There are twists and turns in history that lead to futures past and now unfolding before us. Our awareness of “what was” is not strong in our daily consciousness but perhaps we carry history in our DNA, in our stories and in our dreams. We are what we are as a human species that has evolved over millennia. As you point out, civilizations have risen and fallen through time as the Earth itself has evolved. And now we humans are in a moment of history that is another turning point on a Earth that is reacting to our actions of burning carbon-based fuels in a reckless manner. Nature will force a change in human organizational structures on a timeline that we will find to be incredibly destructive. If some human populations survive the unfolding apocalypse they will have new choices to make about how to organize and produce energy that is life sustaining. Thousands of years of choices lie ahead of us. The human population that flourishes in that future will be different from us, and perhaps wiser.