What does the story "By the Waters of Babylon" suggest is the future of humanity?

The story “By the Waters of Babylon” suggests that the human future is bleak, at least in the medium term.  It may be better in the long term, but then again it may not be.

When I use the phrase “in the medium term,” I am referring to the time at which the story takes place.  Up to this point, the human future is clearly rather bleak.  At the time that this story takes place,...

The story “By the Waters of Babylon” suggests that the human future is bleak, at least in the medium term.  It may be better in the long term, but then again it may not be.

When I use the phrase “in the medium term,” I am referring to the time at which the story takes place.  Up to this point, the human future is clearly rather bleak.  At the time that this story takes place, something terrible has happened to what we would think of as modern civilization.  There has been some sort of terrible war that has destroyed New York City and all of the other towns and cities in the vicinity.  The people who are still alive live as if they were in the Stone Age.  They do have metal, but only because they can scavenge it from the “dead places.”  They do not have much technology or much knowledge.  What this shows is that a terrible war has essentially destroyed all of civilization and set people back thousands of years in technological terms.  This has presumably happened because we human beings were too greedy for knowledge and power and we destroyed ourselves by having more power than we were morally ready to handle.

It is possible that in the long term the human future will be brighter.  John has resolved that he and his people will “build” again.  They will reclaim some of the knowledge that the ancients had.  If they can do this, human society might once again be civilized and technologically advanced.  This is the best case scenario.  However, even that future may be bleak.  For all we know, there is something fundamentally flawed about human nature and John’s people will eventually destroy themselves again. In that case, the human future is bleak for the foreseeable future.