I don't think hack is quite the right word - to me it implies that people actually sat down and came up with this whereas I think it just grew organically, incrementally.
We've been busy killing each other for thousands of years and I think it'll carry on for a long time to come yet.
Will it collapse? Maybe. But I think even the corrupt in power will want to maintain their position rather than let things go to pot (citizens tend not to pay taxes if they're submerged under water as a result of global warming).
Yeah, it's more like civilization is the result of millions of quick, untested patches. Society is comprised by people and their ideas, and people pass their ideas down through generations. The only ways to eliminate schools of thought are to hope that they die out eventually by trying to make them unpopular, or by actually eliminating people, which is the source of all these cultural wars taking place.
