I wouldn't think the Roman empire was a good thing if we had it today. We can "respect" those older cultures in their context while still recognizing that they were in many ways horrifying by modern standards.

In what way would they be horrifying? The Romans advanced public works, infrastructure, and other such things on an absolutely monumental scale. Many roads built by the Roman Empire are still even in use today! And I think Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the best example in history of a genuinely socially motivated leader. And the lands under their rule were completely able to maintain their own unique identity so long as it did not lead to attempts at rebellion/revolution.

Of course one practical issue you run into is that while Aurelius was perhaps one of the greatest leaders of all time, his son and heir - Commodus, was perhaps one of the worst of all time. But at least if we speak of the eras prior to its decline, Pax Romana in particular, I don't really see how the Roman Empire would be horrifying. And in any case dramatic deterioration of the quality of public leadership, probably presaging a more broad decline, is clearly not limited to systems of minority rule.

Well 25-30% of the population was enslaved in the Roman empire so that's not ideal.

Did slavery not exist in the lands outside the Roman empire at the time?

Yeah, but apart from all that, what have the Romans ever done for us?

> In what way would they be horrifying?

When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul it was said he killed one million people and enslaved another million, and was celebrated for it. The actual numbers may not be accurate, but the sentiment probably was.

Moral relativism aside, would you like to live in a society where killing civilians during war and enslaving survivors were both acceptable?

Or how about the the abandoning of unwanted babies:

* https://academic.oup.com/book/6954/chapter-abstract/15122509...

* https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/15d74av/how_...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columna_Lactaria

They didn't celebrate the means, they celebrated the result. The Gauls had brutally sacked Rome in 390BC, and then further humiliated them as they were paying a massive ransom to end the siege. This became a part of the Roman identity and led to an obsession with ending the Gallic threat. Centuries later, Caesar would unambiguously achieve exactly that. In modern times it's hard to understand this because what happened last year is already ancient news, but in ancient times it was not uncommon for feuds, even on just a family level, to last for centuries.

Post-industrialization (kind of assuming they'd have access to modern tech here), slavery makes very little sense - even completely ignoring the ethical issues. Pay a negligible hourly/monthly cost to hire a skilled worker that can be easily replaced or dismissed as desired, or pay a huge up-front cost to take on somebody who is probably low skill, may or may not work out, and then be 100% responsible for all of their needs and other costs going forward? They'd likely outlaw it just like every other country that's gone through industrialization has.

Similarly exposure (which began to be phased out and moving towards adoption once Christianity took hold in Rome) was once again largely a product of technology. Abortion was extremely dangerous in those times for the mother, and exposure was one way it was done relatively more safely. And children were often exposed because of various deformities or their sex which, again, can now be detected at a prenatal stage. Though the sex issue again gets back to a lack of technology. Son's worked and essentially were your pension, whereas daughters joined the house of whoever they married, to say nothing of dowry related issues.

Obviously we have to do a lot of speculation to imagine what a Roman Empire in modern times would look like, but I don't think many of the knee-jerk reactions to it are really justified.

>Moral relativism aside, would you like to live in a society where killing civilians during war and enslaving survivors were both acceptable?

we have yet to solve either problem, regardless of whatever new terms we come up with to describe the plight.

Apart from the mass enslavement, live human death sports, public corporal and capital punishment for petty crimes up to and including crucifixion you mean?

They were like isis nailing people to trees.

Don't give Trump any ideas or he brings back gladiators, and I wish this was a joke.

The Roman Empire was a ruthless slave state, and the poor were subject to constant exploitation with no recourse.

Also, it routinely interfered destructively in the market sector (e.g., price controls, e.g., overspending on showy public works); its taxation system was oppressive and often arbitrary; and it routinely debased its currency

this is the way - 'multi-polarity' is another word for 'diversity' which is another way to understand resiliency. We have seen in recent days what over dependence on single point of failure looks like (AWS outage), so from a species level perspective, it is better that we have many different forms of organisation and narrative. We just have to ensure that these narratives are not evangelical and intolerant!

I think hackernews might be the only place on the internet where a commenter uses an AWS outage as an example for why authoritarianism is a good thing.

That's not what multipolarity means, at least by those leading such propaganda.

By their standards multipolarity means control ove different circles of influence without interference.

That's what Russia wants for example, they want to secure the regime by controlling nearby countries (ideally turning them into Belarus, or by threat of destruction, like Georgia and Moldova, or by annexation, like Ukraine).

China wants to control territories surrounding them as well.

So don't be fooled by multipolarity, it's just a repacked imperialism and colonialism by right, not by earned influence.

> who is incompetent

I just hope we never go back to Mao-levels of incompetence

Must.. resist.. temptation..

Killing all sparrows, compared to defunding vaccine science in the wreckage of a pandemic..

Village Steel making compared to literally cancelling construction projects for advanced wind turbines

Maybe this is a surprise. Nowadays, young people are increasingly fond of Mao. He wasn’t a perfect person, but he spent his entire life exploring communism and trying to finally eliminate wealth inequality and privileged classes. Older people might not like him as much, because they were more influenced by the West and dislike China’s system more. But with China’s rise and Trump’s hypocrisy, I can predict that Mao will become increasingly popular in China.

It's worth acknowledging that Mao became increasingly erratic with age. Some of his early achievements are still very much seen in a positive light (eg. as a nation builder).

yes. in my earlier age, the offical statement from CCP of him is 70% achievement and 30% fault. but as the inequality increase in china, people has more positive view of him.

Yep, nationalism isn't something you can turn on and off at will.

For an example I'm reminded of the recent public backlash to the K visa scheme [1].

1. https://www.ft.com/content/01a0029c-9f7c-4b31-a120-d1652f198...

This question is actually quite interesting. It’s basically connected to almost every issue China faces today — the national confidence born out of a century of humiliation, population decline, the rise of Han nationalism, soaring unemployment, and so on. The overall domestic response has been quite negative, though I don’t have a clear personal view on it.

It’s somewhat like the Tang dynasty at its most prosperous — when envoys from all nations came to pay tribute, and many Japanese and Central Asians studied and worked in Chang’an. But interestingly, I’ve noticed that in recent years, public opinion toward the Tang dynasty has gradually become less positive, which might be related to this.

I have no idea from where I sit, but I wonder how much of this is down to the increasing demographic share of Guang Gun [1] vs the older conservatives.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guang_Gun

Well, I actually know this issue quite well. China’s “bachelor problem” isn’t really that serious, although it is one of the reasons for the declining birth rate. While the main cause of China’s low fertility rate is the soaring cost of having children, it’s also strongly related to the rise of feminism and the growing hostility between men and women. In China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, this problem is among the worst in the world. Basically, men hate women and women hate men; the marriage system has managed to make both sides unhappy, so people just stop getting married.

As for the “bachelor problem,” it roughly falls into two categories. One group consists of older men — they’re actually quite fortunate, since they’re a key target of positive government assistance. In rural areas, for instance, the government often helps them build houses and provides them with monthly living stipends so they can survive without working. China’s living costs are relatively low, so this policy can be sustained.

The other group is younger men. Their solutions are either marrying foreign women or staying single and enjoying life. With modern technology, single life isn’t really difficult anymore. In recent years, the number of cross-border marriages has surged, mainly involving women from Southeast Asian countries. Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos’ red-light districts are also frequent destinations for these men. Currently, influencers who promote foreign marriages are very popular on Chinese websites.

The US is just starting it's Great Leap Backwards.

Indeed, I think Rome, Greece and other conquering powers get more respect than they deserve. There's no actual reason so many people have to die for these countries' national ambitions. Feel free to generalize to the US, etc.

Didn't Rome save a lot of lives by pax romana? Perhaps it was actually better in terms of loss of life to be conquered by Rome than have endless wars among yourselves. Applies to the US too.

You can defend a lot of atrocities by arguing "for the greater good" and comparing to uchronic hypotheticals. I could as well argue that without Rome, the greek democracies would have been much more prevalent, and lead to modern democracies much sooner. Or that a world leader would have emerged, leading the ancient world to endless peace and prosperity.

We are 1000+ years from permanent off planet settlements. If its even possible for us to biologically live off earth. Which we don't actually know. China might not be a country by then.