>You're still falling into the historicist trap of thinking that a societies future development can be inferred from it's history (which is simply untrue because the future of knowledge is fundamentally unpredictable, how would we know what we will know in the future without knowing it).

Not only can future development be inferred, you can see the pattern in history. The consequences of weak men.

Reconstruction -> third great awakening -> world war 1 -> roaring 20s -> world war 2 -> golden age of capitalism -> 4th great awakening -> culture wars, 9/11, tech bubbles -> great recession, covid, etc

Or to look at what we're in right now.

Glorious revolution 1701 + 75 years = age of revolution 1776 + 84 years = civil war 1860 + 79 years = world war 2 1939 + 80 years = 2019

The cycle is 4 movements in 80 years adjusting every 20 years. Hence the 4 parts of strong men create good times.

>Also historically, difficult times don't breed resilient people, the dark age was a millennium long.

This is where you're confused. This isn't a situation where the USA is doing great and 100% of people are strong, then create a generation of 100% weak people.

During the civil war, there was weak and strong people. then during reconstruction there was weak and strong people.

I too can look backwards in time an select points that fall on a random line that I draw, but luckily I know better than to claim that this is in any way predictive of the future. I don't know if you're the book reading type but you should give Karl Poppers writings a try, he might save you yet.