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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi... > The Roman Empire lost the stre
by ceejayoz 2mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empi...
> The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control over its Western provinces; modern historians posit factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army (check), the health and numbers of the Roman population (check), the strength of the economy (check), the competence of the emperors (check), the internal struggles for power (check), the religious changes of the period (check), and the efficiency of the civil administration (check). Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture (check) also contributed greatly to the collapse. Climatic changes (check) and both endemic and epidemic diseases (check) drove many of these immediate factors.
- A_D_E_P_T 2mo agoYou could look even earlier. There are a lot of similarities between Trump's style and Emperor Commodus's. And to paraphrase Cassius Dio, Commodus took an empire of gold and transformed it into one of iron and rust. Every time I hear people praise the stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius I am reminded of the fact that he failed in his most important duty: To plan well for his succession.
- leereeves 2mo agoThe two worst Roman emperors ruled hundreds of years before the fall: Caligula from 37 to 41 CE, Nero from 54 to 68 CE. Not many people could name, or recognize the name of, any emperor from the last hundred years of the Western Roman Empire. So I don't think Rome is a good analogue for the suggestion that the Trump era is going to kill the USA.
- ceejayoz 2mo agoSure. We had Nixon. Most collapses start slow, and I tend to doubt this one is finished.
- Waterluvian 2mo agoI expect things to actually get better by some measures for a little while as the U.S. liquidates its holdings of international political and socioeconomic influence. A sort of short-lived glut from voluntary cannibalization.
- flossly 2mo agoThere a quite popular narrative saying JFK's murder was a coup, and the US is still couped to this day (voting does not truly matter: the dark budget agencies make the policies anyway, those votes into office simple have to follow suit).
- c7b 2mo agoThe decline of the Roman Empire, depending on how you define it, played out over centuries, if not a millennium. It is such a bad analogy for the kind of within-our-lifetimes collapse that is being speculated about here that it undermines the original concern. The decline of Germany as the leading scientific powerhouse in the first half if the 20th century would be a better case study imho.
- ceejayoz 2mo ago> The decline of the Roman Empire, depending on how you define it, played out over centuries, if not a millennium. Sure, and before COVID-19 pandemics often took years/decades to spread around the globe. Agriculture took thousands of years to develop; iPhones were invented twenty years ago. Things move faster in a world of eight billion people who can get anywhere on the planet in 24 hours.
- bryanlarsen 2mo agoSure, but it's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere, perhaps onat the moon landing. Declines often start out slow and are often indistinguishable from random noise until well after the fact, and there will be rises and falls after the peak.
- senordevnyc 2mo agoit's also likely that some (but not all) historians will put the peak of the American Empire in the 1960's somewhere Based on what metric?
- jebarker 2mo agoThis is not convincing. Many of these are debatable when you actually pull apart what is meant then and now. But there’s also a long list of things that are different about the Roman Empire and US (and the world) today.
- ceejayoz 2mo ago> This is not convincing. Yeah, we heard that about climate change, too. We may be Cassandras, but that doesn't make us wrong.
- nozzlegear 2mo ago> Increasing pressure from invading peoples outside Roman culture (check) also contributed greatly to the collapse. Who is this supposed to be?