Interesting Carl Sagan quote you had there. I must learn more about him. I keep seeing interesting quotes from him.
As to root causes. If you have followed my writing earlier you may already know that I am quite political. I don't think the world moves towards the dark ages in a deteministic fashion. I think it comes down to policy choice we make and how those choices work their way through society eventually.
I outlined some of these thoughts in my criticism of libertarianism: https://erik-engheim.medium.com/why-libertarianism-can-never-work-c33cea1f8124
Economist Thomas Piketty demonstrated this in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century how inequality is bound to grow unless we implement policies against it.
And I believe inequality is at the heart of most of these problems. Inequality tends to cause polarization and radicalization. People want to find somebody and something to blame for their condition. Meanwhile inequality also casues enormous wealth and power to accumulate within a business elite which may not always have the best interest of society at heart.
I am from Norway which is a social democracy but I have also lives in the Netherlands and the US as well as spent a lot of time in the UK. To me social democracy seems like a real solution that actually works. It really lower conflict in society and avoid the polarization one can see increasing both in the US and the UK.
I don't think you can build a stable society by ignoring the common man and focusing alone on the richest or the most brilliant and smart people. It doesn't matter how smart scientists or brilliant universties one has, if one fails to educate properly the less privileged.
And I don't think education is alone about schools. I have long been puzzled and intrigued by how the US can have so many people so poorly informed about the world despite being one of the first countries to give a large fraction of their population higher education.
When my parents generation was the first in their family to go to high-school, Americans had the same stories about their parents being the first to go to college.
This was a qonandrum that long puzzle me. I thought a lot about it while traveling around the US and meeting people. This is my speculation based on my observation: The strong capitalist drive in the US has caused consumer culture to replace culture itself. I noticed how rare it was for people to read newspapers and books even in families with children going to college.
I also notice how politicians, pundits and other people in US media almost never talk about the importance of reading or celebrate reading. In Norway there is a very different feel. We are not intellectuals like the French, but we have a braod culture of reading for fun. Not necessarily high brow stuff, but at least regular people read.
And it is something you always hear pushed. Part of htis is also because our enteritainment has not been all commercially driven. The state broadcaster NRK has had a mission to cover broad ranges of interest useful to every narrow interest group. The goal has not been to make block busters selling as much as possible.
It has pros and cons. I was blown away by American entertainment as a kid as some of our stuff could be a bit drab and pedagocial at times. NRK would never show anything related to conflict or violence. As a boy I loved all the American action based cartoons.
But still if all you chase is simple fast working entertainment then you loose something. I see the same problem with myself today. I used to read a lot. Now I am sucked in every more by youtube, Netflix etc. It is like eating candy for the brain. It is easy and digestable.
It is a bit of the problem with markets I think. It tries too hard to give us what we crave rather than what we need. Maybe we crave a cheeseburger, but we ought to eat chickens and beans instead or something.
A society only built around satisfying craving, I don't think can work out in the end. That is part of the reason I am a social demcorat and believe that collectively as citizens we must come together to create systems nudging people more into health directions.
It is possible. I lived 3 years in the Netherlands. They delierately came together as a society starting in the 1970s and build an amazing biking infrastructure which transformed society. The deliberate discourage bitg malls and big box stores. The result was that biking in the Netherlands was to me the most amazing thing ever. A absolutely loved it. You could so easily bike to friends, groccery store, university, movie theatres or anything. And I got in better health and shape.
But none of that would have been possible through a market. You can go into a store and buy a bike, but you cannot go into a store and buy a bike lane. It is a collective decision. You have to actually work through government to make it work.
Sorry, I am quite far off from the original question. How do we avoid descending into a dark age? Bottom line is that I don't think you can leave people to their own devices in a hyper commerical society.
