Ain't Humanity spiraling down?

I got this idea some months back while I was reading about Socrates, the man that long long ago, so bravely died for his ideas, while he could easily avoid it. It struck me hard that this man who lived thousands of years ago (and is no prophet nor claims any divine inspirations), surpasses me (and just about anyone I know, and anyone I can think of in our current days) in the scale of humanity, if intellectual integrity did count at all. I mean, .... shouldn't humanity be ascending? Increasing, maturing, what's the point at all then from living and dying, dying and living, reading and arguing, learning and building? ...



Let the philosophers aside, ... let's look for effective people, (i.e. people with great effect in history, or culture) , can you think of anyone to compete with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or even Hannibal? ... let's see, ... Hitler? Bill Gates? Any suggestions anyone?

So I was thinking that maybe for the last millennium, human culture was descending, spiraling down.


Then I though of another metric, ... the advancement of science (esp. humanistic sciences) like philosophy, sociology, etc. Can the maturing of such sciences be used as a metric for the advancement of the human culture? Are those sciences mature at all? And if so, does that mean that humanity is advancing as a whole while individuals are getting less and less remarkable?

Or is it simply waves of flourishing and thriving, between periods of failing and darkness? Such waves being the Greek Culture, Roman Culture, Islamic Culture, European Renaissance.

So are we now in a time of darkness? Am I making any sense at all?