The empire is in decline, everyone seems to agree on this, and it's very hard to entertain the idea that actually a super mega 2.0 empire is going to immediately take its place. That's simply not what happens when empires fall. Confirmed by history in all cases.

The current system is failing to scale across all quadrants. What happens if they suddenly fix everything and all come to agreement? Probably wouldn't be that bad. There'd be plenty of benefits to go along with that situation, which is the only reason why anyone would take that deal in the first place.

People will act with their own self-interest in mind. I would be shocked if this fetid corrupted system could somehow offer a better deal even to a small subset of elites that control everything. We are one or two bull markets away from everyone jumping in and those who doesn't getting left behind and squashed by the stampede.