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> idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking Occasionally it did happen that way though. e.g. the Soviet Union was seemingly fine (or not much worse t

by pqtyw 1y ago

> idea of "a fall" is a universal bug in our thinking Occasionally it did happen that way though. e.g. the Soviet Union was seemingly fine (or not much worse that before) and suddenly it and its empire was in a couple of years. Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead.

MangoToupe 1y ago
> Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead. Arguably the absolute worst aspects of it are preserved under the state that exists there today. There's certainly a solid through-line through Putin himself.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  Is it? Putin's regime seems like a mostly generic pseudo-fascist dictatorship, except that they have nukes and stuff which they inherited from the USSR. > absolute worst aspects of it are preserved While it's obviously horrible, lets not downplay what the USSR was. Even as late as the 80s when they were pretty much exterminating entire towns and villages in Afghanistan. Of course there are tactical and strategical reasons why they can't do something close in scale to that in Ukraine.
binary132 1y ago
Ironically this is a pretty good point in favor of GP, since the “powers that were” in Soviet Russia retained a great deal of their power and connections, as sibling comment noted. That said, I don’t think there is even a remote resemblance between the imperial might of Old Rome and its remnants in Italia. What did and does remain are the lineage of Romanized nations that succeeded it in Western Europe, and as many others have noted, the Church, which is a whole other subject in itself.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  > between the imperial might of Old Rome and its remnants in Italia After more than a thousand years that's true. But Rome remained the "universal [Christian] Empire" well into the middle ages. In a way didn't really matter if its capital was in Constantinople or Aachen or Rome. Or if its ruler spoke Latin, Greek or even German. Its ~35 years since the the collapse of the USSR, its cultural identity has pretty much disappeared.
  - binary132 1y ago
    I would consider Old Rome and the Holy Roman Empire to be two distinct entities.
    - pqtyw 1y ago
      Perhaps, yet a reasonably educated person in the Frankish Empire or the early Holy Roman Empire probably wouldn't. It wouldn't even make much sense to them.

by pqtyw 1y ago

MangoToupe 1y ago

> Their style of communism/socialism went down with them and is pretty much dead. Arguably the absolute worst aspects of it are preserved under the state that exists there today. There's certainly a solid through-line through Putin himself.

pqtyw 1y ago
Is it? Putin's regime seems like a mostly generic pseudo-fascist dictatorship, except that they have nukes and stuff which they inherited from the USSR. > absolute worst aspects of it are preserved While it's obviously horrible, lets not downplay what the USSR was. Even as late as the 80s when they were pretty much exterminating entire towns and villages in Afghanistan. Of course there are tactical and strategical reasons why they can't do something close in scale to that in Ukraine.

binary132 1y ago

Ironically this is a pretty good point in favor of GP, since the “powers that were” in Soviet Russia retained a great deal of their power and connections, as sibling comment noted. That said, I don’t think there is even a remote resemblance between the imperial might of Old Rome and its remnants in Italia. What did and does remain are the lineage of Romanized nations that succeeded it in Western Europe, and as many others have noted, the Church, which is a whole other subject in itself.

pqtyw 1y ago
> between the imperial might of Old Rome and its remnants in Italia After more than a thousand years that's true. But Rome remained the "universal [Christian] Empire" well into the middle ages. In a way didn't really matter if its capital was in Constantinople or Aachen or Rome. Or if its ruler spoke Latin, Greek or even German. Its ~35 years since the the collapse of the USSR, its cultural identity has pretty much disappeared.
- binary132 1y ago
  I would consider Old Rome and the Holy Roman Empire to be two distinct entities.
  - pqtyw 1y ago
    Perhaps, yet a reasonably educated person in the Frankish Empire or the early Holy Roman Empire probably wouldn't. It wouldn't even make much sense to them.