Monolith Design

Ronald Wright, "A Short History of Progress:": "The concentration of power at the top of large-scale societies gives the elite a vested interest in the status quo; they continue to prosper in darkening times long after the environment and general populace begin to suffer." ...Wright reaches this conclusion after examining the rise and fall of four civilizations: Man the Hunter in the Old Stone Age; the Maya; Easter Island; Rome. His book is compelling, and the kind of essay you find yourself underlining. He writes, "We are logging everywhere, fishing everywhere, irrigating everywhere, building everywhere, and no corner of the biosphere escapes our hemorrhage of waste... these years may be the last when civilization still has the wealth and political cohesion to steer itself towards caution, conservation, and social justice. None of this should surprise us after reading the flight recorders in the wreckage of crashed civilizations: our present behavior is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance."