Was Splengler right ? Is Western Civilization decaying, even dying ?
78719
No.  All civilization has the mean to change and resurrect itself.  The openness of the Western Civilization helps it to reinvent itself when needed.
155928
eventually, yes. no empire lasts forever. it will hafta be a silent takeover (nonviolent). starts with control of politics reverting to the republic we were supposed to be but never were. next is the economy, basing it on goods rather than variables.\nhttp://www.philipdru.com/griffin2_stream.html
263151
Its already on the way for 30 years or so with the gloves of and secretly for centuries\nnothing to do with Dan Brown,check www.infowars\nHitler was openly talking about it ,then PAPA Bush and now Arnie and George W are making not secrets about it.\nneither is Kissinger who has revealed their agenda of lowering the world population by 60%.\n\nbut you guys go ahead stick your heads in the sand ,you are in for a rude awakening
755388
oh yeah we were all supposed to be dead by now.\n\nmaybe the russian winter will kill us all off instead.\n\nits the newspapers blowing everything out of proportion
1009031
I believe within the next hundred years, religion as a whole will finally become regarded as nonsense, except for a few fundamentalist holdouts.\n\nIt will stop influencing our politics and so forth, and be reduced to small communities who will shut themselves off from the rest of the world (to keep from hearing the truth).\n\nThese small communities will be nothing more than remnants of the old days, and will basically be reduced to the basics of what they truly are... cults.\n\nAnd these cults will either die off, have mass suicides, or try to kill the rest of us, before they are finally outlawed.\n\nSo yes, the end is near.  And so is the beginning.  :)
624082
Probably not.\n\nI do not know if "civilization" is even the correct word, but "organization of sentient life forms."  Humanity is a very crude, semi-intelligent, partly uneducated, biased and bigoted species.  Oh, I forgot perhaps technically backward and almost spiritually bankrupt.\n\nI am not a pessimist.  This is why I am willing to believe that there may be other "organization of sentient life forms" out there.  The universe is very, very large.\n\nAs for my evaluation of humanity, I am a realist.  I actually believed humanity was in better shape until I started participating in Yahoo! Answers.
1098442
Oh, my god! We're doomed. This means that on June 6th, 2106 I'll be dead! I won't live to be 135 years old. Oh, man! This is so unfair! I'm already depressed! June 6th., 2006 is a terrible day, after all. :-)
741271
I heard this argument before.  People were saying the Year 2000 was the end.\n\nI will ring your doorbell and run away!!!
1042558
Society's downfall has been predicted with alarming regularity since the beginning of civilization. Those "old days" were not as "good" as folks make them out to be, as brown eyed bohemian pointed out.\n\nWhile we have more ways of destroying our planet than ever, I don't think we're quite ready for "Armageddon" just yet. While the disappearance of the US middle class is a chilling development, it's not the biggest we face.\n\nClimate changes prompted by global warming will make it tougher for BILLIONS of people to have any quality of life at all. People (especially in the wealthier nations like US and Europe) will have to get politically active locally and nationally to get their leaders to follow the proper course. Just as important, we will need to network on an informal basis with our counterparts in other countries. Keep on the good foot. Cincypix.
121059
We haven't been warned of this for the same reason we weren't warned of all the other theories regarding global collapse over the last several....centuries.  Basic science.  \n\nTheory of relativity.  An object at rest will stay at rest till an outside force acts on it.  An object in motion will stay in motion until an outside force acts on it.  Now, lets apply that to the world theatre.\n\nThis theory just uses new "climactic events" in place of the old, but what its saying is that the world is going to go to hell based on these 'events'.  No it wont.  It would take way to much effort on the parts of way to many people for them to care enough for things to change.  \n\nNo one really wants change anymore.  The last major chage in the world was World War II.  Russia giving up communism and going democratic?  Gee, China stepped into that spot, didn't they.  Now the US and China are playing the same game with other countries that the US and the USSR did.  Just another cold war.  Just more status quo.  No one's going anywhere.  Too many people fear change for change to actually occur on a drastic or global scale.  It has to be slow, insideous, and sneak up on people, or it's resisted so completely that it will never happen.  \n\nI'm really not worried.  And if I'm wrong, then its all about surviving the chaos, and our debate doesn't matter.  But I'm not stockpiling guns and canned foods either...  :)
1168257
Yes, you're right. We're getting there, its just currently a slow go. But its picking up momentum. All of those prophecies from the many and various world religions that seem to point to the end of the world? Those are all true. But they don't mean what some folks think. They're about the end of one age, and the beginning of another. A New Age. The old age is in its death throws now. Its already passed, but parts still linger. When the corpse of that old age stops twitching the end of that world will be complete. After that ... New Age. Call it the Age of Aquarius or the reign of Christ on earth or whatever you like. The name doesn't matter. The fact of it does. Hang in there. Things are changing. And you get to be a part of that change. ;-) ~ Peace & Blessings ~
287274
We all know all good things come to an end, just like the Roman empire came to an end after 600 hundred years, i believe the U.S. will last no more than 2,000 years. I hope I will be proven wrong but that is my best guess.
50437
In my not-so-humble opinion, I see the standard of living in the USA taking a dump.  Look at the actual quality of life, the hours spent in a commute, the elimination of affordable housing.  In this age of online degrees, imported doctors, and idiotic health care, duplicitous Enron executives, can the system still function when more and more people are added?  To be frank--my concern is that America is becomming 2nd world.  Our time has come and gone.  I guess it will be interesting to see what happens in China....\n\nNot to mention places like Africa, where HIV has made such an impact.  How is the world going to care for all those people? Or will the suffering continue????\n\nMy theory is things never get better until they hit absolute rock-bottom.  Nature will have to step in and trim the trees so to speak.  We will never, as a race of beings, voluntarily reduce population.  Humping is just too darn fun and easy....\n\nI guess to summarize, I think the resources are not enough to maintain the standard of living we have.  The more and more people that are added, the lower and lower the living standard goes.  You will end up with an elite rich class which owns everything, the middle class will be abolished, and everyone else will be scraping by.
471202
Very bad...I sonetimes wonder if we have methods of indirect populatin control....attacks..diseases..cause their are only so many resources.....for so long...\n\nAnd with the rate of growth..its going to be interesting in 30 years..
585769
"How boring would life be if the Y2K scare was real?"\n\nHELLO WAKE UP BUDDY THAT WAS BACK IN 2000.  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS QUESTION ACTUALLY ABOUT?
431558
To the world (the planet)? Then it is probably that we're heading toward another ice age if that meteor doesn't hit us.\n\nTo the world (People)? Then it's probably the planet -- it will get us all in the end, earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues, disease, superbugs... we have the present vanity of thinking we have caused problems and so we can solve them -- that we have control or the upper hand. Nope, sorry. We don't, we could solve the global warming and then hey, throw a Nuclear War or die from antibiotic-resistant superbugs, Mad Cow disease or Bird Flu!\n\nTo the world (culture/history)?  Then the answer is digital communication -- vinyl is dead, magnetic tape lives forever but the machines are dead, CDs are rotting, formats change and we lose data -- will there be anything for future archaeologists to dig up?  For a communication age, I don;t see photos, letters or even music as surviving more than a generation.  All our libraries will vanish under a computer supervirus in 2020! Arrgh!
19839
Brian is right, but I have to add a smart-ass remark that sun will burn up and go out in a few million years, but by then the humankind will either destroy itself, or find a way to move on to other stars.