[Bin1864]

1. No. People are getting dumber at (IIRC) about 0.6 IQ points per 10 years. Obviously this is going to make society and technology worse. It's like every month that something breaks around the house and I can't find somebody who knows how it works. Tech support used to be tolerable but now it's useless.

2. I don't know what you mean by "collapse", but yes it's a belief. "Tech will save us" is one of the (IIRC) 3 textbook responses to the climate change narrative.

3. IDK it looks like Western Europe is de-industrializing, we'll see how much this winter but I'm hearing about large industries shutting down in response to fuel prices. They're definitely not trying to prevent panic, just trying to maintain hypernormalization.

4. They are and you can go outside and you can find them. You don't hear about it on the internet because the internet is run by multinational corporations selling you products made many thousands of miles from where you live.

4.1 Technology is a force multiplier - people with more technology are better at conquering their rivals. I think this is mentioned in Industrial Society and it's future.