US was the only industrial economy standing. We had the reserve currency which we successfully transferred from being backed by precious metals, gold and silver, to being backed by war metals, lead and uranium. We benefited from the tail end of the industrial revolution, as well as the materials revolution, the agricultural revolution, the computer and electronics revolutions, the medical/biological revolution, a military revolution, and a financial revolution.
Never in human history has civilization seen such rapid changes and the US rode the crest of the wave. We squandered much of this opportunity and now have historic wealth inequality and we have endangered our biosphere.
Even if anthropogenic climate change wasn't going to "change everything" we would never be able to go back to what we had. The conditions, politically, environmentally, and scientifically won't allow that incredible, once in a species' timeline convergence to happen again.
Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros.
Ut melius quicquid erit pati
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces.
Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
You should not ask – to know is a sin – which end
the gods have given to me, or to you, Leuconoe, nor
should you meddle with Babylonian calculations. How much better to suffer
whatever will be, whether Jupiter gives us more winters, or whether this is our last,
which now weakens the Tyrrhenian sea on the pumice stones
opposing it. Be wise, strain the wine, and cut back long hope
into a small space. While we talk, envious time will
have fled: pluck the day, trusting as little as possible to the future.
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