What-is-the-greatest-failure-of-Western-civilization part1

• Erosion of Leisure time : post industrial people have to spend more time to obtain the necessities of life.   It takes more time to simply live.  http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/...
• Geographic sprawl negated the benefits of cars:  Prior to the internal combustion engine, people generally lived within about 20 minutes walking distance of their place of work, shops, and social venues - that is, in a village.  As cars and roads were created, we scattered these things out farther so now they are at least 20 minutes away and we need a car and we're burning up fuel like crazy and our cities are choked with cars.
• Imperialism : Stronger nations - without a trace of apparent regret - routinely seize the resources of weaker nations, topple their governments, and invade them.   This is done under the rubric of "protecting their interests."
• Nuclear weapons : As stronger nations came into conflict over control of the world's resources, a nuclear arms race ensued where we actually built enough bombs to zorch the planet 100 times over.
• Regimented educational system : We have a school system whose purpose is job training, not the development of the intellect.   We take a billion young, inquisitive minds and force them to sit down and listen to some adult talk at them.   What do the following people have in common? : Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Woody Allen, James Cameron, The Beatles, Lady Gaga, Buckminster Fuller, Nikola Tesla, Andrew Carnegie, Frank Lloyd Wright.  You guessed it - drop-outs.   Einstein couldn't get a recommendation to graduate school.
• Economic booms and busts : 100's of millions of people routinely end up without the necessities of life for no external reason;  the capitalist book-keeping system simply goes haywire, goes into a feedback loop and fails to allocate labor, goods and services successfully.
• We cannot walk around on our own planet : Every square inch of land has been sold off, except for a few Reservations (parks) and paved passage-ways on which we are expected to be in transit at all times.    Amazing to reflect on, we cannot legally simply walk in any direction we choose.