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Ray Dalio seems to think the opposite: that the US is in the falling Empire stages (think 3rd-4th century AD) where there is a lot of internal strife and the ec

Ray Dalio seems to think the opposite: that the US is in the falling Empire stages (think 3rd-4th century AD) where there is a lot of internal strife and the economy is stumbling. A new enemy is rising to challenge the existing superpower and the will to expand and fight is no longer there (Germanic tribes and the Sassanids for Rome, China for the US). I think peak US ala the Roman Republic would've either been right after WW2 or right after the USSR fell (Gulf War era basically).

burlesona 5y ago
That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?
- pfraze 5y ago
  We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
    - seanw444 5y ago
      Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!
- drewcoo 5y ago
  After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.
- socksset 5y ago
  Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"
pfraze 5y ago
I remember reading this theory a bit ago and I thought it was one of the more compelling observations. It depends on whether you're focusing on foreign or domestic politics, because both fit in various ways. When the republic fell to an empire, it was due more to domestic issues: the agrarian middle class was displaced by slave labor and mostly forced into professional military careers, and the very rich infought into conquering the state. The the empire fell (at least, the Western empire) it was foreign issues: the central state was over-extended and unable to hold the full Pax Romana territory any longer. The useful lesson from the "falling Empire stages" is to gracefully cede influence without entering into counterproductive wars with new rising powers, as you mention with China.

burlesona 5y ago

That's a popular take, but I don't know how much it holds water. What really does seem to be the sad, sad reality is that America needs external enemies or else it feeds on itself. Since the fall of the USSR politics have gotten steadily nastier, but all the sudden people are finding lots of common ground in solitary against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But will that solidarity last more than a few news cycles?

pfraze 5y ago
We have a little bit of a self-vision problem. Historically, America focused on conquering new frontiers: manifest destiny (with all the nastiness that includes), industrialization, the space race, computing. It's not really clear what the next national frontier will be, and a lot of the domestic politics are anchored more around the allocation of resources from past frontiers rather than the establishment of a new frontier. This is all orthogonal to external enemies like the USSR, which I just see as a relatively generic phenomenon; countries frequently unify around external enemies, and you're probably right that the current situation with the USSR won't have a very long-lasting effect.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  Wow. I hope we can galvanize around something that is a real enemy (climate change, disease) rather than made-up stuff.
  - seanw444 5y ago
    Wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately we've got politicians with pockets to line. Progress would be antithetical!
drewcoo 5y ago
After the cold war ended we had Iraq. And then the war on terror. War makes money. I hear people say that our response to 9/11 shows that the terrorists won. I think actually bin Laden did a huge favor to the military industrial complex - they won.
socksset 5y ago
Dalio said without reservation or probability that at the start of COVID we were in a global depression. Oops, 100% wrong but no one cares. IMO the entire narrative that Americans are so divided is largely an illusion. People are highly divided over wedge issues in online arguments. If you turn off the internet, the phone and FOX/CNN/MSNBC people are pretty much the same. Sporting events are a good example of reality. If the media narratives were true getting a 100k people in a sports stadium would result in utter chaos. We are certainly not as divided as in the 60s. That is so apparent if you read any history from that time. Actually, if we suffer from anything it is exactly represented by Dalio. Conflating extreme wealth accumulation with extreme intelligence and wisdom. The ideas of billionaires are given far too much weight. Not based on the ideas themselves but on the size of their net worth. IMO if Feynman or Einstein were alive today no one would listen to them, "If you are so smart why don't you have a billion dollars???"

pfraze 5y ago

I remember reading this theory a bit ago and I thought it was one of the more compelling observations. It depends on whether you're focusing on foreign or domestic politics, because both fit in various ways. When the republic fell to an empire, it was due more to domestic issues: the agrarian middle class was displaced by slave labor and mostly forced into professional military careers, and the very rich infought into conquering the state. The the empire fell (at least, the Western empire) it was foreign issues: the central state was over-extended and unable to hold the full Pax Romana territory any longer. The useful lesson from the "falling Empire stages" is to gracefully cede influence without entering into counterproductive wars with new rising powers, as you mention with China.