Andrea Junker 
In history class, I never understood how “advanced” civilizations could collapse. It just didn’t seem plausible.
Anyway, I’ve seen enough. I get it now.
GeePawHill@Strandjunker Yeah. "Oh."
Irenes (many)@GeePawHill @Strandjunker on so many topics lately :(
hendrikstier@Strandjunker advanced -> ad vance? cannot be good 😬
Nidarosgnomen@hendrikstier @Strandjunker where does the "d" go? His couch?
@makja @Strandjunker stochastically…
SabreToothTigress ZenD
kit@Strandjunker
I've been feeling it for a while, but every time we've not all actually died in a fire, I keep thinking I must have been mistaken.
I've been feeling it for a while, but every time we've not all actually died in a fire, I keep thinking I must have been mistaken.
Vicenç@Strandjunker això deu funcionar com el capitalisme que avança i avança cap a l'abisme conscient que el camí que segueix va, precisament, cap a l'abisme però actua de l'única manera que sap i pot actuar. Només té aquestes instruccions i per sobreviure les ha de complir obligatòriament... sabent que això el destruirà.
VoidZeroOne 
@Strandjunker it's an empire and all empires are bound to fall.
Haelwenn /элвэн/ 
@TheOneDoc @Strandjunker At least we got quite few recent examples, like USSR in the 90's as well.
So better documented than ancient ones like roman empire, bronze age, …
So better documented than ancient ones like roman empire, bronze age, …
Edgar@TheOneDoc @Strandjunker Fail is a strong word. Maybe “transform”? Russia has been acting imperial for centuries. It was an empire in the 1709s. It subjugated its neighbours for various reasons, geography and food access for eg.
Take Finland… since 1809, it has been annexed by Russia, achieved independence, then lost a chunk of territory to the USSR (heavily Russian power structure in the USSR)
The USSR lost dominance over its neighbours in the 90’s. The Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation
They’ve started wars with Chechnya, Geogria, and Ukraine. While suppressing non-Russian minorities within Russia.
They’re influencing the Iran war.
Russia still sounds hella imperial to me
Benjamin Ultan Cowley@Edgar @TheOneDoc @Strandjunker this conflates institutions with culture. Russia is culturally Russian, with strong incentives to strongman rule and conquest (see Boyars).
But the tsarist empire failed, and the USSR failed, and modern Russia might still fail with the amount of stress it's under.
Empires tend to fail when the internal dynamic of wealth extraction becomes top heavy. USA is definitely in that phase. Not clear if it is irrevocable
But the tsarist empire failed, and the USSR failed, and modern Russia might still fail with the amount of stress it's under.
Empires tend to fail when the internal dynamic of wealth extraction becomes top heavy. USA is definitely in that phase. Not clear if it is irrevocable
Israa 🌿🇵🇸@Strandjunker A profound disappointment in humanity.
When pain and injustice become commonplace in the eyes of the world, no amount of material progress can define true civilization. Civilization is built on humanity, not on money or technological advancement. 🥺🇵🇸
Assimilateborg
Netraven@Strandjunker but wait, there's more.
Bolt@Strandjunker Jared Diamond's 2005 'Collapse' book is much more readable than his 'Guns, Germs and Steel' and walks though some historical collapse scenarios. It has been over a decade since I read it so I'm sure the field has evolved and i might be misremembering, but the main gist I recall is there are too many rich people in advanced societies and too much pressure gets put on ecological systems that allowed the civ to succeed in the first place.
Eric BonoI read 700 pages of frickin Jacques Barzun for this‽
a fish named dog ✡️♾️@Strandjunker can't decide if the US government is currently being more or less ridiculous than the Romans appointing a horse to the Senate
EWR KSC@FishNamedDog @Strandjunker (leaving aside the reality of Inciatius' term in the Senate), Caligula was Emperor in the 30's AD; Alaric's sack of Rome wasn't until four centuries later.
Settle in for the long haul, is what I'm saying
TransitBiker@FishNamedDog @Strandjunker republicans are putting on a coup that superficially resembles a hapless clown show. Was the horse part of a coup attempt?
Fiona@TransitBiker @FishNamedDog @Strandjunker More a way for the emperor to insult the senators, kinda like "You think you're the top of Rome, but you can't tell me what to do any more than this horse can!"
@TransitBiker @Strandjunker @FishNamedDog It's questionable if that exact thing actually happened, but it fits into how after the first two the emperors increasingly stopped pretending the republic was still intact and they were just the most influential senators (with a ridiculous amount of other offices/honors). The coup against the republic was long done by then (though there were many to become emperor instead of the emperor).
KJ6EVV@FishNamedDog @Strandjunker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU "There's a horse in the hospital!"
There's a Horse In The Hospital | John Mulaney | Netflix Is A Joke
Follow John Mulaney, or the news, to see what the President, hippo, and bird do next. Watch John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, only on Netflix. https:...
@FishNamedDog @Strandjunker tyvm, lying laughing
SpaceLifeForm
xs4me2Evil, greed, hate and stupidity for the perfect ingredients for it.... always have been...
@Strandjunker but just imagine the value we’re creating for shareholders!
DanDan420@Strandjunker It all feels like a house of cards, doesn't it?
the hatter@Strandjunker Those who don't learn from history...
Stargeezer Smith@Strandjunker
It's amazing how resilient we've been to external threats, but how vulnerable we are to internal ones, all because of peer pressure cowardice.
It's amazing how resilient we've been to external threats, but how vulnerable we are to internal ones, all because of peer pressure cowardice.
Kimota94@Strandjunker Fair enough.
“Computer, end simulation.”
Hugo 雨果@Strandjunker Advanced civilisations collapse in the same way that wise old men die. It's not only plausible, it's the natural order of things.
NilaJonesI still don't get it. I'm a news junkie in the US, and I still don't understand what I'm seeing, even though it's all around me. It just makes no sense
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC@Strandjunker Every civilisation collapses eventually, for different reasons. Quite often the system cannot maintain its complexity any longer because the complexity costs keep growing while the resources dwindle, and often the system tries to solve the problem by adding another layer of even more complexity because that was the thing that had always worked in the past.
Once you stop looking at civilisation as a human endeavour run by a bunch of experts and thinkers and begin to look at it as a self-organising complex system consisting of all kinds of humans, most of whom don't really know what they're doing and just repeating what seemed to work in the past, you begin to realise that every civilisation eventually crosses the point of no return where collapse becomes inevitable. The Industrial Age is quite likely already beyond saving, we crossed the line some twenty years ago.
Once you stop looking at civilisation as a human endeavour run by a bunch of experts and thinkers and begin to look at it as a self-organising complex system consisting of all kinds of humans, most of whom don't really know what they're doing and just repeating what seemed to work in the past, you begin to realise that every civilisation eventually crosses the point of no return where collapse becomes inevitable. The Industrial Age is quite likely already beyond saving, we crossed the line some twenty years ago.
Just Tom... 🐁I have always thought that this thesis, put forward by Tainter, to be entirely plausible. Our problem is that unlike the Roman or Pueblo civilisations, ours is global and has nowhere else to go when the collapse inevitably occurs. It will be a very rough ride.
Eldritch kcarruthers
bignose“Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.”
�sad thing that advanced i tech does not correlate to advanced in mind
John Griffiths@Strandjunker rich people refusing to pay tax is a recurring theme
Metapod@Strandjunker time causes even the fabric of the universe to collapse eventually. With so few ways to go about the good and so much variety in the bad, those hands don't need to do any work. Nobody gets to be surprised.
Juggling With EggsRemember it wasn’t that long ago that it became a thing that apparently men were thinking of the Romans at least once a day…women were reported as being baffled by this.
As a woman who has a little appreciation of history I could see the Romans were indeed inventive, but then so were the ancient Chinese, Mesopotamians and Egyptians.
But there seemed to be no interest in popular (masculine) debate about how the Roman Empire fell, just its technological achievements. Why?
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@Strandjunker the key to understanding is definitely the quote marks
@Strandjunker I understood it. As a teen, I was absolutely certain that the US would lose its position someday. My hope was that I would die of natural causes before it started to happen. But I have been watching for the signs ever since then. I know the general trajectory, so it's not that hard to see when it's happening.
hanktank61@Strandjunker I read several articles here on M from what I think are serious sources. "Empires collapsing " or "Dark ages¨. Some suggest that was bad for the VVIP-class perhaps. But the lower ranks in society perhaps never knew what happened. Water was streaming down-hilll anyway, birds laying their eggs. Men farming, hunting, women taking care about the house and fermenting. At the end of the Roman Empire and later, genes from N and S European tribes mixed well. Dark Ages ? At night, yes 🙂
Cliff'sEsportCorner@Strandjunker I remember during first couple years of COVID totally revising my evaluation that most zombie apocalypse shows were unrealistic in the poor government responses. Never though all those countries would be out thought by brainless zombies.
arceuthobium@CliffsEsport @Strandjunker I think there was a “Cracked” listicle with a section on how the CDC would wrap up a zombie outbreak without breaking a sweat.
@theothersimo @Strandjunker umm consider the way COVID was handled world wide I really have doubts.
@CliffsEsport @Strandjunker yeah, that take didn’t age well
bazbt3 🦣@Strandjunker @quixoticgeek Did you ever see Arthur C. Clarke's quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"?
It's not a massive step to substituting "form of government" and believing those governing are now reliant on magic to shape their decision making.
Me, I think they've not used the correct cabinet to saw the lady in half.
André@Strandjunker I wonder if this would apply to advanced civilizations where darwin awards (stupid people would die before they have children) would work like evolution for other species?
Christine Malec@Strandjunker Yeah no kidding. I used to believe in the moral arrow, but now I see the moral pendulem, people were right all along. (Covers face.)
Ronago@Strandjunker Someone gets greedy and removes the rules put in place to make society function properly
Tale as old as our species