I think we're simply an empire in decline. We stopped investing in ourselves a long time ago. Economists say real growth and innovation stopped around 1971. Me

I think we're simply an empire in decline. We stopped investing in ourselves a long time ago. Economists say real growth and innovation stopped around 1971. Meanwhile the past 2 decades are defined by 9/11, the war on terror, the 2008 crash, the 2016 election, and most recently covid. None of which we've fully recovered from. All along this downward trend we've been searching for ways to rebound, but our options present new dilemmas. While our discoveries have enabled us to reap incredible rewards, we now also have many different ways to self extinguish. Assuming we can avoid extinction, our options are fairly dystopic. We could use the internet to better organize ourselves like China. But this comes at the cost of privacy, free speech, and many individual liberties. We could use CRISPR and RNA breakthroughs to create a health revolution. But this is a slippery slope to eugenics. Maybe general AI can be our savior? But self anointed prophets like Elon musk think otherwise. We're at a crossroads where we can't decide on the path forward nor can we go back to the old ways. Society has implicitly decided that religion and capitalism have failed us, and are therefore not viable options. Boomers continue to cannibalize new generations to enrich themselves. They have completely boxed out Gen X, not to mention millenials and Gen Z. Meanwhile these are all just the societal issues. We still have to plan for the energy cliff and climate change. In order to forecast our own decline, we can look to the UK which is still going through its "declining empire" phase. Overall they made out pretty well, things aren't perfect and they don't have the same influence as in their glory days, but they still enjoy plenty of 1st world benefits. But one key difference that concerns me compared to the US is that the UK has a stronger sense of national identity. The USA national identity has always been fragile, and I fear there's a good chance we tear ourselves apart on the way down. History tells us these cycles are inevitable, but collapse isn't all the way to zero. We'll find a way as others have before us. It's simply our turn to learn to live with it.