/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19678507]

What’s the biggest lesson that can be taken from the fall of Rome?

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678527]

>>19678507
That empire, statism, etc. doesn’t work

[Anonymous No.19678534]

>>19678507
fuck the state

[Anonymous No.19678539]

>>19678507
not to let anglos and germoids into your empire

[Anonymous No.19678551]

Not to have unqualified and careless people running the place.

[Anonymous No.19678558]

Not to cry because its over. Rather smile because it happened at all.

[Anonymous No.19678609]

>>19678507
1) You begin as an agrarian, religious, ethnically/racially homogenous society
2) You start to mature and, as a result, restlessly and aggressively begin to conquer areas outside of your society's boundaries, thereby incorporating the conquered areas into your society
3) You acquire a lot of wealth, become increasingly secularized, develop sprawling urban centers, and incorporate foreign races into society -- and more specifically into the expansionist military -- in order to maintain power and expansionist foreign policy, thus causing the original stock to lose its place
4) Your society is no longer recognizable, the elite do anything they can do maintain wealth and their hedonistic lifestyles at the expense of society, and all those people you conquered turn against society, as they view it as a violent, oppressive force
5) Your society falls, because expansion cannot be maintained, the elites are corrupt, the originally people were replaced, and all the ideas on which your society was originally based were muddied by the infinite number of foreign ideas which were absorbed by society after the conquest of foreign people, thereby causing demoralization, confusion, and nihilism

[Anonymous No.19678613]

>>19678507
You can’t just rest on your laurels, you must always seek to remain vigorous in body and mind, to conquer, expand, strive for heights ever greater.

Pax Romana was the height of Rome but it was also ultimately what doomed it. The population became soft and weak. The barbarians at the frontiers, once easily defeatable, we’re allowed to emerge as a threat because no one wanted to risk another teutoberg forest.

Truly great men were not possible to emerge in such a cuddly environment, the spoiled rotten brat Commodus was the ultimate product of all of this.

Now I don’t exactly judge Rome negatively for this, why should they care about fighting wars in Persia Mountain, Nile deltas, or Scottish highlands? It is interesting to observe how the momentum of the once indomitable Roman cultural bulldozer slowed and then came to a close at this time.

If there’s anyone I blame it’s that bitch Livia Drusilla. Who knows, if Germanicus had been allowed to become emperor they may have expanded all the way to modern day Denmark.

[Anonymous No.19678634]

>>19678558
>>19678551
>>19678539
sublime troofs
>>19678527
>>19678534
Oh no here come the "intellectuals" to inform us about how the made-up society in their head is totally legit and better than the alternative because, like, they thought about it REALLY hard.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678652]

>>19678634
I thought it through, and later found that they'd existed before, numerous times, and exist now, though rare, in numerous places. It IS the natural way of life and what we flee for every time one of these “civilizations” or “societies” gather together a bunch of slaves and slavers.
It isn’t made up.

[Anonymous No.19678658]

>>19678609
>your society falls because expansion cannot be maintained
Are you sure? Territorially Rome didn't expand that much past what Trajan had iirc; Rome kept chugging for centuries after that point with minimal border growth.

[Anonymous No.19678662]

decadence is a plague to society.

[Anonymous No.19678673]

>>19678507
Germans are the enemy of the human-kind. Do not treat them as you do people, you will regret it.

[Anonymous No.19678682]

>>19678673
Germany literally did not start WW1. They merely gave carte blanche to Austria-Hungary and said that if anything happens, they will aid them.

[Anonymous No.19678696]

>>19678652
What does an anarchist have to say for people working in STEM fields who are interested in developing their fields.
It seems to me that a lot of them couldn't do that under anarchist societies.

[Anonymous No.19678705]

>>19678673
Dovahhatty didn't call G*rmania "the Land of Eternal Chaos" for nothing

[Anonymous No.19678709]

>>19678658
Expansion is much more than expanding your borders. Expansion is swallowing up foreigners and foreign ideas.

[Anonymous No.19678712]

>>19678673
>>19678705
Add this dude to the list. Truly, the German is the primary antagonist of human history.

[Anonymous No.19678725]

>>19678682
We literally have the telegrams between the Czar and Kaiser as definitive evidence. Stupid fucking Kraut, always lying.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678727]

>>19678696
Why wouldn’t they?

[Anonymous No.19678747]

>>19678727
They need to allocate alot of resources for some very niche ideas. DUNE, CERN, Gravitational Interferometers, Space Telescopes, theoretical physics, mathematical research and other such will not have a way to "sell" themselves to the masses if all decisions are to be made collectively.

[Anonymous No.19678782]

>>19678696
Maybe you don't understand: butterfly imagined a laboratory in xer anarchist utopia, and then xe thought about it very hard, so it makes sense. Wait until you hear about the dilation stations that'll be made available to the public by volunteer black bloc corps.
Seriously though a country built on Ivan Illich + futurist Fascismo would produce the benefits butterfly is looking for but xe'll never have the iron sense to build it. Keep clinging to what mummy taught you was good and keep that head of yours in the clouds so you don't notice your hands chained to insane economic engines.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678797]

>>19678747
They’ll have only to communicate their project plans to their peers and procure materials now (post capitalist) quite readily available. If it’s a thorium nuclear power plant, they’ll have to run it by the locals, I would imagine. But the justifiable hierarchy of experts over novices may need to enlist a more persuasive speaker/negotiator for such a critical and potentially dangerous project.
Less dangerous or large scale projects shouldn’t be much of a problem. A lot less of a problem I would imagine.

[Anonymous No.19678849]

>>19678797
I've talked at length with researchers and very few of them are good at communication with the general public. They'll have to dedicate some of their energy into doing so or in a way partnership with people in doing it for them.
Also I'm sorry but anarchy is the only society I don't believe can "work" in this specific area. All other type of "extremist" societies have successfully made scientific advanced of the kind I've described.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678884]

>>19678849
This sort of societal arrangement will make for people that can communicate better, generally. And again, an association of scientists from various places will have their time in various communities stacks (in line to speak at direct democracy meets) when and where it’s necessary, even if they have to find a more professional speaker to present their ideas or findings w/e
I don’t see their work hampered by anything but the reality of resource scarcity.

[Anonymous No.19678897]

>>19678884
off topic

[Anonymous No.19678900]

180 degree transformations in society are the norm, not the exception

[Anonymous No.19678910]

>>19678884
Ok well I'm sure it's within the human spirit and culture for that to happen but I must say I found it imposible to happen within my lifetime. Unless some violent revolution happen.
I feel like you're selling me a religion.
Anyway I've also have in my head the kind of society I think it's possible to happen that would make me happier and also I think it's more moralistic (even if almost everyone doesn't believe it is) but the process to get it would be traumatize, painful and cause suffering. That's a like I can't cross because even a relatively small scale stuff has caused me confusion and pain.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678925]

>>19678897
Someone asked a few questions. It is on topic though. The biggest lesson one ought to learn is that from the very start states are odious entities that enslave and bribe. They are their own demise cycling through. They hurt people from start to finish and are never worth it.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19678967]

>>19678910
>I feel like you're selling me a religion
Just trying to describe how things can work out fine of not better. It’s not an unworkable arrangement.
I certainly don’t think it’s inevitable, it’s just perfectly possible.

I shudder to think what you have in mind.

[Anonymous No.19678973]

>>19678925
no, this thread is about the fall of rome. not literature on the fall of rome. this thread is not about literature.

[Anonymous No.19678974]

>>19678652
Marx was right when he described the qualitative shifts to civilizations as history progresses. The application of anarchist logic to pre-industrial societies in order to substantiate anarchism's theoretical validity is a colossal cope.
>>19678797
So if anarchism allows localities in close proximity to each other the autonomy to make choices and MEANINGFUL independent choice there must be the potentiality for large shifts in cultural values. Surely this would hinder the scale of civilization-building and lead to warfare, seeing as you can't suppress human nature by thinking (even if you think SUPER DUPER POOPER hard). Quality of life would suffer immensely...
If anarchist localities in close proximity to each other can't meaningfully distinguish themselves in this way then they're hardly anarchist. If they can but choose not to the question is why.
1) Because there's one way of doing things (such as, you would argue, the anarchist system) that's objectively the best? This would question the necessity of anarchism at all as freedom used correctly would simply be the freedom to do 1 thing (the reasonable thing).
2) Because the same networks of mutual support and understanding develop as trade grows between continents: this would be effectively coercion into compliance with a larger cultural scope, which would entail commitment to larger cultural institutions, which would totally undermine the local authority promised by anarchism.
>>19678884
>in line to speak at direct democracy meets
Contradictory system. No method of governance that can be swayed by charisma, popularity, and rhetoric is meaningfully democratic as men are tricked into throwing away their power in favour of lying politicians. Any local freedom left over would be crippled and eventually subsumed within new Kingships (Big Men from those "democratic" conferences).
Societies with intensive general education in public communication weren't immune from this (Rome). There is no "Socialist Man" there is only Man.

[Anonymous No.19678981]

>>19678973
or in the future, you can not report threads that you don't like.

[Anonymous No.19679002]

>>19678974
>"Socialist Man"
I ought to have used "Soviet Man" to make my point more clearly.

[Anonymous No.19679006]

>>19678967
>>I shudder to think what you have in mind
Ooof way to make me feel like a piece of shit, i recognize it's selfish and would be unpopular but I also recognize that it's ok for me for wanting almost impossible things.
I hope I can one day be more satisfied with what I believe, do and did with my life. That it was a good thing what I did because there's no two ways around what I thought and felt were bad

[Anonymous No.19679010]

>>19678507
The moment you start being moved forward not because of an ethos shared by your community but because of sheer inertia and material greed is the moment you start to decline. Rome started to decline not after the Five Good Emperors but the moment the republic started to fall apart.

[Anonymous No.19679021]

>>19678974
Oh, you might have gotten that pic from me, I remember posting it here! It's the "Court of Gayumars" from the Shah Tahmasp manuscript of the Shahnameh

[Anonymous No.19679026]

>>19679021
I save most nice paintings I see posted here

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19679037]

>>19678974
>civilization-building
Yes. We want it hindered. We want community
>and lead to warfare,
Lolno. Only thugs who desire centralized worship. One picks them off to avoid warfare
You fizzle like a balloon after that. The hell man?

>>19679006
Sorry. You made it sound ominous.
Yes, live your best life according to you

[Anonymous No.19679108]

>>19678507
Fuck women
Fuck Jews
Fuck Germans

[Anonymous No.19679119]

>>19679037
>We want (civilization) hindered.
"Well we might not have the medication, or the mechanized travel, or the electronics, or large-scale trade networks, or international treaties to prevent cannibals from carrying off friends and family... but we do have community, and that's what really matters."
>Only thugs who desire centralized worship
Citation? A group of people who are hungry will reasonably try to take food from others who've got some to spare. Those who have food to spare might reasonably withhold it from the needy in other communities (to save in case of later famine, to ward off an endless train of needy, etc). This is the simplest example, it scales up from there. Familiarity with those around you is very influential, and since Mr. Charisma has a 90% success rate on his proposals in the "democratic assemblies" a tribe can very easily be pushed to war without "central worship". That is unless you consider central worship to be the natural inclination towards the people you trust and are familiar with in which case more I'm sorry but that's just more Soviet Man cloud-gazing.
>You fizzle like a balloon after that. The hell man?
Without minimal explanation this dismissal seems like a cop-out. As you yourself have said before, "not an argument".
Essentially what I'm saying is that anarchism is effectively anarcho-primitivism or it's just our current society with a couple superficial gestures thrown in/out.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19679143]

>>19679119
>picture of the effects of colonialist capitalism has done

[Anonymous No.19679148]

>>19679143
>the capitalists forced those flies to land on the child's face

[Anonymous No.19679151]

>>19678507
Plumbing technology can apparently be lost for like 2 millennia. Never forget.

[Anonymous No.19679199]

>>19678682
Did they get lost?

[Anonymous No.19679214]

>>19678682
Kaiser logic 101

[Anonymous No.19679244]

>>19679199
>>19679214
>Implying that the war started when the Anglos were drawn in and not before that
>>19678725
:^). Just repeating what I learned in school

[Anonymous No.19679307]

lol never change Butters. Thanks for providing this comedy gold.

[Anonymous No.19679392]

>>19678507
Men are unfit for rule

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19679538]

>>19679307
>nerq. I’m sincerely a bootlicking conformist!

[Anonymous No.19679582]

>>19679538
The use of that kind of language to simplify a person into a stereotype is dangerous.
You increasingly isolate yourself with people who only think like you.
The creation of a lingo to separate us vs them is bad and dangerous it shouldn't ever be used.
You see stuff like that pop out in stuff like r/female dating strategy where they created words like scrotes and LVM (low value man.) I mean for fuck sakes you're in 4chan you probably have seen stuff like spook, troon, the n word, goy, femoid and anny many others.
Don't be a part of the problem in that regard

[Anonymous No.19679605]

>>19678507
Slave economies stop working once you stop expanding.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19679612]

>>19679582
I don’t know you or why you made the crack. Why isn’t your crack dangerous?
Yes, I am on 4ailchan. Land of trolls toughening up one another against terribly hurtful rhetoric.

Left in the dark, I can only hope you’re not actually a bootlicking conformist

[Anonymous No.19679631]

Every single person in this thread is a retard, especially you reading this post now. The absolute premier lesson that should be understood from the fall is the importance of peaceful transfers of power. It wasn’t the Barbarians, it wasn’t Christianity, it was the fact that the Empire was rolling through a new leader every fifteen seconds. Of course, nobody fucking learns, pic related.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19679663]

>>19679631
Naw. Consider the cause of this. Keep thinking.

[Anonymous No.19680244]

>>19678712
But he's jewish not german.

[Anonymous No.19680485]

>>19678507

[Anonymous No.19680513]

>>19678507
Nothing lasts forever.

[Anonymous No.19680515]

>>19679612
sometimes everyone thinks you're a retard because you are one, unfortunately not all retards wind up being great artists after their deaths

[Anonymous No.19680519]

>>19680485
I bet you're a Christian though you fucking FAGGOT

[Anonymous No.19680523]

>>19678507
That their constitutional order was both too retrograde and too ahead of its time. That the Middle Ages had set in long before the fall.

[Anonymous No.19680524]

>>19680485
>A few centuries later
>Picture of painting depicting the Bronze Age collapse

Dipshit

[Anonymous No.19680538]

>>19678507
realising that it never fell

[Anonymous No.19680552]

>>19678507
Never trust germanic niggers.

[Anonymous No.19680576]

The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been

[Anonymous No.19680631]

>>19678527
How can you say it doesn't work? You don't think Rome was successful? Yes the empire fell but it lasted centuries (a millenia if you of include the eastern Roman empire). I'd argue it's the most successful society to date. The Roman empire shaped the world as we know it today and that's a good thing.

[Anonymous No.19680672]

>>19678527
ah yes it worked so badly that everyone that delves into it's history falls in love with it

[Anonymous No.19680683]

>>19680513
Girl you are
Flawless like diamonds
I'm nothing without you, you keep me shining
I can't buy your love, your heart is priceless
Da-Da-Diamonds are forever
So I know you stay this way
Flawless like diamonds
Out of all the ones seen, you are the finest
I can't buy your heart, your love is priceless
Da-Da-Diamonds are forever
Diamonds are forever
Got me shining, yea
Shining, shining, yea
Girl you the baddest, yeah (Yeah)
Diamonds are forever
Diamonds are forever (Yeah)

Wrong chud.

[Anonymous No.19680737]

don't add too much copper to gold and silver coins

[Anonymous No.19680759]

>>19680737
Unfortunately we have now completely removed the gold and silver from our money and to everyone’s surprise it’s been a fucking disaster

[Anonymous No.19680840]

Roman patricians in Gaul and Italy didn't even know the western empire was collapsing around them nor did they care, they were to rich to notice. In fact late Rome was transitioning from slave owning economy to feudalism on its own through ridicilously scrict laws binding peasants to the land. These same families intermarried with the germanic conquerors and filled up the church posts. Nearly all the popes came from roman patrician families.

Rome never really fell , it would be better to point out when the classical ideal and Helleno-Roman culture was diluted and that would be non-other than the ascention of Caesar and Octavian who began the trend of rulling like god-kings. Unironically ancient republicanism was the lifeblood of Greco-Roman civillization. The more it eroded the more Greeks and Italians became like Persians and Egyptians, science and philosophy gave way way to superstion and oriental cults that were transnational and found in the big cities. Christianity was just the easiest to understand and join.

[Anonymous No.19680854]

>>19678507
that we will (thankfully) fall too

[Anonymous No.19680855]

>>19678507
Don't exile your top general just because you're afraid he'll elevate the Plebians.
The patricians got what they deserved.

[Anonymous No.19681079]

>>19678658
Yeah, and it was the beginning of their downfall, because they neither could afford further territorial expansion that could bring them loot, slaves and trade opportunites, nor could bring about technological revolution that could ensure constant material improvement within their borders. Instead they just end up with crumbling social cohesion, economic tensions and constant warfare at their borders with outside forces. Sounds familiar, desu.

[Anonymous No.19681105]

Now who was the best Caesar?

[Anonymous No.19681120]

Why did it fall not even 100 years after adopting Christianity?

How much is to blame exteriors, like the Huns and similar, if at all?

[Anonymous No.19681140]

>>19678658
The 'loot ecnonomy' myth is stupid. The last major aquisition of resources from foreign conquest was by Septimius Severus and his ravaging of Mesopotamia before keeping a small part of it as a Roman province. For 300 years the Roman state was able to do without influx from conquest, the armies were standing and relied on a consistent wage, the beuracracy was mostly reliant on the work they got in their respective jobs. While it was great for prosperity and enriching certain men, foreign conquests are not what Rome ever relied on for their economy.

[Anonymous No.19681146]

How woudld Anarchists stop Warlordism from sprouting up. If 100 men with technicals drove around the country, they could easily outmanevour and steal from you without retaliation.

[Anonymous No.19681167]

Dont trust christhians. Ever

[Anonymous No.19681185]

>>19680840
>Roman patricians
>In the Late Roman Empire
Patrician was defunct as a class in society. The Patricians that did exist were nearly all Roman warlords or Emperor-elects, they were given the title. Even by the Late Republic the Patricians were a dying class.
> late Rome was transitioning from slave owning economy to feudalism on its own through ridicilously scrict laws binding peasants to the land.
That's no Feudalism. The tenant-farmers and manors already existed before and became massive in the 3rd century during crisis. To imply something Feudal would be the change of the state, which resembled far more a modern state than a feudal one in structures. The laws were not the issue as to the tenent farmers anyway, they were a reaction to the massive amount of tax evasion that was being done through it and was Diocletians efforts that bought them back under the Imperial census and tax obligations. Laws were made to combat the problem, not to make it.
>Unironically ancient republicanism was the lifeblood of Greco-Roman civillization.
I would really just call it Roman since the Republic was uniquely a Roman phenomenon. The 'Republic' never died to the Romans, Sidonius Apollinaris writing 4 years before the end of the Empire still thought it would live on forever as the Republic. The Roman Empire was uniquely Republican in it's rule, the Egyptian and Persian way of rule had far more in common with Medieval Europe than the Romans ever did.

[Anonymous No.19681291]

>>19679631
>oy vey can you believe these RIOTS at the capital? why someone could have been killed!

[Anonymous No.19681303]

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