[quote=Randomizer post_id=226582 time=1615398502 user_id=172]
Much like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the barbarians are at the gates because they already live here. Trump accelerated the denial of science and rational thought so now opinion trumps facts.
[/quote]

It's not very PC to call Latin Americans barbarians.

Who knows, but there are definitely domestiic Barbarians testing the Democratic institutions of many western Democracies in my opinion.
Maybe a dangerous confrontation with the Totalitarian States is what is needed to re~educate disengaged citizens and the domestic Barbarians that Freedom is important.snd albeit imperfect, Democracies are the best form of government when compared to Totalitarianism.

Much like the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the barbarians are at the gates because they already live here. Trump accelerated the denial of science and rational thought so now opinion trumps facts.

[quote=MajorMitchell post_id=225380 time=1615238449 user_id=204]
A catastrophic global war is probably inevitable within the next ten or twenty years, barring miracles. The Omnipotent Christian or Muslim God will watch us and do.... Nothing.
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If so we can safely assume that Western Civilisation will last just as long as all the others ;). As for the will of God, who is to say it isn't another great flood event where Zeus decided to punish humanity for all the wickedness in the world and sent a flood that killed everyone except for King Deucalion and Pyrrha.

But I think that you are letting prejudice cloud your thinking. All you have to do is meet some Yanks to know that your narrative of selfish deluded idiots is not the case. Yank bashing is always fun, don't get me wrong, but you shouldn't go around actually believing it. It's the same with the French. It's a lot of fun to say that they're 3 eyed monsters who spend their entire lives urinating in the street, failing to wash, and having affairs with each other... when the reality is that they have just as many eyes as everyone else.

There's several factors involved in my opinion. The most critical is the destruction of the public education systems in the USA by conservative right wing forces. Well done. The world's superpower is fatally crippled, it's poorly educated manipulated masses cannot think critically, and they are indoctrinated with all the worst values, foremost is selfishness and the delusions about what is important, consumerism etc.
A catastrophic global war is probably inevitable within the next ten or twenty years, barring miracles. The Omnipotent Christian or Muslim God will watch us and do.... Nothing.

My default position is that of the idealist, yet despite that, I am starting to think that Western Civilisation is doomed.