This is an interesting point. I was born in East Europe "behind the iron curtain", but lived in the west for a long time. And then East Asia for even longer. T

This is an interesting point. I was born in East Europe "behind the iron curtain", but lived in the west for a long time. And then East Asia for even longer. There are huge differences in how people perceive "civilization" and how "trapped" they feel vs actually are. The west with its rigorous rules, both explicit and implicit. Regulation of every facet of your life, to a degree you don't realize (it's so natural! building permissions! driving permissions! marriage permissions! breath the air permissions! otherwise the world collapses!) until you've lived somewhere else. South East Asia with its reckless freedom, or downright anarchy (Thailand). The social pressure is applied more on the family level. There are few explicit regulations, and even where they do exist, you're half expected to ignore them. All of this is changing of course. As Gibson said, "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed". There is no doubt in which direction the civilization is moving. Individual human ingenuity is an outstanding achievement, but isn't evolution always oh-so-squinting toward larger, more integrated, more efficient structures? The game of entropy. The naive integration attempts in the 20th century didn't work out so well, but the pressure is building again. Maybe this time.