Interesting article and analysis. What's important, I think, in determining whether things are really going on a one-way trip to hell in a handbasket, or if it's just another swing of the pendulum, is how the basic building blocks of civilization are holding up: children growing up to be functional adults; birthrates; infrastructure; and general buy-in to the societal moral, economic and legal code. In some of these areas, the trends do not seem great.