Your tone here is better. Yes, I read the entire book. I think it's very out of touch compared to the many, many other books I've read that state our problems in analytical but much franker terms, and offer solutions. I don't see solutions coming from Ray Dalio. In fact, skimming back through the book and watching his personal ads, etc, I see someone very much marketing toward investors about personal risk rather than issuing a call to arms. As far as assessments of the mess we're in and its historical precedent, I think Kurt Andersen and Heather Cox Richardson do a better job. I'm not really that impressed by Dalio's spanning history. I took history of western civ in college, along with Chinese, African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern history and politics all the way up through grad school. Yeah, civilizations have a way of rising and falling along the patterns he describes. The answer, which he only vaguely hints at, is to replace the idea of empires altogether with a global cooperative framework. I also think it's critical that we be very honest that the boom/bust cycle is at an end. This planet is dying. We *cannot* continue the boom/bust cycle of civilizations for another 500 years. It has to stop. We need what Jonas Salk described as Epoch B.