Joseph Tainter ia an assistant professor of anthropology that has studied collapse of complex societies.
Theory:
Societies become more complex to solve problems. Eventually over time the increased complexity incurs increased cost that provides diminishing returns. { I suggest that the US defense budget or medicare & social security program could be present examples}
When the costs of maintaining complexity outweigh the benefits, societies experience decline. Then collapse.
The 7 minute video below indicated that Roman citizens left Rome to enter barbarian societies as the Roman civilization wasn’t working for them. Today the US system ain’t been functioning for the working class for decades. And lately for younger workers {Affordability crisis} The current system seems to be benefiting fewer & fewer folks.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AkFzzAxGx4]
Just a dog gone minute tj, once AI is up and running our nation will enter Utopia!
My cynicism tells me nope. Likely just further concentration of wealth & gouging of minions.
It doesn’t make much difference to me. I will be dead in 10 to 15 years.
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Good video. Salvian was a Christian scholar who documented that ordinary Romans were leaving Rome to live with the Barbarians. According to Salvian, the Roman ruling elites were using the government to enrich themselves and using the judiciary (who they appointed) to exploit the lower classes. The more things change, the more they remain the same, I suppose.
As an aside, our elites (Elon Musk most recently) often tell us the Roman Empire fell when the public found out they could vote themselves bread and circuses. This is used as warning against social spending. This of course is nonsense. The Roman Empire was a dictatorship, run by an emperor. Citizens had essentially no right to vote when the Roman Empire fell.
In the Roman Republic citizens did have the right to vote, although democracy itself was fairly limited. That ended when Julius Caesar used the military to capture the government, which marked the start of the Roman Empire. That by the way, is why the Constitution says that only Congress can declare war. Bad things could happen if the President goes off on military adventures without authorization from Congress.
In short, the Roman Empire ended because of government corruption and restriction of voting rights. The Roman Republic ended because the military was misused. There might be a lesson or two in there somewhere.
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Regimes fall when they spend above their means. In business it’s called bankruptcy. It happens no matter what the wealth was spent on. Welfare, war, corruption, it matters not what the wealth was spent on. Then the blame game goes viral.
The Captain
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