Daft fucker - this was taken in England. England's empire collapsed ages ago and they've been trundling along just fine, thank you very much. There was no boom. There needn't be a boom.
The global economy of the entire human race - from the banking system, to the various stock and commodity exchanges - all of these depend on the common human belief that life in The Future will be better than it is now.
This is a relatively new idea. If you study the cultural history of - say the 1870's, or the 1770's - their idea of "progress" is radically different than the cultural juggernaut that had evolved by say 1920. From the 1950's with their Space Age - to the 1990-2000's with the rise of the internet and all this bullshit about the techno-singularity -- we have heavily invested in the belief that tomorrow will be better than today.
If and when the crunch of fossil fuel exhaustion really hits - or if any of the global weather disruptions caused by our 200-odd years of runaway fossil fuel use come home to roost -- humanity as a whole will have to re-think the entire foundation of its basis for hope because we will suddenly be faced with a very stark reality where the future is much nastier than our present.
And THAT is what I believe the poster is talking about. For my daughter's sake - I very much hope that the things I just mentioned don't happen in her lifetime. However, as a reader of world events - I very much fear that they will...
This is a relatively new idea. If you study the cultural history of - say the 1870's, or the 1770's - their idea of "progress" is radically different than the cultural juggernaut that had evolved by say 1920. From the 1950's with their Space Age - to the 1990-2000's with the rise of the internet and all this bullshit about the techno-singularity -- we have heavily invested in the belief that tomorrow will be better than today.
If and when the crunch of fossil fuel exhaustion really hits - or if any of the global weather disruptions caused by our 200-odd years of runaway fossil fuel use come home to roost -- humanity as a whole will have to re-think the entire foundation of its basis for hope because we will suddenly be faced with a very stark reality where the future is much nastier than our present.
And THAT is what I believe the poster is talking about. For my daughter's sake - I very much hope that the things I just mentioned don't happen in her lifetime. However, as a reader of world events - I very much fear that they will...