Altruizine wrote:The message behind the inclusion of this monument seems clear. Thousands of soldiers have fought and died for their country, some of them successfully defeating an oppressor. Many a sacrifice has been made for the world to be what it is now, in fact previous generations were rather sacrificial by default. Few could escape it but today we've got more accessible options for that, people are lazier and more selfish than ever. As a result, few seem willing to make the sacrifices civilization would require in order to survive the challenges we're up against, which some call The Great Filter.
The sad part is, those sacrifices would almost certainly be milder than those of the preceding generations. Contemporary humans could still live comfortably while adjusting to the circumstances accordingly.
Depends what you mean by the challenges we're up against.
If you mean militarily, I think people are actually better informed about the world and therefore more reluctant to make 'sacrifices' that in reality are not about saving 'civilisation' but more about saving or protecting the political and economic power of a very small amount of people.
If you mean that people are reluctant to make sacrifices to their material comfort in order to prevent an ecological collapse, then I agree, to a certain extent, particularly with your last sentence, but also think the impact of the 'sacrifices' needed are often exaggerated by those who want the status quo to continue.