Then what's the point in trying? I mean I can be pretty cynical and pessimistic, but "ever" is a very strong claim.

True, we don't have much time left to reverse climate change before it becomes an irreversible runaway effect that could wipe out life on Earth as we know it. But that isn't set in stone yet, and I love life/nature too much to give up now. The stakes are too high to admit defeat. And these things can turn on a dime, right at the moment it seems the most hopeless.

Besides, the future is never certain until it becomes the past. And then there's more future ahead that still isn't certain. It will always be this way. It always has been.

So yeah, as long as humanity still lives and the Earth can still support life, there is still hope. Even when things are bleak and hope seems a distant memory, it's still there. As long as you're still around to wonder if there's any hope left, there it is.

What we're living through now, it's bleak, yes. Is this the death toll of what-could-have-been, or is it the birth pangs of what-will-be? I don't know, and I won't pretend to. But we might as well stick around to find out.

That's not to say we just need to surmount one last hill and then everything will be perfect. There's no "last hill" to surmount. But from the top of this one, we'll be able to see the road ahead, we'll be able to see a few more summits further along and choose which way to go next.

Of course we might backslide into a ravine. We might break our legs and die there. I won't lie to you about what's at stake.

But if we give up and squat down where we are because there's no point in going on, if we refuse to see what could be on the other side of this hill because we're afraid it will be as bad as the way we've come so far, then we die anyway. And the world dies with us.

I for one can't bear to let that happen, so even if the other side of this hill proves to be snakes and scorpions, and barren wasteland with no water or shade, I'll keep walking, if for nothing other than the chance that the next hill might show us something better. Or the next hill, or the next...

So maybe a truly just society won't happen in our lifetimes. Maybe world peace, true liberty, an end of poverty, maybe these things are further off than just a few hills and dales. Not because they're impossible but because the forces resisting progress are still too strong, and we the underdogs have not yet achieved critical mass.

But even if I won't live to see it, what about the next generation, or the generation after that, or the one after? It would be downright selfish to give up and doom them to suffer in this wasteland, just because I lost hope that I personally could live to see a better world.

If I'm wrong and climate change wipes us out, then it won't matter anyway. But if we live, even in a dystopian hellscape, then hope still lingers. As long as the ideas of liberty, peace, and justice survive, hope abides.

So if clarifying what rule of law is and why it's important, even on some obscure forum, helps keep that spark alive, even just a little bit, then that's what I'll do. Because a living spark can be rekindled, no matter how small it dwindles. Cold ashes cannot.