to disagreement.

Ireland generates drinkers, great writers, and violence.  That is a potent brew. And it can be a toxic brew. It was in the case of Pádraic (played by Colin Farrell) and Colm played by (Brendan Gleeson).  I might add played brilliantly in both cases.

The movie opens with a sharp rupture between the two friends. The rupture occurs in a dark and dank Irish pub. How do I know it is dank?   It takes place in Ireland. Moreover, I can feel it. It must be dank.

The film takes place on the fictional island of Inisherin on the coast of Ireland and mainly in the homes of each of the protagonists and the nearby pub where, as good Irishmen they must sojourn. The setting is Ireland in 1923 when the Civil War was already firing separating erstwhile friends so the rupture here is merely a piece of the main. Occasionally shots are heard from the battle. But no explanation is offered.  Pádraic says he doesn’t even know what they’re fighting about, just like he doesn’t know why Colm is bent on separating from him and then going to such violent extremes to do it. That is how disputes so often go.

As in all art the particular is universal. Ireland is saturated with violent separations. So are the parties on Inisherin. Violence is inevitable. And so is the legendary mythic banshee cry that follows.

Notwithstanding the dankness of the pub, the pub is the heart and hearth of western civilization. Well at least Irish civilization. It is what civilization is all about. Convivial conversation and interesting music (art really) in the midst of darkness. An interesting feature of Irish pub music, which I love, is the democracy of it.  When I was in  Irish pubs it was explained to me that anyone can join the group of musicians sitting on chair in a corner, ignoring the audience. But in this case the civilizational aspect of it was broken by Colm abruptly breaking off the relationship with his friend Pádraic. He claims to do it to preserve his art. He feels he cannot take the time out from his art to spend time witha dullard like  Pádraic. But the severance seems deeply wrong. After it happens, Pádraic’s best friend is a donkey.

There is an interesting side bar involving a simple young man, Dominic, who is being beaten and abused by his brute of father. This is another parallel severance that results in violence with Dominic eventually found floating dead in the water. The cause of death is not clear, but he might have taken his own life. Once more no explanation is offered.

Pádraic  and his sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon)  both have little respect for Dominic as they think he is dull, echoing Colm’s views about  Pádraic. Dominic also asks her for a date but is rejected, just like Pádraic was rejected. Both rejections lead to violent deaths, suggesting that this is the common result of the severance of a relationship.

Throughout the film Pádraic runs into a quirky old woman who seemingly knows all the town gossip but is hungry for more. This is Mrs. McCormick (played by Sheila Flitton) and perhaps she is the banshee in the movie title.  According to Irish folklore a banshee is a wailing woman who signals an impending death. She seems bizarre and eerie befitting a banshee. And death does follow her.

In this way that convivium of the small community is shattered, selfishly and inexplicably but viscerally real. And what follows when the sense of belonging is wrenched apart is fierce violence. Again, that is something Ireland is quite accustomed to, but it is difficult to witness even in a film.  It is pungent barbarism. They may have forgotten why they are fighting but that does not heal the wounds.

I thought this was a fine film, well deserving of its accolades.

 

Logical Fear

Decline of the west, Fear, racism, Social democracy

 

As we drove through Salina Kansas where rich people have bought bunkers in an old missile silo to protect them from the impending chaos, I asked myself, for them what might that be?  I asked myself, ‘What generates fear among rich people”?  Particularly what triggers fear among rich white people?  I think the answer is obvious. They fear African Americans because they know they have the objects of horrific injustice that has never been remedied or compensated, and in many cases even acknowledge.

 

The election of Barack Obama led to a spike in survivalism. Many of white Americans feared (and this is the operative word) that as a black President he would ignite racial tensions because expectations of Blacks would rise too high and too fast. They thought Obama would react by restricting gun rights and expanding the national debt. Many of them loaded up on freeze-dried cottage cheese and beef stroganoff that had been promoted by Glen Beck and Sean Hannity. As Osnos reported, “A network of “readiness” trade shows attracted conventioneers with classes on suturing (practiced on a pig trotter) and photo opportunities with survivalist stars from the TV show “Naked and Afraid.” The fear of American whites—based on the fear of the tables being justifiably turned over against them—is a deep and pervasive fear. Such fear is a is a well spring of racism.

 

Not all survivalists think collapse is about to happen soon. Many of them take the position that the risk of catastrophe is so severe if a political collapse occurs that the smart betters will take precautions. They are playing the odds. As one of the techies told Evan Osnos The New Yorker writer, “Most people just assume improbable events don’t happen, but technical people tend to view risk very mathematically.” He continued, “The tech preppers do not necessarily think a collapse is likely. They consider it a remote event, but one with a very severe downside, so, given how much money they have, spending a fraction of their net worth to hedge against this . . . is a logical thing to do.”

 

To them,  in other words is fear is logical. It is not paranoia it is a reasonable fear.  Such fear may be unreasonable. By definition, it that is correct this is  not paranoia. One C.E.O. of another large tech company told Osnos, “It’s still not at the point where industry insiders would turn to each other with a straight face and ask what their plans are for some apocalyptic event…He went on, “But, having said that, I actually think it’s logically rational and appropriately conservative.”

I think it is a sign of the decline of western civilization.  The rich elites are losing their confidence. Do they know something we don’t?

 

Riding out the Apocalypse

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Decline of the west, Fear

 

We didn’t stop in Kansas, but I am stuck there metaphorically near the silos occupied by the fearful rich. That phenomenon really puzzles me. It calls to mind what the Eagles said, “every form of refuge has its price.”

Antonio Martínez was very rich and wanted a refuge far from cities, but he did not want to be too far off the grid either. As he said, “All these dudes think that one guy alone could somehow withstand the roving mob,” he said. “No, you’re going to need to form a local militia. You just need so many things to actually ride out the apocalypse.” It won’t be simple to “ride out the apocalypse.”

Martínez thinks that Americans are in a difficult position. As he said, “I think people who are particularly attuned to the levers by which society actually works understand that we are skating on really thin cultural ice right now.”

 Evan Osnos writing in the New Yorker described these wealthy survivalists this way,

“In private Facebook groups, wealthy survivalists swap tips on gas masks, bunkers, and locations safe from the effects of climate change. One member, the head of an investment firm, told me, “I keep a helicopter gassed up all the time, and I have an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.” He said that his preparations probably put him at the “extreme” end among his peers. But he added, “A lot of my friends do the guns and the motorcycles and the gold coins. That’s not too rare anymore.”

 

Another wealthy forty-four-year-old managing director at Mayfield Fund, a venture-capital firm, Tim Chang, said this,

“There’s a bunch of us in the Valley. We meet up and have these financial-hacking dinners and talk about backup plans people are doing. It runs the gamut from a lot of people stocking up on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, to figuring out how to get second passports if they need it, to having vacation homes in other countries that could be escape havens… I’ll be candid: I’m stockpiling now on real estate to generate passive income but also to have havens to go to… Oh, my God, if there is a civil war or a giant earthquake that cleaves off part of California, we want to be ready.”

 

Chang called this a “terror scenario.”  That phrase is apt. People like Chang and his cronies live in fear. They are terrified. They fear that soon the gig will be up. Chang also realizes that he will need more than caches of food and gear. He will need weapons to defend himself and his family. To protect his wife and daughter, he said, “I don’t have guns, but I have a lot of other weaponry. I took classes in archery.” Archery that ought to do the trick.

Some of these guys are young yet incredibly rich (even though many also seem incredibly stupid). Welcome to modern America. One of them is Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which was valued at six hundred million dollars. Not bad for a 33-year-old, but he was not happy. He was scared shitless! Osnos says that some of these survivalists are in it for “brogrammer” entertainment. They like the real-world sci-fi with fancy (and expensive gear).  Others like Huffman treat it much more seriously. He has been scared ever since the saw the film “Deep Impact” in 1988. That film depicted a comet striking the Atlantic causing a massive tsunami. As Huffman said, “Everybody’s trying to get out, and they’re stuck in traffic. That scene happened to be filmed near my high school. Every time I drove through that stretch of road, I would think, I need to own a motorcycle because everybody else is screwed.”

I remember seeing scenes like that north of New Orleans when people fled the city to avoid the dangers of Hurricane Katrina. The roads were clogged with traffic as people fled in mass.

After that film in 1988 “Huffman  has been a frequent attendee at Burning Man, the annual, clothing-optional festival in the Nevada desert, where artists mingle with moguls. He fell in love with one of its core principles, “radical self-reliance,” which he takes to mean “happy to help others, but not wanting to require others.” I would call this radical fear. Paranoia in other words.

 It is such fear that breeds conspiracy theories as Richard Hofstaeder pointed out in his class The Paranoid Style in American Politics. That spirit is alive an well. Really not so well.

 

Turning the Tables

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Decline of the west

 

It felt a bit strange driving our car through Kansas where the super rich have built their shelter from the storm in an old Titan missile silo.  About 9 years ago we had toured a Titan silo converted into a museum in Green Valley Arizona. During the cold war the US had 2 secret silo sites. One in Salem Kansa and the other in Green Valley. What made the super-rich think it made sense to buy a condo in a missile silo? What kind of a life would they have there?

I think many of the super-rich fear what Quentin Tarantino emphasizes in many of his films–i.e. the turning of the tables. In many of his films a very evil man tortures an innocent man and later in the film the tables are turned and the innocent man gets the chance to impose revenge for the injustice. I think that is exactly what many rich Americans feel deep in their corroded souls. A guilty conscience can generate a lot of fear.

In America many rich people have wealth beyond any imagination. And the greater the wealth the deeper the unconscious belief that such wealth is not justified and that justice might be served sometime soon.

In 2016 a toxic Presidential election campaign revealed these fears starkly.  Fearful people voted for Trump who promised to build a wall to keep them safe from “rapists and murderers.”  They feared the carnage Trump warned about.  Americans zealously bought that up.

Antonio Martínez a rich 40-year-old former Facebook manager bought 5 wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest, and then bought generators, solar panels, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. He was preparing for the inevitable. His explanation was that “When society loses a healthy founding myth, it descends into chaos” That makes some sense, but what do you do about? Buy a luxury shelter in a concrete silo?

I interpret such a loss of confidence as a sign of civilizational collapse. iIs that a prelude to the grand finale?

 

Unreasonable Fear of the Super-rich

Decline of the west, Fear, Social democracy

 

Paranoia is one of the least appreciated yet most significant emotions in the United States today.  As Richard Hofstadter explained decades ago in his book based on an earlier article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, paranoia is the basis of one of the things that is undermining the country as it reinforces conspiracy theories.  America is a fearful country and that fear manifests itself in many strange ways.

What is paranoia? It is unreasonable fear. We all have fears and many of us also have unreasonable fears. Disaster can flow from unreasonable fears if they are not constrained. America has experienced this repeatedly. It experiences it now. There are many examples of the power of unreasonable fears.  This morning we drove near to one of them

An ancient Titan missile site is located near Salina Kansas close to the Nebraska border.  It was one of two such sites in North America during the Cold War. The other was located in Green Valley Arizona where Chris and I lived for a month a couple of years ago when we first enjoyed an extended stay in the American south in winter. That missile site was turned in to a museum. We toured it with friends John Wiebe and Margaret Daley-Wiebe.

The second site near Salina where we drove today, is being developed as a security haven for the super-rich of America. It is astonishing, but these are among the most fearful people in America. You would think they had nothing to fear. After all, what can harm the super-rich?

As Evan Osnos said in an article for The New Yorker, “Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.” Sometimes the practitioners of this art are called survivalists, because they hope to survive what they see as the inevitably impending doom. They hope to survive something that is intuitively unsurvivable. Full disclosure I fear the same thing but have not invested a fortune is finding a way to survive it.

 

As Osnos said,

 

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

 

 

I am fascinated that this is being developed by the very rich. Why is that? I don’t know, but I have a theory. I think the rich in America live in fear.  They fear that their wealth will crumble and they will be left to their own devices among drug crazed hooligans out to get them and their families and their wealth. In fact, I think (entirely without evidence of course) that this fear emerged out of a sense of guilt. Guilt is the existential edge of unreasonable fear. American society–and American wealth in particular–is based on 2 ultimate horrendous injustices. The first was the genocide of Indigenous peoples that the first European settlers encountered in the New World. The second was the astonishingly long imposition of slavery on African-Americans. Immigrants from Africa as Ben Carson famously called them. That injustice leads to guilt, which leads to fear. Many rich Americans are incredibly fearful.

 

Under-staffed or over-peopled?

Decline of the west

 

On or third day of the journey down south, we stopped for lunch at MacDonalds in Kansas. Dining in style in other words. I knew Chris was actually sick as she consented to my suggestion to dine there. While we were there, I noticed an advertisement for help wanted. They were advertising $15 (American of course) for new employees plus benefits largely undefined. Management would be paid health insurance benefits. This sounded like pretty good pay for new employees.

 

During this trip to the south of the United States, we repeatedly saw restaurants with severely understaffed servers. One server told us they were not “overstaffed, they were “over-peopled.” This was not a problem at this MacDonald’s. they were clearly fully staffed. MacDonalds knew they have to respect their staff with more than lip-service.

 

There was no surliness evident here. Maybe society is not collapsing after all. Maybe there is a better way.

There are ways to prevent the decline of civlization.