An uplifting message for you.

https://lemmy.world/post/44094479

I feel like our whole lives here in the US we’ve been told to expect things to just generally keep getting better, seemingly forever. Like, that’s the narrative of “progress.” The economy just keeps growing, the nation just keeps getting richer, technology just keeps getting better, living standards just keep getting better, so forth and so on. But, that was probably never realistic, or even feasible. I mean, no civilization progresses forever. Essentially every civilization that’s ever existed has followed a pattern of ascension followed by decline. Many of the most notable civilizations ascended very quickly and dramatically, and then collapsed just as quickly and dramatically. Why should we expect to be any different? What makes us think we won’t follow the same pattern as basically every other civilization in history?
I think the problem is that, at some point, the powers that be decided that “better” is synonymous with “more appended zeroes”. We (and presumably any society) could ostensibly have kept growing indefinitely, provided we agreed that the ever-increasing personal wealth of the few (to the detriment of the many) does not constitute growth.