from Hacker News

How do you know if you’re living through the death of an empire?

by havella on 3/29/20, 7:35 PM with 44 comments

• by simonblack on 3/29/20, 11:21 PM

  The best pointer to collapse, in my opinion, is the state of the infrastructure.

  Infrastructure decays slowly, but costs a lot to fix. It's generally the first thing that gets sacrificed when things get tough.

  "Surely that bridge will last another ten years, so let's put off renovating it it till we have to."

  "We don't have the money now to fix that bridge with the weak beams. We'll wait till we get some extra cash and then fix it properly."

  "Never mind, we can work around that bridge that's collapsed. We'll just use that smaller bridge over there."

• by lmilcin on 3/29/20, 9:04 PM

  My personal favorite is to look at the original values that were used to build the empire. If those values degrade and are not sufficiently replaced/reinforced, this is a sure sign your empire is in decline.

• by TomMckenny on 3/29/20, 8:32 PM

  It need not be theoretical connections to the ancient past. Consider a people who's beliefs get further and further from reality and who's society can't manage to maintain, let alone build, what it used to like roads and bridges. Such a place is in deep trouble almost by definition. And even more oddly, not due to lead pipes or barbarians but purely from social-political causes.

  And if we're talking about the US, the world will continue on with it as a 3rd tier power just as it did outside of Rome. Either the Europeans will get their act together or China will dominate with a capital centered dictatorship as the standard.

• by atesti on 3/29/20, 10:58 PM

  This is also the idea of Jonathan Blow's "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk

• by foxyv on 3/30/20, 2:51 PM

  “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

  ― Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

• by trhway on 3/29/20, 8:35 PM

  >What it could not survive was the cutting of its grain supply, and the end of the administrative apparatus that ensured its regular delivery.

  one of the most recent examples - USSR - the low oil prices of the 198x coupled with the peak cold in the 80 years cycle meant that the resulting low agricultural yield couldn't be supplanted by the required massive import of food, so that time the Russian Empire (USSR) cracked. 80 years before that the Russian Empire had revolution of 1905-06, and while that revolution failed it resulted in a lot of deep changes to the country, in particular agrarian reforms (including introducing peasants' private property on agrarian lands) and huge expansion of Russian agriculture into Siberian regions.

  So, i think that one can estimate the probability of "How do you know if you’re living through the death of a specific government instance/structure/order." by looking at the basic Maslow layers - food and security. This is for example why China Communist Party is hell bent on delivering growth and prosperity and stomping out hard measure style any threats to stability, be it coronavirus or dissidents.

• by blackrock on 3/29/20, 9:15 PM

  The situation is rather interesting.

  If individual states begins to shut down their borders, and alienate citizens from other states, then what is the purpose of the Federal government?

  According to the constitution, the Federal role is to provide for the national defense. And to allow for free interstate trade and commerce.

• by drdgvhbh on 3/29/20, 8:31 PM

  This article, for its length, ended up saying absolutely nothing

• by ngcc_hk on 3/30/20, 1:27 AM

  Also foundation series.

• by 7532yahoogmail on 3/29/20, 9:58 PM

  Trump referred herein as a bullshit artist is certainly a problem in his own. However, the OP is right arguing he's but a convenient and simple example of the subtler, slower moving problems. Of the three Federal branches, Congress confers distinction as that branch with the smallest reputation of institutional credibility. On any of the largest issues,

  - campaign finance reform

  - self dealing

  - gun control

  - taxation policies

  - fiscal control

  - immigration policy

  - increasing deferral to the Executive branch on war powers

  - health care cost inflation

  - partial rollback of Glass-Stiegel act

  - outsized influence of lobbyists

  the underlying theme is willful and actual helplessness.

  The dominant political parties increasingly represented corporations and the upper one percent whether it was the Hollywood A-class or gecko like corporations for profit. Why? Corporations have lobby money and it's easier to interact with fewer corporate contacts that tens of millions of dispersed Americans who lack a single contact point -- even though a House or Senate member has precisely that job.

  Trump/Bannon saw their opportunity and took it.

  Congress has no agency in the here and now. Politicians have succumbed to the outsized problem space increased by inaction in what has become an all too familiar trajectory:

  - they try to position themselves as DC outsiders aligned with hardworking Americans and kitchen table issues whether by portraying us as spinless over anxious, over worked victims or heroic proletariat suckers who still manage the good fight

  - They talk about what they will do in the always perpetual future

  Once the campaign is over the realities of institutional incompetence cast a shadow so large it crushes pragmatic action.

  And thus we become more disalusioned with Congress. In frustration and anger a sufficient number of people went Trump.

  To use and abuse the Plato analogy, too much cheap symbolism of emotional issues has dominated our conversation about the shadows on the cave wall. We need but turn around and walk the 10 feet out of the cave entrance and do the practical things like clearing up our home camp. Yes, smart doing requires smart thinking -- the two are permanently entangled in the other -- so ideas matter. Dispositioning the shadows matters. But the Federal US government was never intended to be bully pulpit for the Christian right or inveigh on it. That's a problem for a father, mother, son, and daughter. The US government is about a human justice; it's about fighting structural and monied power that violate individual liberty.

  Right now our cherished ideals are like the crushed and broken stained glass shards on the ground. So be it. Let's start the work of reassembling them an make anew meaning.

• by PeterStuer on 3/29/20, 8:05 PM

  TLDR

  "Every state and society faces serious challenges. The difference lies in whether the underlying structures are healthy enough to effectively respond to those challenges. Successful states and societies are resilient when faced with even serious challenges. Falling empires are not."

  "All empires think they’re special, but all empires eventually come to an end. The United States won’t be an exception.

  The popular story version of this particular falling empire might focus on a twice-divorced serial philanderer and bullshit artist and make him the villain, rendering his downfall or ultimate triumph the climax of the narrative. But it’s far more likely that the real meat of the issue will be found in a tax code full of sweetheart deals for the ultra-wealthy, the slashed budgets of county public health offices, the lead-contaminated water supplies. And that’s to say nothing of the decades of pointless, self-perpetuating, and almost undiscussed imperial wars that produce no victories but plenty of expenditures in blood and treasure, and a great deal of justified ill will."

• by dmfdmf on 3/29/20, 8:13 PM

  If the USA goes then it all goes, i.e. Western Civilization. We will collapse into another Dark Age.

  Rand identified the cause plus the solution and argued for it for 50 years before she died. The cause is epistemology or the branch of Philosophy that studies "How Do You Know...". The status & respect for reason has been under assault by bad philosophers for 200 years now and this is the culmination.

• by ngcc_hk on 3/30/20, 1:26 AM

  “ Let’s say you were a woman born in a thriving market town in Roman Britain in the year 360. If you survived to age 60, that market town would no longer exist, along with every other urban settlement of any significant size. You lived in a small village instead of a genuine town. You had grown up using money, but now you bartered—grain for metalwork, beer for pottery, hides for fodder. You no longer saw the once-ubiquitous Roman army or the battalions of officials who administered the Roman state. Increasing numbers of migrants from the North Sea coast of continental Europe—pagans who didn’t speak a word of Latin or the local British language, certainly not wage-earning servants of the Roman state—were already in the process of transforming lowland Britain into England. That 60-year-old woman had been born into a place as fundamentally Roman as anywhere in the Empire. She died in a place that was barely recognizable.” very striking.

  Should we all speak communist chinese? I am afraid you all might, just like us forced to now. Good luck. You need it.