/lit/ - Literature

ANY TREATISE, ESSAY, OR BLOGPOST, COMPARING UNITEDSTATES TO ROMA WOULD BE ERRONEOUS: UNITEDSTATES IS PHŒNICEICAL, NOT ROMAICAL; UNITEDSTATES IS AKIN TO CARTHAGO, NOT TO ROMA.

>>18759770
I dunno, but I have thought sometimes that both empires inability to create many mathematicians or philosophers of note (relative to their population and power) is a worthwhile insight into their cultures.

>>18759770
It would be a terrible comparison. The Roman empire was based as fuck at its peak and for a few hundred years after. America has been gay kiked bullshit from the very beginning.

>>18759770
Never.

>>18759951
That's why Germany and Greece are the two most based countries in the world.

1. A nation whose formative origins involve throwing off the yoke of a king and declaring that it would have no more kings

2. A nation that became a republic, ruled by aristocrats with the additional input of the masses

3. A nation that expanded beyond its initial confines to rule its entire landmass

4. A nation that was gifted a founding myth that stated it had a destiny to expand, and to rule a vast empire

5. A nation that won mighty wars against foreign enemies, and asserted itself as a world power

6. A nation that usurped the dominant physical and cultural powers of its time, powers with ancient and venerable cultures, to take command of the known world.

7. A nation that came to blows with another great empire, with which it warred over and over in various conflicts, and which came to see this other great empire as its ideological enemy, against which it defined itself as an identity

8. A nation which finally defeated its primal foe and assumed control of its own territory, becoming the sole imperial power of the known world

9. A nation which, having assumed this sole position of authority, then began to struggle with immense social upheaval, resulting from inequalities of wealth and inadequate treatment of the lower classes

10. A nation that, in response to this upheaval and inequality, began to see the rise of demagogues and populist figures, who played on the discontent of the masses to seize power for themselves

11. A nation in which the old rules and norms and standards of behavior came to be increasingly violated, and irregular power -- power outside the normal rules of order -- began to be wielded by many

Am I describing the United States, or Rome?

>>18759770
Not really, but Asimov based his Foundation series on the fall of the Roman empire, so make of that what you will.
>>18759926
>phoeniceical
>romaical
wat?

>>18759974
>another great empire
Which one is that for us? The Soviets?

>>18759995
Yes. The Soviet Union is America's Carthage. We defined our existence in opposition to them in an existential way, just as Rome defined themselves existentially in opposition to the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars.

>>18759974


THOSE ARE SUPERFLUOUS PARALLELISMS; ANY TWO THINGS CAN BE COMPARED VIA ACCIDENTAL TRAITS, OR CONDITIONS, BUT THAT DOES NOT NECESSARILY INDICATE HOMOLOGOUS, NOR ANALOGOUS, RELATION, MUCH LESS A SIMILARITY.

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF POLITICAL EXPANSION: IMPERIAL OR GENERATIVE, AND COLONIAL OR PREDATORY.

IMPERIAL OR GENERATIVE POLITIES CIVILIZE, REPLICATING THEIR POLITICAL ORTHOGRAM ON THE CONQUERED TERRITORY, AND ASSIMILATING & INTEGRATING OTHER PEOPLES INTO THEIR STATE.

COLONIAL OR PREDATORY POLITIES BARBARIZE, EXTERMINATING, MASSACRING, AND/OR ENSLAVING, THE NATIVE POPULATION, AND ESTABLISHING MERCANTILE FACTORIES FROM WHICH THEY EXPLOIT THE NATURAL, AND HUMAN, RESOURCES OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORY.

EXAMPLES OF IMPERIAL OR GENERATIVE POLITIES: THE MACEDONIC EMPIRE, ROMA, THE UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN EMPIRE OF THE HISPANICAL MONARCHY, ET CETERA.

EXAMPLES OF COLONIAL OR PREDATORY POLITIES: THE ACHÆMENID SOCALLED «EMPIRE», CARTHAGO, CULÚA (THE TENOCHCA FEDERATION), THE KINGDOM OF PORTUGAL, THE INCAIC SOCALLED «EMPIRE», THE BRITISHER SOCALLED «EMPIRE», UNITEDSTATES, ISRAEL, ET CETERA.

UNITEDSTATES' HISTORICAL POLITICAL ARCHETYPE IS CARTHAGO, NOT ROMA.

>>18760004
I would disagree, I don't think the defeat of the Soviets is even comparable to the defeat of Carthage, which was totally annihilated and posed no further challenge in any form. The Soviets, now Russia, continues to be a rival for the US. I would say that the rise of China in recent decades is comparable to the rise of Parthia, though.

>>18759974
Holy shit

>>18759974
>both nations got completely btfo by invading the middle east to the point the economic stress eventually destroyed them

>>18759926
>C
>u
>m
>G
>e
>n
>i
>u
>s

>>18759990
>>phoeniceical
>>romaical
>wat?
I think it's a reference to the United States being a primarily naval power like Phoenicia, not a land-based power like Rome.

duh. Are We Rome?:The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (2007), American author and journalist Cullen Murphy draws parallels between the United States in the early 21st century and the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when it suffered its decline and eventual fall.

>>18759974
Is this your own writing or is it from a book?

>>18759770
Athenian empire is a much more relevant comparison to the US if there's any.

>>18759770
Only if they kill Jesus after he gets back.

>>18759770
no

>>18759770
The US wasn't, isn't and never will be a proper country let alone an empire.It's a multinational corporation with shadow shareholders and enchanted slaves that have been conditioned to perceive said company's demands and exploits as patriotism and its charter as a republican constitution.

>>18761807
Already happened. Wounded Knee.

>>18761140
That I understood, even though I disagree. But these terms are so outlandish to me that I had to stop and think for a second. Anyway, I think the US is both a strong land and sea power. The real sea power comparable to Carthage is the UK.

>>18765191
I dunno. I am a civilian so I'm probably not informed on this stuff, but it seems like the US Army just loses all the time (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) and the Air Force and Navy are what makes the country powerful, military-wise. The US hasn't lost a naval conflict since WWII, and our air power is second to none.

>>18759770
Literally Starship Troopers.

>>18765216
Vietnam is the only one of those that could be considered a genuine loss. The middle east has been occupied by the states for nearly two decades and overall has had the lowest amount of casualties compared to any previous conflict the US had (despite what the media will make the occupation out to be). The war was never "won" because it's nigh-impossible to truly win a guerilla war, especially when proxies are involved.

>>18765216
>Vietnam
That's the only real loss, as >>18765575 said.
>Afghanistan
It's not that the US sucks, it's just that Afghanistan has historically been difficult to control.
>Iraq
This is sort of a grey area, I think. Technically not a loss, but not close to a victory.
Overall, the US has done well on land, on the sea, and in the air throughout its existence. WWII is a good example of this. It's just that the military successes and impressive victories of the US were either during the Civil War or just are overshadowed by other major events at the time.

>>18765629
>US doing well on land in WW2
The Kraut had about 80% of his boys in the East trying to stave off the rape Ivan would bring them. The US did terrible in Tunis, despite the Brits kicking their asses from Alamein. The P47 and the mustang did an amazing job in Europe, but boy was the Sherman a shitshow. Imagine suffering that many losses in the Rhineland while Stalin already took out half of the Heer.

>>18761552
It's my own writing. I've been noticing our parallels to Rome for a while.

Right now, America's in its Late Republic. We are Rome in the 2nd or 1st Century BC. Trump was either Tiberius Gracchus or Marius, depending on how you prefer to view him. Biden is Sulla.

The mistake is to assume that America is already the declining Roman Empire. Rome was in a period of decline and strain during the end of the Republic, too. It's possible the empire would have totally collapsed if Augustus hadn't come around when he did. Augustus' reorganization of the bureaucracy and imperial administration basically saved the Empire that he helped create. In a similar way, the US could eventually cease being a republic and become a proper empire, and the emperor who finally ends the republic could reorganize and rejuvinate the administration of the American Empire, strengthening America and increasing its power. Rome always seemed to get the right man for the job when it entered a period of crisis, at least until the Ottomans came to town in 1453. America is in a period of crisis right now as its republic strains and collapses, but if it gets the right man in the highest point at the right time, a new dawn of power and prosperity could emerge for it.

>>18761158
>journalist

>>18765739
I vote for Gracchus. But will there be a Byzantium? Where is the east that will hold out, and think itself America, for hundreds of years? The west coast?

>>18759770
Every European power at their apex since the Franks have compared themselves to the Romans, or some ancient counterpart. It all came to nothing for them, even if you were to make some droll late republic comparison no US politician has gleaming military record like Marius or Sulla, and Trump didn't even threaten to do anything to damage the oligarchy unlike the Grachii

>>18765893
I think America is more akin to China than Europe, in that China has split into multiple states and united again and again. America lends itself to the same sort of process.

>>18765893
>But will there be a Byzantium?

Ask me in 500 years.

>>18765913
If technological developments don't interfere, then might it not be the geographic determinism rather than political. Is the Mississippi watershed similar enough to China. Does control of the Mississippi inevitably lead to a continent wide political structure? I don't know. The Midwest and the east coast seem more necessarily interlocked. The Rockies are a pretty significant barrier probably enough to protect a separate state, now that it is populated by cultures of similar development.

If anything, I can see a future American Byzantium going west, instead of east. The entire reason Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople was to focus on securing Rome's richer provinces in the east from the east's more powerful, organized foes, such as Persia. The equivalent of that for America would be moving the capital west. I can picture some city in the West being our future Constantinople. Maybe Salt Lake City? Or, hell, something in California.

>>18765952
There's the cultural aspect of it too. "Sea to Shining Sea" would be the endgoal of all American successor states.

>>18765967
They'd might often be subduing the hostile populations of Deserret, Cascadia and Southland. If trade with Asia is a significant source of revenue, the west might also often be richer. Although Rome has history like this as well I think

>>18765965
It'd be an ocean port city. I think that makes for candidates of (San Diego/Tijuana/) L.A., San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle; perhaps in order of likelyhood.

"The Coming Caesars" by Amaury de Riencourt. It was originally published in 1957. It obviously takes from Oswald Spengler, especially in the earlier chapters. However, the author, a Frenchman and Americanophile, focuses much more on America itself and the cultural forms of America, how they formed and how they parallel with Rome, things which Oswald Spengler wasn't as interested in as compared to Europe. It traces the macro-historical development of Caesarism in America, which is apparent even since the days of Andrew Jackson.
And, we're talking 1957. Long before the days of Trump and Obama, before the coalition conflicts of the Gulf War and Iraq.
Riencourt makes a couple of interesting observations as a European. For example, something no American would would say, is that Americans are collectivist. We tend to see ourselves as individualistic, ideally as rugged frontier types, at least contrary to other cultures. In a way, perhaps in more religious or philosophical ways, but that's not all true. I'd argue that America is politically collectivist and culturally assimilative, to a degree not even China or Europe is. Notice how rare multi-party politics is. Notice in war, how internal disputes and divisions almost never alter its course. "Oh, but Vietnam," you say. For as strong as anti-war sentiment is, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan went on for *decades.* When the Republicans and the Democrats face off, they tend to make it a team effort. When we went to war with Germany, the German-Americans (most substantial ethnic group of American whites), fought against Germany.

>>18759770
The Coming Caesars. It's based on Oswald Spengler's philosophy of history.
But the Roman empire is the wrong comparison, modern USA is morphologically equivalent to the late Roman republic. Which is the argument made in The Coming Caesars.

Some notes i took while reading

>Nietzsche's herd man is the man of urban civilization; in 1954 the farm population of America was 23 percent, in 2020 it is 2 percent.
>Cultures fight over ideas, Civilizations fight over economics. Europe and Greece represent the former, America and Rome the latter.
>Hitler's Germany was the last idealistic war in Europe before it was crushed by American civilization
>Civilization is the inevitable consolidation of men and ideas once Culture burns itself out; it is not a negative phenomenon, but a necessary transition
>American civilization is the old age of European culture
>America's ideological conservatism and distrust of philosophical ideas is bolstered by the complete ascendency of women, the conservative minded sex. Civilization can only be secured on these feminine foundations
>culture is rational, civilization is feminine. This is because materialists cannot fulfill their religious instincts metaphysically, but emotionally, like a female
>Americans are psychological socialists without having any awareness of the fact
>hero worship is an integral part of the American soul; initiative belongs to the individual, not the group, so democracy inevitably places more and more power in the hands of one man
>American men are perpetual children and women are the only adults. Americans are obsessed with love and romance due to the absolute predominance of the feminine principle in their society
>feminine public opinion looks for a virile Caesar
>culturally moribund Europe has become irreversibly Americanized; today we are all Americans

>>18766105
Kek i wrote the post under yours without scrolling down fully

>>18759770

>>18765739
Trump is more of a Gaius than a Tiberius, since both were historically loud and volatile in speech. Otherwise, I agree wholeheartedly.

>>18765893
The parallels need not be so direct. I think people often misinterpret them in this way, and misunderstand why there might be parallels in history to begin with that due to the destiny of cultures as common bodies of potentials, actualizations, and ideas.
People look at Trump and think he was the Caesar of western civilization, and since (at least so far) sputtered out unspectacularly, well there goes the American Caesar, time for the "American Augustus." Or another example: saying China is actually Rome and the US is Carthage, because one has "bottomless manpower" and the other is a mercantile power. It's asinine and misses the point.
"Caesar" and the "Empire" in this sense are abstractions, not specific people and places. The reason Spengler got a lot of things right was because he examined the ontology of history. Caesar need not be one person, as evidenced by the fact that even in Rome, Julius Caesar proper was assassinated and much of "Caesarism" itself was actualized after he died.

>>18766631
Ok, but it still seems likely one part of the empire will be able to hang on longer and pretend it is still, mostly, the original empire, even though barbarians are picking over the corpse of the original homelands. There are other ways for a civilization to collapse, but the geography of North America suggests the west coast might just do that. Or be the first to fall to a Pacific power. I don't know. I'd like to set up my descendents in the nice place though.

>>18759770
>Has anyone written a book comparing the US to the Roman Empire?

Stefan Molyneux did an almost three hour video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxMjjYGs5w4&t=1s

John Galtung. Norwegian guy. Kinda weird New Left hippie dude, he's into psychoanalysis, but it's interesting book because it predicted 2020 would be the year when it really starts to fall apart. It was published in 2008 but based on article from 2004.

Talks about the Roman Empire a bit. Also sees parallels to the Soviet Union. But all empires have a similar "essence" maybe that you can follow.

>For the USSR, Galtung's model identified five key structural contradictions in Soviet society which, he said, would inevitably lead to its fragmentation—unless the USSR underwent a complete transformation.

>In the case of the USSR, the main structural contradictions were as follows: the working class was increasingly repressed and unable to self-organise through trade unions (ironic given the country's Communist pretensions); the wealthier 'bourgeoisie' or elite had money to spend, but nothing to buy from domestic production, leading to economic stagnation; Russian intellectuals wanted more freedom of expression; minorities wanted more autonomy; and peasants wanted more freedom of movement

[...]

>The book sets out a whopping 15 "synchronizing and mutually reinforcing contradictions" afflicting the US, which he says will lead to US global power ending by 2020—within just four years. Galtung warned that during this phase of decline, the US was likely to go through a phase of reactionary "fascism".

>He argued that American fascism would come from a capacity for tremendous global violence; a vision of American exceptionalism as the "fittest nation"; a belief in a coming final war between good and evil; a cult of the strong state leading the fight of good against evil; and a cult of the "strong leader".

>Among the 15 structural contradictions his model identifies as driving the decline, are:

>economic contradictions such as 'overproduction relative to demand', unemployment and the increasing costs of climate change;

>military contradictions including rising tensions between the US, NATO, and its military allies, along with the increasing economic unsustainability of war;

>political contradictions including the conflicting roles of the US, UN and EU;

>cultural contradictions including tensions between US Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and other minorities;

>and social contradictions encompassing the increasing gulf between the so-called 'American Dream', the belief that everyone can prosper in America through hard work, and the reality of American life (the fact that more and more people can't).

>>18766780
Also what he sees about the U.S. empire is that it's much bigger than "the United States" as a country. It's a global empire with peripheral elites who swear fealty to it; i.e. leaders of other countries who are loyal to the U.S., and when they break from the U.S., that's the end of the empire. And that has internal consequences within the "core" of the empire, like the Italian peninsula for the Roman Empire, which was much bigger than that.

>"An empire is more than violence around the world," said Galtung. "It is a cross-border structure with a center, the imperial country, and a periphery, the client countries. The point about imperialism is to make the elites in the periphery do the jobs for the center."

The problem with thinking we're going to get a Caesar now, though, is that Caesar marked the beginning of the transition of empire. But if the U.S. is falling, we've already had our "Caesar" a long time ago, or we transitioned into rule by imperial forces instead of a republic before many people posting here were even born. You're not getting Caesar, you're getting increasingly decadent, incompetent tyrants.

>>18766231
>feminine public opinion looks for a virile Caesar
https://youtu.be/iCEDfZgDPS8

>>18760079

Thanks for the post.

I think we have a colonial beginning but are trying, really hard, to be imperial through this online culture stuff.

>>18766830
>trying, really hard, to be imperial through this online culture stuff.
Seems to be working really well too. Every country in Western Europe and Latin America follows our lead when it comes to identity politics, and the entire world is a consumer of American media.

>>18760079
True. One of the few good posts you've made.

>>18766826
True though isn't it? Trump's supporters think he's some kind of alpha male

>>18766803
My problem with people assuming we're already in the empire period, that we've passed the age of the republic, is that elections are still held. The Senate, the House, and the Presidency are still voted on, and they actively change hands. Sure, maybe the people behind the scenes hold most of the legitimate levers of power, but they can still be shaken up by a surprise election. That doesn't happen in an empire. Populism, for that matter, doesn't thrive in a proper empire, because the populists are not able to wield the people as an effective weapon without elections to stand for and offices to hold. If we were legitimately an empire something like Trump's election would not have happened at all since it was obviously not what the elites, our Senatorial class, wanted.

This is why Late Republic makes more sense to me than Late Empire. We have an empire and a global reach, but the people still have a say in the makeup of our government. The people chose Marius and the Gracchi. The people didn't choose Tiberius Caesar or Trajan. Tiberius and Trajan were chosen for them. That's the difference between a republic with imperial authority and a proper empire: the absence of the common people from taking part in the makeup of the emperor's affairs.

We'll know we're a proper empire when there aren't elections at all. They'll simply be done away with.

>>18760079
>THOSE ARE SUPERFLUOUS PARALLELISMS; ANY TWO THINGS CAN BE COMPARED VIA ACCIDENTAL TRAITS, OR CONDITIONS, BUT THAT DOES NOT NECESSARILY INDICATE HOMOLOGOUS, NOR ANALOGOUS, RELATION, MUCH LESS A SIMILARITY.
Nothing in history is accidental. The condition of one generation always conditions the next. This is true across centuries, even millennia. Contingency arises from ignorance. Your alternative analysis of America and Rome is political only. Have you take into account their art? What do you know of their economics? Their spiritual and ethical attitudes? Not merely the content of these things, but form also? For content is merely visible. Form is that which cannot be seen but is everywhere evident to he who knows what he's looking for. America and Rome are indeed homologous, as the Trojan War was to the Crusades, the Peloponnesian War to the Thirty Years War, the Punic Wars to the World Wars. On this I suggest you read Spengler.
Anyway, your dichotomy is completely arbitrary and false. You think Americans massacre and enslave people more than the Romans did? You think the Romans didn't have a basically capitalist economy?

>>18766870

Gotta do something with the platform and lead by example. We can only blame boomers for so long lol.

>>18760004
1. A nation which been at war for a while and was bitterly defeated not by losing major engagements but out of losing will to continue fighting

2. A nation which was back-stabbed in the peace treaty and forced to give up land and make ridiculous payments to the victor of said war

3. A nation which in crisis turned to strong leaders and gave them extraordinary power in hopes of reversing what had happened in the past

4. A nation which was lead by a soldier who ideological hated his enemies

5. A nation which was being limited in military who secretly armed itself

6. A nation which began annexing more land in a moment of weakness by its enemy

7. A nation which after having annexed more and more land promised not to annex any more

8. A nation which annexed that land anyways and was declare war on by its enemy

9. A nation which then proceeded against everyone's expectations to kick ass for the first few years of said war scoring unbelievable victories against all odds

10. A nation which this did not mater in the end and was counter attacked at home and defeated

11. A nation in which was in ruin and made as a vassal to the enemies it once fought

Am I describing Carthage or Germany?

>>18767555
don't care, didn't read

>>18759770
Not a book, but you might enjoy The Fall Of Rome by W.H.Auden.

>>18759951
The country that unites a culture (the hegemon) tends to be on the periphery of that culture but kind of really sucks at high art, philosophy, etc.
America united the West, Rome (or if you prefer Macedonia) united the Hellenic World, the Turks united the Islamic World, etc.

>>18759770
yeah literally everyone who studies Roman history has made this observation because of >>18759974

>>18766267
Holy shit based

fascists probably

Very good thread. Does anyone else find China similar to the Mithridatic threat to Rome?

The 'US as contemporary Rome' might be one of the most boring, not to say self-aggrandizing, takes imaginable.

>>18768724
America = Rome
China = Pontus
America's Carthage was a combination of Russia and Germany

>>18768724
No. China now is similar to China of their own past. PRC communist party members are practically the same as the old Confucian Mandarin class

Mithridates was a Qaddaffi meets Jesus figure who started a feud with the later day Republic.
Only similarity I see is rivalry. The US isn’t going to rise like a phoenix under an imperial order. We’re going to sink like the British empire sank because the oligarchy has had it by the throat for generations

USA
>USA
USA
>USA
USA

FOR ISRAEL!

>VHG........ROME

>>18759770
Pic rel is not exclusively about the US. And Rome is not the sole case study. But Rome is the main point of research and there is a focus on applying it to USA.

>>18768956
Thanks seems interesting

>>18759770
This YouTube video compares America and Rome. The maker of this video believes history is preordained by God and that the history of Christendom mirrored the history of ancient Israel in the Old Testament. Some of it is actually convincing. I know this picture compares ancient Greece to America but it just gives an idea, it's not supposed to be an exact repeat but more of a poetic pattern.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DNyValR4A

>>18768962
Some of his lectures are available free on youtube as well. Good way to get a feel for his theory.

Just occurred to me. America seems to have more in common with Athens than Rome. Perhaps China will be Rome or it is Sparta? There's many different ways we could look at this or fit it into the framework.

It seems to me that America is in the position to be the universal empire but that already seems to be crumbling so quickly. Perhaps Russia and China will fall apart in the coming decades, only time will tell. Or the entire model we are looking at this through turns out to be wrong.

I think it's much more likely America devolves even further into corporation-backed City States with no true border and who end up funding the military that protects these regions through development and taxes. I can see full on oligarchal companies existing. Perhaps along industry lines, but it would make more sense to have major info tech competitors work with other industries to compete. Something like Microsoft/Lockheed/Steel/Monserto, Amazon/Raytheon/Energy/Nestlé, and Google/Northrup/Rail/Auto. Idk.

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Charles Hall proposed an economic model called energy return on investment (EROI), which measures the amount of surplus energy a society gets from using energy to obtain energy.

There would be no surplus if EROI approaches 1:1. Hall showed that the real cutoff is well above that and estimated that 3:1 to sustain the essential overhead energy costs of a modern society. The EROI of the most preferred energy source, petroleum, has fallen in the past century from 100:1 to the range of 10:1 with clear evidence that the natural depletion curves all are downward decay curves. An EROI of more than ~3 then is what appears necessary to provide the energy for socially important tasks, such as maintaining government, legal and financial institutions, a transportation infrastructure, manufacturing, building construction and maintenance, and the lifestyles of all members of a given society.

The social scientist Luke Kemp indicated that alternative sources of energy, such as solar panels, have a low EROI because they have low energy density, meaning they require a lot of land, and require substantial amounts of rare earth metals to produce.[1] Charles Hall and his colleagues reached the same conclusion. There is no on-site pollution, but the EROI of renewable energy sources may be too low for them to be considered a viable alternative to fossil fuels, which continue to provide the majority of the energy consumed by humanity (60–65% as of 2014). Moreover, renewable energy is intermittent and requires large and expensive storage facilities in order to be a base-load source for the power grid (20% or more). In that case, its EROI would be even lower. Paradoxically, therefore, expansions of renewable energy require more consumption of fossil fuels. For Hall and his colleagues, human societies in the previous few centuries could solve or at least alleviate many of their problems by making technological innovations and by consuming more energy, but contemporary society faces the difficult challenge of declining EROI for its most useful energy source, fossil fuels, and low EROI for alternatives.
The mathematician Safa Motesharrei and his collaborators showed that the use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels allows populations to grow to one order of magnitude larger than they would using renewable resources alone and as such is able to postpone societal collapse. However, when collapse finally comes, it is much more dramatic.[6][92] Tainter warned that in the modern world, if the supply of fossil fuels were somehow cut off, shortages of clean water and food would ensue, and millions would die in a few weeks in the worse-case scenario.

Homer-Dixon asserted that a declining EROI was one of the reasons that the Roman Empire declined and fell. The historian Joseph Tainter made the same claim about the Mayan Empire.

>>18765893
>How to read a book
>karl marx
kek.

>>18769030
The result being a critical need to develop nuclear technologies. Get the latest generation fusion plants tested and working. Finish fusion to the point of commercial availability. Quit spending fossil fuel resources building low return renewables (although research is still ok since flora is efficient and clearly possible)

>>18769024
It's not gonna happen Moldbug.

>>18759770
This speech makes a great comparison between the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycuw9Cvh6W4

>>18760079
ROMA!

>>18760079
I hope the nursing staff beat you next time you're committed

>>18759926
Based schizo retard