Hello, @minismallholding,
Thank you for such an informative history lesson. I hardly have anything to add. I read somewhere that "there is nothing hidden under the sun." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's attributed to Solomon—the heir to the United Kingdom of Israel under King David—about fifteen hundred years before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So, what you're saying seems to be an ancient proverbial truth, perhaps drawn from the collapse of lost civilizations buried in the sands of time.
Of course, the more recent the events, the easier it is to see the workings of politics and society. However, there's an aspect we often overlook but which is fundamental: natural phenomena and epidemic outbreaks that decimated the great cities of the past. I used to think that moral decay and the factors you mentioned brought down Imperial Rome. Now we know—though it's still largely speculation, since it's less well-documented—that geological evidence shows a volcanic eruption in Iceland in the 6th century, causing a sharp drop of up to 2.5 degrees Celsius in Earth's global temperature, with devastating effects. Yes, those blessed climate changes. And I recall Pompeii and Herculaneum at the end of the 1st century come to mind.
Today, we hear about anthropogenic climate change (what a mouthful!), whose causes I don't quite believe, and about the fuss over supposed overpopulation. I wonder—will they dare to implement any kind of Malthusian solution, as predictive programming suggests? Don't think I'm crazy or that I believe in conspiracy theories. I'm just observing and pondering.
Maybe you're familiar with investor Ray Dalio's thoughts on this. He argues that we're approaching the end of an eighty-year economic cycle and that a reset is imminent. Not encouraging, because, according to his research, each reset has been marked by conflict and war. The problem is, humanity now has the power to destroy itself. God doesn't want this, and madness is unleashed.
Cycles repeat themselves... just as you suggest.
Finally, I invite you to speculate about Göbekli Tepe, a monumental archaeological site over 10,000 years old, believed to have been intentionally buried. Perhaps these were Solomon's references. Who knows how little we understand when he spoke of the cycles of human experience on every level? Even the myth of Atlantis is based on the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization and the dark age of Mediterranean legends after the eruption of Santorini.
Fascinating, isn't it? It wouldn't surprise me if history repeats itself today. Still, I have no doubt that we’ll get through it. 200,000 years of genetic heritage seem to prove that, even if traces of cultures have faded away.
Greetings.
While there were multiple factors that contributed to it's downfall it's speculated that they could still have been weathered had there not been corruption or incompetence at organisational levels, as evidenced by the fact that others found ways to continue on while incorporating some of the things learnt from the Romans. It could also have been that they'd grown too large for a centralised governance to understand how to respond to things happening on more local levels farther away, so it pretty much fell back to locals organising themselves. The Eastern Roman Empire faced similar problems, but still muddled on for nearly another 1000 years. At what scale, I'm not sure, I've not delved into it much.
With mention of Pompeii and Herculaneum I'm also reminded of the Minoan civilisation which seems to have mostly ended with a caldera on a similar scale to Krakatoa, if not bigger. Our earth can very easily humble us with hiccups and shudders like this when we think we're in control of everything.
I have yet to delve into Göbekli Tepe more, but my husband has listened to some bits on it and mentions it on occasion. He will readily admit to being a bit of a conspiracy nut, so loves to latch onto anything that might contradict the current narrative. 😉 I also find Sumer interesting as they seemed to have knowledge of the solar system that we only recently rediscovered. So that's another culture I'd like to look into further.
Regarding our supposed overpopulation, that's another interesting discussion topic. Our population today is certainly far above anything in recorded history and I do wonder if it could have been possible to sustain it without modern infrastructure. With lots of talk about population collapse because most countries have birth rates below replacement levels perhaps we are subconsciously self correcting. There are a lot of doomsayers who predict the extinction of the human race whether due to climate change, population collapse or self destruction, but I think history demonstrates that at least some always make it through.
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