I certainly don't disagree with your last point, but I take issue with your first one.
"We've only been doing this for a short while and already all these issues arose" isn't necessarily an argument against something. It could be said about a lot of things, for instance:
The early automobile was only out for a short while but already had a host of problems: It was loud, it required hard-to-get petrol, it couldn't go all the places horses could go, it was more expensive than a horse, and horses could be traded more easily than automobiles (more liquid of an asset).
And yet we worked through these problems. We built roads, autos are quieter and less polluting. They still have their problems, but they far outpace horses in utility.
I think civilization will be the same way. It has troubles at first, sure. Worse nutrition, class divisions, disease. I'll give that.
But its getting better. And my optimistic self hopes it will continue to get better as time goes on.
If industrialization has only been a tiny period of history, well, give it a while!
Certainly; it could wind up being fantastic, and we could wind up fixing all our problems and turning civilization to the best thing to happen to humanity.
It's just that, at this point, we've got 5,000 years of rocky start compared to 195,000 years of what I would like you to imagine as 'smooth sailing'. At this point, which has proven itself? Which has not? That's all the author was talking about.
"We've only been doing this for a short while and already all these issues arose" isn't necessarily an argument against something. It could be said about a lot of things, for instance:
The early automobile was only out for a short while but already had a host of problems: It was loud, it required hard-to-get petrol, it couldn't go all the places horses could go, it was more expensive than a horse, and horses could be traded more easily than automobiles (more liquid of an asset).
And yet we worked through these problems. We built roads, autos are quieter and less polluting. They still have their problems, but they far outpace horses in utility.
I think civilization will be the same way. It has troubles at first, sure. Worse nutrition, class divisions, disease. I'll give that.
But its getting better. And my optimistic self hopes it will continue to get better as time goes on.
If industrialization has only been a tiny period of history, well, give it a while!