Why do empires fall?

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faerwin wrote:

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Crackmonster wrote:

Some also fall due to lack of resources, natural resources like previously iron, gold and today fossil fuels are essential to staying the dominant power.

I don't think I've ever heard of an empire that fell from a lack of resources. They'd just go and pilfer their neighbors if they ever got close to that.

the mayan classical empire


Large droughts hit the Yucatán Peninsula and Petén Basin areas with particular ferocity, as thin tropical soils decline in fertility and become unworkable when deprived of forest cover,[15] and due to regular seasonal drought drying up surface water.[16] Colonial Spanish officials accurately documented cycles of drought, famine, disease, and war, providing a reliable historical record of the basic drought pattern in the Maya region.[17]

Climatic factors were first implicated in the collapse as early as 1931 by Mayanists Thomas Gann and J. E. S. Thompson.[18] In The Great Maya Droughts, Richardson Gill gathers and analyzes an array of climatic, historical, hydrologic, tree ring, volcanic, geologic, lake bed, and archeological research, and demonstrates that a prolonged series of droughts probably caused the Classic Maya collapse.[19] The drought theory provides a comprehensive explanation, because non-environmental and cultural factors (excessive warfare, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, less trade, etc.) can all be explained by the effects of prolonged drought on Classic Maya civilization.[20]

Climatic changes are, with increasing frequency, found to be major drivers in the rise and fall of civilizations all over the world.[21] Professors Harvey Weiss of Yale University and Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts have written, "Many lines of evidence now point to climate forcing as the primary agent in repeated social collapse."[22] In a separate publication, Weiss illustrates an emerging understanding of scientists:


Within the past five years new tools and new data for archaeologists, climatologists, and historians have brought us to the edge of a new era in the study of global and hemispheric climate change and its cultural impacts. The climate of the Holocene, previously assumed static, now displays a surprising dynamism, which has affected the agricultural bases of pre-industrial societies. The list of Holocene climate alterations and their socio-economic effects has rapidly become too complex for brief summary.[23]

The drought theory holds that rapid climate change in the form of severe drought brought about the Classic Maya collapse. According to the particular version put forward by Gill in The Great Maya Droughts,


[Studies of] Yucatecan lake sediment cores ... provide unambiguous evidence for a severe 200-year drought from AD 800 to 1000 ... the most severe in the last 7,000 years ... precisely at the time of the Maya Collapse.[24]

Climatic modeling, tree ring data, and historical climate data show that cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere is associated with drought in Mesoamerica.[25] Northern Europe suffered extremely low[clarification needed] temperatures around the same time as the Maya droughts. The same connection between drought in the Maya areas and extreme cold in northern Europe was found again at the beginning of the 20th century. Volcanic activity, within and outside Mesoamerica, is also correlated with colder weather and resulting drought, as the effects of the Tambora volcano eruption in 1815 indicate.[26]

In short - empires fall, as nothing lasts forever.
One should examine the processes in details and independently for each of the subjects, as there are multiple various reasons for an empire to finally fall, and these are usually all different for each of the empires.
What's set in stone is, it always happens. That's a historical law, and just the period of existence matters.

Empires with Expiration Dates

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鬼殺し wrote:

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MonstaMunch wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

edit: as for the issue with Canada healthcare system (waiting line and cost). It's literally caused by the US.

Our doctors move to the US because they can make 3 times the amount of money a doctor over here do due to their system.

I'm not sure if I understand your logic here. Your doctors aren't getting paid enough, they can make a lot more money elsewhere, so that's elsewhere's fault?

He said 'caused by', not 'is their fault'. 'Fault' is a negative term by and large. Cause is simply a reason, as in 'cause and effect'. So following his logic means understanding what he said and not reading too deeply into it. :P

Nono, that's semantics. My point is that the cause is not paying doctors a competitive wage. When you have a business that isn't competitive, do you blame the competition for being better than you?

The cause for doctors leaving is that you aren't paying them enough. If they weren't going to America they would be going somewhere else instead. It's supply and demand, and there is always a demand for good doctors.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Snip

Wow.

I'm always interested in catching a glimpse of other's perception(s) of the United States. Your underlying condescension though for the states is off the charts. Holy hell. I promise we're not all Texans.

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鬼殺し wrote:

Australia's was more like a mutual struggle against a very unfriendly environment

melting pot from the start

The idea that we're all here in this together

At any rate, because we had no imported slavery, we do not have the US' problem of racial division.

Right. I'm sure the Sugar Labor Trade of the mid-late 19th century is representative of a mutual struggle in Australia's past.

The part in bold is the reason Australia doesn't have racial divide? Really? Really? It had nothing to do with engineering the demographics of society to be 95% Anglo-Celtic heritage?

I was under the impression that Australia officially became a nation in 1901, and almost immediately enacted the Immigration Restriction Act, which was reversed in the 70s. That ain't that long ago. In fact, that's after the US Civil Rights Movement. So I dunno. It's a little disingenuous to think we're so far apart.



@faerwin

Hey bro, we Americans may be small-minded jerkoff shitheads, but in most of the country we're at least honest enough with ourselves to aggressively educate our youth about our least finest moments, slavery being at the top of the short list.

As for Australia-US similarities, I'd argue we share a lot more in common than what's already been discussed.

You can look up blackbirding, White Australia Policy, Sugar Labor Trade, and go from there.

Inner conflict, corruption and civil war are the most common and insidious of reasons (Hellenic States -athens/sparta and their allies-, Romans, Carthaginians, China -Han Dynasty, Yuan Dynasty, hell even the much much later Qing Dynasty had similar problems- all could attribute their fall at some level to the constant inside fighting, revolutions/rebellions and discord).

The death of the founder or the king/queen if his/her gravitas is what held the empire strong in the first place or the lack of strong (military wise, intelligence wise, money wise, etc) individuals is another reason. The lack of great leadership in other words (Alexander's Macedon fall is maybe the most known such case, or Hannibal's Carthage or Pyrrhus' Epirus, Egypt through her history had the most such cases with constant ups and downs purely based on how strong her leader was at each time)

Wars, constant conflicts with other empires, nations etc. weaken an empire considerably, and its often the case that once an empire bleeds like piranhas the rest of the neighboring nations eat it alive. (western roman empire fall and decline is actually SAVAGE, eastern roman empire, the successor empires : Seleucids, Ptolemies, and the rest satrapies, the old Persian empires, basically we can say that every great empire ever existed had some kind of such problem)

Staleness, lack of progress in different fields, denial or inability to adapt to the passage of time. (Sparta was notoriously stubborn and stuck to their ways, South America empires (mayans, aztecs etc) almost every single ancient African kingdom, Western Roman empire that died centuries before the eastern counterpart fell, the ancient Messopotamian Kingdoms and Satrapies, as well as almost every remote empire)

Lack of natural resources. Thats more obvious in later stages of history, where the lack of food, gunpowder, horses etc caused or at least were reasons that helped the fall. (South America empires are a prime example of that)

Loosing their national identity or being assimilated (often peacefully) culturally, geographically and/or politically by others. This was usual a problem for culturally weak or undeveloped (science, religion, social, etc -wise) empires but mostly for nomadic based empires. (early Scythians, Mongols, Huns all had similar problems as nomads, they were easily assimilated or conscripted as mercenaries, it was until some great General or Leader decided to change their ways that those empires finally manage to get a firm hold on their lands. Peaceful assimilation happened during Alexander's campaign too, when weak empires simply submitted without fights. And interesting case of peaceful assimilation which followed the reverse path is that of the Roman conquer of ancient Hellenic States, while Romans indeed easily submitted the whole peninsula under their control, it was the culturally superior Greeks that affected Roman ways and culture and not vice versa)

Extreme natural phenomenons, outbreaks of diseases and illnesses. Though not exactly common it has happened. (Smallpox was a major reason for the native american empires' fall during the Spanish invasions, and in the case of ancient Crete a titanic tidal wave plus volcanic ash cause by a volcanic eruption in Thera -an island 300km away from Crete- is still considered the reason why that empire fell)

The actual reason though - and that's obvious if you know history - is always a combination of factors, for example Mayans had problems with their allies and civil disorder, lack of resources and some staleness (horses and the lack of knowledge of gunpowder in their case) plus the smallpox outbreak that decimated their population and made it easier for the spaniards to conquer them.

Even today some of those things still apply and though we don't have empires with the classical meaning, nations and countries can (and will)fall. Not much to guess here though, wars are the most probable cause for nations nowadays to fall, followed by civil wars or rebellions and lastly cataclysmic level of natural(or human caused) catastrophes

The wage is more than competitive, a doctor in Canada can earn 200k-400k a year, depending on the domain of expertise (I'm sure some can earn even more). So it's not a little amount of money. It's just less than the States because the states doesn't have public health and they charge whatever they want.

Also, you are wrong about them going elsewhere. While I'm sure some might occasionally go to a different country than the US, the vast majority go there due to proximity to their families (75% of Canadians lives within 100 miles from the US border, which include the 3 biggest Canadian cities).

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faerwin wrote:

The wage is more than competitive, a doctor in Canada can earn 200k-400k a year, depending on the domain of expertise (I'm sure some can earn even more). So it's not a little amount of money. It's just less than the States because the states doesn't have public health and they charge whatever they want.

I think there may be some misunderstanding about what the word competitive means. It doesn't mean they are getting paid poorly to begin with. It means they aren't getting paid as much as they would if they went somewhere else. The second part of your statement corroborates that.

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Also, you are wrong about them going elsewhere.

I'm not. Have you ever been to a hospital in the UK? A massively disproportionate number of medical staff employed by the NHS are from South East Asia. Why? Because even though being a doctor in England doesn't pay great, it pays a shitload more than it does in India, and doctors find it easier than most to get work visas.

I have no agenda here; I'm not authoring some comprehensive US-Austrian historical comparison to pitch down the road to the local uni in the hopes of acquiring associate status. The words 'hatred' or 'hate' do not come up once in my reply (where did I say hatred was a factor, what makes you think I hate?). Of course my quote was piecemeal, your original post was too long otherwise.

My reply also has very little to do with America at all. The lighthearted Texas thing was only because you've brought up your familial relationships before and it seems like you've had some bad ones where that's involved. So, yeah, I took a leap in order to forgo bringing it all up because it's not terribly important within this context--it's also not my business to hound you about it--except if said prior relationships bias your view of the states. Forget I brought Texas up, doesn't matter.

I can quote one of the things that was/seemed really off, if you prefer:

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鬼殺し wrote:

At any rate, because we had no imported slavery, we do not have the US' problem of racial division. Racism here is a strange beast that changes targets every single generation. When I was a kid, 35 years ago or so, it was the Chinese and the Greeks. A little later, it was the Vietnamese. Then of course the Lebanese. Right now it's a mixture of the Lebanese and certain Island nations. As each generation of imports becomes 'Australian', we find a new target for scorn and division. What starts as heavy-handed scathing commentary dissolves into passive snipes and eventually nothing at all, as we discover how much we like their food. That's pretty much the deciding factor. You know a culture has been accepted by the Australian Collective when you see its restaurants popping up in heavily white-peopled, gentrified areas. There's a card in the Australian version of Cards Against Humanity that simply reads: "Good Natured, Fun Loving Aussie Racism." For better or worse, that's a thing. Everyone takes their turn to cop the shit, then they're alright mate. We haze in ways often too subtle for other cultures to realise. It's one of our great unifying factors, and it ties into a strange us vs them that is based on nothing more than testing how seriously people take themselves. If you can handle the heat and even make light-hearted fun of your culture, you pass. If you get stroppy and indignant, you can fuck right off.

You pitch racism in Australia as a flavor of 'aw shucks' big brother hazing little brother kind of thing. But once those folks open a shop down the corner and reveal Grandma's secret dinner recipe, we're all good. High five.

OK, maybe it is as you say. 100% not my issue. But to completely gloss over the Immigration Policy that forcibly engineered Australian demographics to be 95%+ Anglo-Celtic for 70 years, or glossing over blackbirding as not being de-facto slavery before shipping them all out at the turn of the century...all the while taking pot shots at American culture/history/etc. is a bit of a crap move. It'd be an equally crap move if you subbed out US for France, Italy, Peru, Wraeclast, Narnia, whatever. I can google the 2005 riots as easily as I can google Reclaim Australia rallies or pieces on how racism is woven into the social fabric of Australia. Seems our societies have a lot of things in common. And in that case, you can say it was 20 years ago for you guys, but these things have a way of taking time before they eventually boil over.


You pity us, we're a bully, I have American guilt (??), I'm a slave to Wikipedia cause I'm too dumb to know any better, some random INS conversation, kissing yank ass, on and on. None of that has anything to do with my reply which was about this qualification of your racial past vs. the United States. I'd suggest you're taking it personally. Sheesh.

Bro, not once did I attack you personally. Relax. I have zero problems with Australia. Everyone I've ever met that has even the slightest traveling itch lights up at the prospect of visiting Australia sometime in their lives, because we all perceive to be really chill. There's no hate coming from me.

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鬼殺し wrote:

But at the end of the day, we're not so far apart.

I don't think so either.

Why do empires arise ?
We don't want to be a ruler in a hard situation. In another word, a hard working ruler will be found in a hard situation.
When we find it profitable to be under a ruler, we will be finding many rulers, expanding power.

Indirect rule or indirect democracy with "divide and conquer" is current meta I suppose. (and we are finding "hard situation" such like "enemy" outside the country to be nicely disciplined.)

The Roman Empire was mostly destroyed by Augustine of Hippo, who solved the problem of explaining the sack of Rome — essentially the 5th century's 9/11 — by declaring it just punishment from almighty God. All the barbarians did was attack physically; it was Augustine who wrote the argument for surrender to be read by policymakers, he who made the attack culturally. For this, he was granted sainthood by the powers that replaced the Romans.

Entire peoples are rarely wiped from this earth entirely, and even more rarely when such peoples command great power in the world. The great empire falls when its citizens defect, having been convinced that the traditions of old are inferior to a different way. Whether such self-condemnation is warranted or not is situational, but the barometer is easy to read: the more guilt exists in one's culture, the more risk one faces in finding one's traditions replaced by those whose adherents lack similar reservations.

I hope you like Islamic theocracy​, Europe. Because your actions say you do, or at least more than you like your past.