I'm all for clickbait...still, I hoped you would answer the title's question.

It's a question I think about every day. My answer is yes, but I'm still working on explaining it. The answer of course is 'no' for 99% of the population.

The short answer is that IF we were still in the energy growth phase we wouldn't have such a high degree of polarization in society. From the late 80s to around 2010, everyone seems more or less happy and got along. Computers from the 1970s on created huge efficiencies in wealth distribution (energy/food/manufacturing mining and distribution). Fracking is the last gasp of that whole technological benefit.

The amount of real estate development is based on a simple premise. What was built pre-1980s is now incredibly valuable so the more we build the more we'll make. This is unlike most development that occurs because of increased manufacturing and lowered costs of food and energy, etc.

There's bin a shit-load of lab space built here in the Boston area. Yet pharma does not increase one's standard of living. It made sense when the cities were managing the resources of energy, farming and manufacturing that had moved outside them. But this is false growth.

In short, if you look at how prices of energy, food and new manufacturing have risen, with no alternative on the horizon (or my horizon) then it signals a decline.

Further, war is ultimately always based on resource jealousies. Russia was getting poorer faster than the West. War. Israel is getting poorer faster than the West. War. (though few see Israel the way I do).