We don't know how much worse it might be without any attempts, and how much worse it can get when they cease.

> We've been trying to do that for 2500 years.

Who is "we" though? It's never everybody, right? So all this shows is that the few can't pick up the slack for everybody. Not everybody can be intelligent, but everybody can strive for more intellectual integrity than they currently have. That was true "then", and it will stay true always until the failure to follow through did us in.