According to the plot of the movie, The Matrix, robots had won the war on humanity and put each and every one of us into a virtual reality prison; taking our minds back to the “peak of our civilization, 1999”. Based on the data published by the Energy Institute just recently, the Wachowskis were just two decades off the mark — not bad if you ask me. Understanding that energy is the economy, and after examining the underlying dynamics we now have every reason to believe that 2019 was indeed the high water mark for western civilization (at least in economic terms); marking the beginning of a multi-decade long descent ahead back to a much simpler life.