&gt; At one point is history, we built a great western civilization. There must have been great incentive to do that, despite the ideologies at play over the past several hundred years. How do we recreate those conditions?<p>The conditions were no different; likely they were worse (much worse depending on how far back you go). Read a detailed history of some past era and you&#x27;ll see much that is similar to what you see today.<p>It&#x27;s a very conservative notion that we are somehow worse today, and that our ancestors were somehow greater. That pessimism, which includes pessimism about our ability to act as a community (i.e., about government), keeps us from moving forward: Many people buy it and won&#x27;t even try. We can&#x27;t build mass transit because people are sure we can&#x27;t do anything.<p>Our ancestors were very human (again, read that history), corrupt, confused, political, just like we are, but in many ways worse off because they didn&#x27;t have the institutions they and their descendents built over the centuries, from democracy to civil rights to education. They did it; so can we. They had plenty of naysayers too.<p>We&#x27;ve been given all that; handed it on a silver platter. What are we building for our descendents?