A Ghost Is Bored

'Decivility' is what you get when you remove the curbs which demand so-called normalcy.
In Bowling (when the gutter is sealed off), you can roll the ball down the alley any way you wish, and hit some pins.  On the highway the rumble strip reminds drivers to put the phone down, just before rolling a half ton of sheet-metal into a ditch.  In restaurants and libraries, other citizens used to police civility, tranquility, manners, and decorum.
We No Longer Do That.
In the 1984 film "Ghost Busters", the surface streets move selfish and angry hustle & bustle atop the crust of terrestrial "normalcy" -- Beneath it...,  an underworld of suppressed slimy evil. A subterranean soup of mean, and nasty ghosts. Born from the sewers of this comedy, we'd learn about a 'Gatekeeper' of evil, (Sigourney Weaver) a 'Key-Master' (Rick Moranis) and some sodom-like underworld called Gozer, where a battery of evil seeps into our Laissez-faire life. Sigourney Weaver (sexy and demonic counterpoint to stereotypical red-devil evil), gyrates seductively above feeble humanity, poised to usher through a portal, humanity's ruin. Why?  because of humanity's mismanaged hubris. 
Anyway, Don't bother with the plotless sequels, because they are embarrassing and stupid.  This Original and campy talisman is an accurate prognostication of our modern decay. It is important to credit science-fiction for some, if not all of our most inventive plots, and modern creations, from the flip-phone, (Star Trek) to the personal watercraft & Jetpack, (James Bond) and from the iPad, A.I., & face-time, (2001 a Space Odyssey) -- Alas robots, Laser-beams, and vaccinations.  It is  also possible that quantum leaps in thinking, such as theories on relativity, and black holes, shape the path of many subsequent movements and revelations, and stagnate other processes ...Meaning that once we invent a magnificent thing... [Kurusawa] everyone jumps on that, to knock it off. [Thanks Quentin Tarantino]. Down this path we get newer and better versions, of the same old thing; but also dead-ends, and writers block. In the aura of refining something super cool, we often stop inventing new shit.
In Film, we stop writing new screenplays, preferring to make shitty sequels.  We become complacently, smugly content with our surety that we have done it all, occluded by just how cool that one gadget/film was.   It is likely that people's path (if linear) makes huge strides on the heels of momentous seemingly creative explosions, and then gets stumped a bit by glow of hubris.
If Idle Hands are The Devil's Workshop,        then why not print a ghost gun.

Beware of boredom, because: [boredom + the internet = bad outcomes]  A bad outfit, or wrong size shoe is the least of your concerns, especially when you can order a 3D printed firearm,  a bump-stock, or Bomb kit online.

As a system of thought, laissez-faire rests on the following axioms: "the individual is the basic unit in society, i.e., the standard of measurement in the social calculus; the individual has a natural right to freedom, if constant contentment; and the physical order of nature is a harmonious and self-regulating system, ad infinitum. If this sounds like the southern confederacy, well...White privilege was their thang.   I would argue that our chaotic timeline, which seems to ignore the present (as if the past will never exist) without us special individuals, is similar smugness. Hubris blinds us to consideration of how we may be regarded by the paths we choose, and just how we are steering history off the roadway. 

As all great fictions go, by the time the present catches up with the characters, its too fucking late.

Historians make terrible prophets, while some sporadic inventors may change our evolutionary path. As that goes -- With the exception of dictators, and criminals... People are fondly regarded in death, but barely (often badly) regarded in life. Throughout history, people at large simply didn't regard themselves quite as highly as they do today.  Presently, (certainly Americans) regard themselves as "Trust-Funders" ...sovereign  inheritors of the earth. Laissez-faire: "The standard of measurement in the social calculus; the individual has a natural right to freedom, if constant contentment"
In Ghost Busters, once the evil was un-sealed, it's own rage, and grotesque machinations bred more and more of the same slimy fuckers. That is..., the lesson here shows how leaving something to fester breeds broader infection, even a darker colored ooze.  And of course as all great fictions go, by the time the present catches up with the characters, its too fucking late. Individualism, unchecked by social mores becomes a hot mess rather rapidly.
Nothing occurs for a sleepy century, and then a century devolves in days.  Ghosts and ghouls come out of the wood-work, and they become normalized whilst we descend into darkness.  The Nazi's have their scape-goats, and American's have theirs.  Despicable, Dark, and Orange.

By this measure it would seem that just as sci-fi, invents all sorts of creative gadgets, and tools which become the tapestry of  modern convenience, from the Microwave to Airconditioning to a 3-D Printer... Catalyzing events like the death of an Arch Duke,  a Temple bombing, or the Death of a healthcare Exec., can and do change people, and thereby change our history. A dark-age set-back, in spite of our brilliant inventions often begins with clever boredom, feeling stuck,  and bad news.  Action, good or bad feels progressive. Curiously, during war-time lavish war inventions spike creativity -- Sadly most of these are destructive, with little pause afforded as antidote to our unwinding creative surge. Sounds like chaos? Or, simply because we are so wrapped up in moving our SUV's through time,  we don't consider it all occurring. The train we ride goes unnoticed beneath us as it passes through the smoldering landscape,  churning relative to the self merely as a lesson in quantum mechanics. Historically, a singular event which breaks the seal on congenial human social order such as a knee on a neck,  school shootings, assassinations, plagues, wars, invasions, and mass exile, had been few and far enough between as to be digestible.  Now these rush at us like a fourth season, 3-D,  dumb-shit cop show. Sequel after sequel of numbing horror. And when that's beaten to death, we birth a prequel. Tragedy, and disasters bend space-time of social order, so we get numb and dumb, rather than outraged.  In fact, so fucking many of these shitty events occur nowadays that we always under-react, when the next catastrophe hits.  Meanwhile beneath the surface of America's buildings & roads, a bubbling ooze warms the earth's crust, slime pressing upwards through grates to infect everyone.  This is the tipping point -- Our inflection point; and throughout history, fascinating writers and orators have told the same story while it unfolded.  While religions double down in orthodoxy. Not sage, nor seer, but practical theological observers, and social scientists, flag what is happening today as if skirting the back-side of some sleazy strip club... on the way to temple. Past this slippery slope, bumping down the back steps, sexy awfulness gains allegiants, without a way back. On the backside, taking any action feels good. The ride feels faster, freer, and easier, because we are unbound by anxiety, obligation, and peer pressure to conform. Everything is going to be just fine, right?

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It used to be that removing the stones from parks and roads in and around the Gaza border, suppressed the temptation to toss one, escalating putative retaliation. Yet, ever inventive, and unbridled -- (we clever monkeys), can simply order some more rocks online.
Or perhaps 3D print some... Now Gaza is a wasteland.