Phyllo … allow me to change one word in your question.
What difference does it make where we are?
Perhaps the answer is ‘forecast’ … all businesses do it … the successful businesses get it right! eg Nokia and Apple
For the desperate people … desperate according to James
James wrote:
Matthew 16:3
You changed the question but did not provide an answer.
The weather people can’t even accurately predict the weather two weeks from now. What can you/we forecast? And what does it all have to do with complexity?
Ice ages last tens of thousands of years.
Rome lasted hundreds or thousands of years, depending on how you count.
How can these be considered “data points” in any reasonable sense?
Somebody has characterized every age in this way. 
Phyllo … I shared some thoughts that popped into my consciousness … triggered at least in part by Pan’s comments concerning the scientific/philosophical notion of complexity.
I have no blue print of the future.
My small mind finds no contradiction between Pan’s scientific/philosophical view of complexity and Teilhard’s somewhat tainted … religious/spiritual … view of complexity.
All people predict/forecast every day … unconsciously … we all predict/forecast that the sun will come up tomorrow.
… and all of those "somebody(s) were right … it’s simply a question of degree.
The Ice Age, Atlantis(Eden) is born from God(s), The Floods swept away God’s shame/disappointment, Sumeria?, Egypt/Babylon?, Rome?, Washington/New York?, Armageddon?
If all religions were melded together, what would be THE tenet they were all comprised of?
In a word … “arrogance”
Attempts to usurp the authority … superiority of God.
usurp as in abrogate
the late Dr Wayne Dyer mentioned a plausible acronym for EGO … Edge God Out
abrogate as in repeal God’s laws and replace them with man’s laws.
What are God’s laws?
There is only one … get drunk on agape … selfless … LOVE
I heard many years ago that the OT can be summed up in 9 words and the NT in one word.
OT … I am your God and you are My people.
NT … LOVE
I like care better. Care for yourself and for others, including God. Care is more directive, less ambiguous.
Care for all that lives.
Wendy … you have such a way with words … such a “feminine” way.
I’ve written many times … words in and of themselves are impotent.
Readers … be vigilant … you may feel someone tapping you on your left shoulder … someone who wants to give you an experience of agape love … an experience involving God. 
Show me.
Science Forum
But first, prepare and read up on Maxwell’s Demon (1867).
Good thing that Jesus was a bit more verbose. 
Organizations attract people with authoritarian personalities. That’s not going to change.
Really?
2,000 years of the “ping pong” of verbosity has literally killed the story of Jesus. Simple fatigue and frustration … the absence of a clear and credible critical mass to the story … seems to have driven the most pious of believers away.
What is the alternative?
Silence!
In todays’ world silence is about as attractive as a shit sandwich for lunch.