Just one thing: couldn’t one speculate that in places like South-America and India the urban model could effectively have been forgotten and re-invented?

The point about not being able to “uninvent” technology refers to the fact that once people started living in complex, urban, state-level societies, these societies developed their own momentum. In some instances they collapsed, but the urban model has, for good or ill, endured.

Perhaps by being more objective and dispassionate about “civilization”, we can decide which aspects of it we would like to retain and which we would like to reject. A more deliberative approach to how we run our societies therefore might be facilitated by a rejection of the idea of the inevitability of “progress”, and of the idea that human history is a story of effectively linear, if occasionally interrupted, progress and advancement.

However, for humanity collectively to adopt a highly deliberative approach to how it interacts with the environment, based on a rejection of the idea of inevitable linear progress and manifest destiny, would require an unprecedented degree of agreement and cooperation at the global level. I for one am not going to hold my breath waiting for this.

To suggest that we can’t simply revert to previous ways of living is not necessarily the same as endorsing existing models!