Amazing examples of human ingenuity in Dutch history go back a long way: for example, how did the megalith builders manage to lift those heavy boulders off the ground? Every era since has seen an abundance of intellectual, technological, and cultural development. Evidently, this same brainpower can be used in the purview of misuse of power and of destruction. From the eighteenth century onwards, the possibilities for man to bend nature to his will have been gaining momentum. Expansion and computerisation bring prosperity, but also unemployment. Mankind has an ever greater impact on its environment, with an unexpected downside, as is evident by now.