Collapse

 It seems we are witnessing right now the fall of the last empire in human history. The last one, because it is unlikely that we will be able to survive it next time. It is unfortunate that the russian leaders have not studied the experience of other empires and have not found a safer way. The threat of destruction of life on our planet has never been as real as now. We know from history that the victim of russian aggression Ukraine never tried to conquer foreign lands. Because it has never had dictators. It is possible that every despotic state has an implicit desire for expansion. In that case, some dictator might try it again.

 It turns out that if this fire does not turn us all to ash, we should learn a lesson and look for ways to rectify the situation. The threat of nuclear war is not the only threat to us, there is an interesting study of our modern vulnerabilities — Bostrom's "The Vulnerable World Hypothesis". Also, scientists and philosophers are discussing the possible self-destruction of civilizations at some stage of development in connection with Fermi Paradox. Hopefully, the "bottleneck" or "great filter" are not the most likely options, and we will not leave behind a dead planet.