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Lessons from Roman Empire about dangers of luxury
- cultofmetatron 5y agowell.. I gotta say, being enslaved by good health care wouldn't be the worst problem to have
- gentleman11 5y agoI think that many Americans fear they will lose its edge if the people get things like healthcare for free
- cafard 5y agoBullshit. The Ptolemies went to pot in Alexandria, but even so Cleopatra went down fighting. The (down-home) Macedonians had a lot of money, but they went down fighting. The Gauls lost a series of pitched battles before they were conquered, as did the Britons. Tacitus was a remarkable writer, but he had an axe to grind. The degeneration through luxury he had in mind was back in Rome. The Big Think? Here I want to quote G.K. Chesterton's friend, who heard what someone prefaced with a "A thought:", and said, "Good God, man, you call that a thought?"
- 1cvmask 5y agoThis is the problem with these writers is that they lack precision in their arguments and conflate partial facts with delusions to come to a desired outcome. From the article: “Faced with a trade deficit with China, the British Empire flooded their country with cheap opium they had shipped over from India. A luxury drug became an addiction, and the British traded their opium for porcelain, tea, and silk.” Britain started a series of wars on China to accept the drug Opium which was banned in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars Modern Germany and the technological advancements was not enslaved, weakened or slowed down by the universal social security and healthcare system enacted by Bismarck in 1883: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Social_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Social_legis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany