My thinking on this subject is based on this criteria: How do you measure success of an organism? Another way of putting it is how do you measure the fitness o

My thinking on this subject is based on this criteria: How do you measure success of an organism? Another way of putting it is how do you measure the fitness of an individual to its environment? The only thing that makes sense to me is by counting the offspring, or even better grand-offspring. Raising many offspring that are, in turn, able to raise many offspring, is proof of fitness. Similarly, on a larger scale, we can measure the success of a group of organisms by their birth rate. A declining birthrate is a sign that the group is no longer flourishing. Each generation is able to squeeze fewer and fewer copies of their genes through the barrier that separates one from the next. The barrier is comprised of the environment and the challenges of life that we are all faced with. The more copies of genes that make it through this barrier, the more successful the originals were at facing modernity. From this standpoint, it is clear that the dominant cultures of the world are in decline. They are tautologically doomed to fail because producing people is success, and they are not doing it well enough. If you want to know what the future will look like, look to the sub-cultures that are still producing many children. Children are the future.