In the face of oblivion most ignore the signs of things going very wrong, very quickly. It's almost as if humanity has been here before which, Surprise surprise, we have. There are numerous inflection points on the human race all of which saw tremendous declines in the population whether it be floods, droughts, volcanoes, ice ages, or sea people as in the case of the late Bronze Age Collapse.

The thing is that even though humanity has encountered large scale systemic threats before, it doesn't seem that we're very good at dealing with them without drastic declines in the population. There is every reason to believe that humanity is just as irrational nowadays as it was in antiquity and surely in prehistory. This irrationality is not some aberration of humanity, rather it seems to be a defining feature and may indeed be part of the human mind in driving how society develops and interacts with other groups. After all is that neighboring village an ally or an enemy? This thinking may have actual cognitive biases based on brain architecture with certain individuals predisposed to outgroups regardless of circumstance.

In our modern world of comparative advantage and international cooperation, one would assume that the fear of the outsider might be diminished as humanity has enjoyed one of the most rapid quality of life transformations we have ever seen. Yet the reality is quite disappointing as it is well established that hate for outgroups is still very strong in society and has been encouraged by sympathetic demagogues.

No it seems we can no more escape this problem than a person can escape their own shadow. Looking back in history it seems one civilization understood such a problem well enough to deify the struggle between Arura Mazda and Ahriman.