The path we’ve taken was definitely not inevitable, just like the path a ball takes down a long bumpy hill. Yet the broad strokes of where that ball ends up are

The path we’ve taken was definitely not inevitable, just like the path a ball takes down a long bumpy hill. Yet the broad strokes of where that ball ends up are reasonably foreseeable: at some local minimum but not necessarily a global minimum. So what are the broad strokes of humanity that could have reasonably been foreseen? A trend towards greater societal social complexity, increased resource consumption, increased energy use, economic efficiency, and wealth concentration.