Re:Studying the demise of historic civilisations
by coldtea on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @05:12AM
(#19309521)
>And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old".
"Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled population get to dominate the goals and priorities of a nation, and it loses its drive to be scrappy, make sacrifices, and do the innovative things when one does when young and poor. You have generations who want to extract the gains put in by past generations.
That's the case for now, sure.
But that's also exactly what got ancient Athens and Sparta, Rome, Byzantium, and other empires of the past. Outsiders wouldn't do scratch if those empires weren't already rotting from inside for reasons such as those that you've mentioned.
In Rome and Byzantium, for example, such a decline is more or less the established historical narrative.
That's the case for now, sure.
But that's also exactly what got ancient Athens and Sparta, Rome, Byzantium, and other empires of the past. Outsiders wouldn't do scratch if those empires weren't already rotting from inside for reasons such as those that you've mentioned.
In Rome and Byzantium, for example, such a decline is more or less the established historical narrative.