One of the most popular Western charlatans touted as an expert may be Francis Fukuyama, who claims that history has ended, that Western liberal democracy is the final form of government, and that these institutions will continue indefinitely. Not only is this fatalistic about nothing ever happening in the future, it is proclaiming that every state will converge on the same structure (global homogenization, or globohomo), and of course it serves the institutions which employ him.
The fact that nothing ever happens in the world means that entropy is increasing, a system that never changes is in thermodynamic equilibrium. If nothing continues to happen, the global fertility rate will spell the extinction of humanity, the status quo around the world is a slow decline.
"But Chuddha, what if-"
"It won't."
The end of great men causing happenings
Nietzsche prophesied in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the archetype of the last man, a passive nihilist who is tired of life, takes no risks, and seeks only comfort and security. This accurately describes a lot of men I know, retreating to video games, avoiding dating altogether, working in rat race jobs that they care little for. Society seems to produce little more than endless armies of these last men, destroying the lives of anyone who seeks to challenge the status quo.
There is no clear praxis in which one can exert their will upon the world, to reshape it in their image, there is nothing one can do, and thus nothing ever happens. In fact the opposite may be true, antipraxis may be the only option, and all that is required is malicious compliance to a system that seeks maximal exploitation of its constituents.
Happening is a perspective
There have been recent happenings around the world, but if one isn't being directly affected by it, is it really happening? An entire country could disappear from existence and it wouldn't be a happening, because it wouldn't affect most people's lives personally. There are in fact, few happenings that affect people around the world globally. Even the coronavirus scare ended up just being a nothingburger, although the reaction to it caused more harm than the actual virus.
If a random human across the world gets kidnapped and detained indefinitely without a trial for a crime they didn't even commit, is that a happening to anyone but that person? From that person's perspective, they might as well wish that the world would end, if they want a chance to be spared.
The long timescale of happening
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where nothing happens.” ― Chudimir Ilyich Lenin
People are accustomed to thinking in terms of short timescales, but the possibility of an immediate event having long-lasting impacts is slim. A national default on sovereign debt would certainly be one of those events, but it always gets pushed indefinitely into the future. People living through the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire were not even aware of this fact, since it happened over centuries, or even shorter timescales, such as the collapse of the Soviet Union which lasted only a few decades.
Many of us are living through a slow collapse of governments and institutions, it just isn't so apparent in daily life. One would hope that they are replaced with something that serves human needs better, but there is no guarantee of progress, what comes next may as well be technofeudalism on a greater scale.
Prepping for nothing
One of the most amusing phenomena of the modern world is prepperism. The ideology of prepperism is founded on a belief that modern civilization does not serve human interests and is doomed to collapse. These people stock up on food, water, firearms, and strive to live off the land and construct bunkers in the fear of nuclear armageddon or some similar end of the world event. These people are hopeful that in case of a happening, that they are most prepared for it, and when there is a happening, that they can tell everyone, "I told you so."
There is little separating these preppers from the religiously devout, who believe that the end times are coming. The rest of us may look at them like paranoid loonies, fully comfortable with the fact that nothing ever happens. Even a successful prepper who has achieved autarky, fully living off of the land, must accept that even in the best outcome of surviving a catastrophic happening, that one would be alone in a sea of the dead.
No incentives for happening
Ever wonder why institutions which provide zero to negative value continue to exist? Or how capital is misallocated towards no productive purpose, like war? There are entire systems which are self-serving, only existing to justify their own existence, to do so requires maintaining the status quo. They can never actually solve the problem for which they are claiming to be the solution, or else they cease to exist.
Western society has lost any sense of civilizational goals, the elites only care to maintain their power. People are not incentivized to do good works for a country that hates them, or have children when the future looks bleak and their lives lack meaning. One does not own the fruits of their labor, one must become the mold upon their fruits. Even the possibility of a great man of history emerging seems slim, as the structures of power have ossified.
There are few people who genuinely wish to make the world a better place, and it certainly isn't the people from Silicon Valley who have made such saccharine slogans their modus operandi. There is only the cult of the self, money and power for me first. The Western mindset is obsessed with playing net-zero to negative sum games, or success at the expense of others.
Surveillance prevents happenings
In sufficiently technological societies, surveillance ensures that there can be no real threats to the system. Even the thought of knowing one is being watched at all times, can be sufficient to stop anyone from organizing. Most peasant revolts in history failed, the success rate of class struggle is abysmal, and if the enemy has an information advantage, why bother?
Most people don't think of their phones as government tracking devices, or that there are algorithms scanning for any anomalous behavior. There's plenty of reasons why one should never bring a phone to a protest. The worst part is how phones are so integral to existing in technological society, like needing a phone to do calls or texts, or paying someone, or going anywhere. There's also the mind-numbing entertainment that keeps people docile.
No happenings without religious belief
Many people who are religious don't actually believe in their religion. But many people who claim they aren't religious, are actually religious. Nothing has caused as much happenings as religion, and arguably nothing can happen without religious belief, or at least zealous beliefs that border on religion.
The most common and pervasive secular religion is the cult of fiat currency. People worship fiat without even being aware of it, such as looking up to business oligarchs as being smarter, more moral, more respectable people. The problem is that money has no telos, the acquisition of money for the sake of acquiring more money is a mental disorder. If we are just automatons trying to maximize money, we end up with nothing but financialization of all sectors of society, people trying to get ahead by fleecing others in the crypto markets, the gig economy, and other forms of findom.
The lack of coherent belief systems leads to people with piles of money that do nothing to advance humanity or cause happenings. The accumulation of money in the worst kinds of people leads to worship of chicanery, narcissism, and power. Since states can just print fiat currency, they have become divine. Government = God. They no longer have to adopt or co-opt religion as a means of control, they are the religion, and the only telos of government is the continuity their own parasitic existence.