“Time is a flat circle,” as they say. (I heard it from Jonah Goldberg, but he was quoting someone else.)
Imagine how it was for people in pre-industrial societies. For centuries in, say, Egypt, one generation followed another with the same view, the same annual cycle, the same technology. Your life was basically identical to your great-great-great grandparents’ lives.
Then consider the changes in just your lifetime. It’s no wonder humanity as a whole is going loo-loo.
I don’t think much has changed, really. Just the way humanity messes things up has changed.
And maybe the speed at which we can do it.
But our tendency to take a good thing and make it rotten is still what it was for all of recorded history.
The changes in just my lifetime compared to my parents’ lifetimes are exponential.
And then I think of the Pioneers...I really want to go to Omaha and see the Pioneer Cemetery there.