As always, LH, very thoughtful. Actually, the Buddhist tradition has a variety of versions of this. The core is that any development is personal, not social (which was kind of implied in your original point). But there are historical sketches -- probably influenced by proto-Hindu myths like the Kali Yuga. In some Buddhist traditions, the world is going to pot post-Buddha, and will only be redeemed by Maitreya Buddha (the Buddha of the future).   My experience has been that nobody much takes Maitreya seriously, except for one or two of the weird Japanese cult Buddhisms.

The Zen position on time is exemplified by the fox koan. (A monk refused to believe in karma, and was reborn as a fox for 40 generations -- when I asked a Zen teacher whether that meant that Buddhists had to believe in karma, he smiled and said the reason he was reborn 40 times was to give him a lot of time to think about it......).

yours,

Peter T.