The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.

Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. Its very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover Gods great plan.

In the end, living is defined by dying. Book-ended by oblivion, we are caught in the vice of terror, squeezed to bursting by the approaching end. Fear is ever-present, waiting to be called to the surface. Change brought fear, and fear brought destruction.

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?

Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.

... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.