h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

when was there ever a veneer of permanence in our society? It's a human system, it's also closed, and in a closed system all things tend toward entropy. How about the prosecution of a war with no justified goals? That seems like a pretty big indicator that something's wrong to me. Perhaps the pursuit of leisure above all else is the sign that our decadence is too much, and decadence at our level (most people have at least some level of disposable income, obesity on the rise to frightening proportions, binge drinking and casual social drug abuse) generally heralds the end of society. Have the cracks not already begun to show? World economy has been funnelled into the pockets of designer suits for so long that there's little left to go around, another harbinger of change. It may seem a little gauche to talk of the class divide in our more 'civilised' times, but it's there and it makes a huge difference.

regarding the petrol and oil thing, I was always under the impression that it applied to food and drink more than oil. We can live our little facades of civility as long as there's a macdonalds or a Wimpy around.

I don't think it's a question of surviving without tapwater or pot noodle, humans will survive just as well as other animals. There just wont be many of us left.

Computers are completely temporary, i believe that people looking back might be able to ge some sort of understanding about how they work, but since most computers have an in-built shelf life, I don't believe that they will be of much importance to the future.

We are no more civilised than anyone who has ever laid a similar misnomer on their gatherings of pathetic people, reaching out to stave off the darkness and the cold by grouping together. We just have more stainless steel...

lastly, I will die when this society dies out. I'm completely a product of this environment, and i can't be bothered to attempt to outlast it.