Plato had moral issues with pop culture. (NB the research on video games and violence suggests there is no link between video games and violence. I wish people reading “a 26% link” would correctly parse it as being “74% no link”.)

Every time I visit or think about the site of an ancient civilisation (Greece, Rome, Egypt), it strikes me how similar they are to our current civilisation.

Consider the red-light district near Trajan’s column in Rome, the sheer manpower and logistics available to the Romans to build Hadrian’s Wall, the need to codify laws in Gilgamesh’s time. All requiring sophisticated societies with architects, graphic designers, poor, down-trodden workers.

Will our civilisation self-destruct following the pattern that appears to have happened to each previous one?