In three weeks, Donald Trump has imploded whatever positive image the United States might have had internationally.

    • skibidi@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      It’s a rather complex topic, but the short answer isn’t barbarian invasion.

      The simplest correct answer is the Roman elite became less interest in preserving the Roman state and more interested in increasing their own personal wealth and influence.

      • Carl@lemm.ee
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        4 days ago

        What’s wild is that “being Roman” persisted a lot longer than the tax system and patronage networks that had collapsed. It wasn’t until a large portion of the people who thought of themselves as “Roman” were invaded by the Eastern Roman Empire that the Roman identity was broken up, to be replaced by the regional identities that people rallied around to defend themselves.

        I feel like if the ERE’s leaders had taken a different approach, they could have stitched the Western Empire back together, but they broke it.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          That’s potentially a global problem. It’s not specific to the US as long as we keep making ourselves an attractive destination for immigrants and keep welcoming them ………… crap

        • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 days ago

          define “enough kids” for me please.

          do you mean enough kids that their parents can’t feed them off their own little farm, and the kids had to be sent to the cities as slave / poor workers, so that the machines can keep churning for the sake of profit?

          edit: sorry but i’m pissed and angry now. “not enough kids” like what? not enough kids to make sausage of them? not enough kids to burn them in the kettle of capitalism? not enough kids to flood the labor market with undervalued workers?

          i tell you what, it’s capitalist propaganda that “people should have more kids”, because they think it makes the wages fall. what it actually does is create poverty, mass unemployment, working poor, and civil unrest. may the empire be intoxicated by its own poison. may the corporations fall due to the civil unrest that they helped create.

          • rabber@lemmy.ca
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            4 days ago

            Like the birth rate was too low overall.

            Of course more people makes wages fall. That’s why immigration is so popular in western world.

    • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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      4 days ago

      It all started with the reform known as the Pax Romana. Rome stopped waging wars that kept the influx of slaves, which were fundamental for their economic model. They didn’t realize the implications of such a decision and didn’t design a viable alternative in time.

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        it took 100 or so years to really collapse and effective organization and leadership were big factors in that process. They didn’t lose a war and poof, everything was over, they were always fighting several other civilizations for dominance, they started consistently losing when the soldiers started showing up in rags.