> At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past

> At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past several hundred years. How do we recreate those conditions? The conditions were no different; likely they were worse (much worse depending on how far back you go). Read a detailed history of some past era and you'll see much that is similar to what you see today. It's a very conservative notion that we are somehow worse today, and that our ancestors were somehow greater. That pessimism, which includes pessimism about our ability to act as a community (i.e., about government), keeps us from moving forward: Many people buy it and won't even try. We can't build mass transit because people are sure we can't do anything. Our ancestors were very human (again, read that history), corrupt, confused, political, just like we are, but in many ways worse off because they didn't have the institutions they and their descendents built over the centuries, from democracy to civil rights to education. They did it; so can we. They had plenty of naysayers too. We've been given all that; handed it on a silver platter. What are we building for our descendents?