Soon
Soon
100 comments
-
-
Rome lasted 1,480 years.
-
Empires don't end, they fizzle out.
-
Even if this statistic wasn't bullshit, this comic has an inherent cruelty to it that ironically feels very American
-
The 250 year thing is basically completely made up BS
-
Indeed. The empire you left to make your own with blackjack and hookers was nearly double that. If you want to be facetious too, then probably triple.
-
-
I hate to be nitpicky about a meme but I love to be nitpicky. This claims is based on bullshit statistics that the author made up or bent to his will. The Ottoman empire alone shows this to be incorrect but Rome too stands out. Besides, what would an arbitrary amount of time have to do with the collapse of complex economic systems. Its bullshit idealism and I hate seeing it.
I am begging the US to collapse though
-
Also worth pointing out that, while America may be 249 years old, no one would consider it an empire for the majority of that time. Its debatable, but I would argue we didn't really reach an empirical level of power until the late 40s, when we started taking over what was left of the British Empire's influence over the middle-eas5.
-
The US has always been a settler-colony, but it became more Imperialist after World War I with the inter-ally debts. It became world hegemon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however.
-
-
Average. It's just an average. I haven't verified whether the number is accurate (and often it's probably debatable what qualifies as an empire and at what point it fell) but some empires lasting way longer does nothing to disprove 250 years being the average lifespan.
The second part of what you said is still entirely correct of course, that number has no real predictive capabilities for the collapse of the USA.
-
-
Of course this is incorrect, go look up an empire and see.
... Roman empire got over 1000 years, Ottoman's got 623 years, Mongol empire only got 162.
...and Italy, Turkey, and Mongolia are still around, they're just not empires anymore. They're Nations.
-
these where the first versions of empire that existed on this world and full of equal parts flaws and dumb luck as a result
the modern hybrid euro-colonial versions also have flaws and luck on their side, but, more importantly, they learn and adapt from each other and, as a result, have a pattern that we can now identify.
-
You do know what average means in this context, right? You divide the sum of the empires’ years by the number of empires.
-
The actual paper the number comes from (Fate of Empires by John Glubb) is complete bullshit, though. Even the cherry-picked examples it uses, which are limited strictly to the surroundings of the Mediterranean, don't use any kind of consistent criteria for when an empire starts or ends. He tries to count "Alexander (and his successors)" as one coherent entity and then picks an end year in which all of them had either already collapsed long ago or would not do so for many decades to come. He cuts centuries off of the Roman Empire's lifespan by just saying that the empire was unstable and getting invaded a lot (and ignoring the Eastern Empire entirely). HIs reckoning of the "Arab Empire" includes three separate caliphates, and the end date isn't even the actual end of any of them
Other than that, no, it does not attempt to find an average in the sense of a mean lifespan. It actually does argue that 250 years for an empire can be compared to a human living 70 years.
-
But if the average hides a huge range of datapoints, it becomes less useful.
-
Then it wouldn't be reasonable to assume the US would collapse right at the average (mean) though. If the majority of empires collapsed at the same age (the mode) it would be different, but the mean tells you very little about when any particular empire will collapse.
The mean number of children per household is a decimal, that doesn't mean any households have partial children.
-
-
Pic unrelated
(I'm /j)
-
When someone says "death to America", they aren't saying "death to Americans". A government/state is a regime, not all it's people, despite how much as nationalists love to stoke that sort of patriotism. So I have no problem with the slogan, I call for the fall of the US imperialist regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_America#Interpretation_and_meaning - has some confirmations from various Iranian politicians and a travel writer.
-
-
I want to believe
-
Thankfully, nothing lasts forever.
-
-
It's not correct, but would be nice.
-
Despite all the and suffering it has caused and will cause, Trump admin has at least handed us the beginning of a breakdown in US hegemony as trust has eroded with other nations who are all busy pivoting away from it right now.
Unfortunately upon breaking the gridlock, other nations are scrambling to maintain the status quo rather than leaning into the future by redoubling commitments to address human and climate crises before it’s too late for the humans.
-
Made-up bullshit
-
Facebook type posting
-
-
It's funny to imagine our descendants in whatever America becomes defending the empire by saying it wasn't America's fault it collapsed, it was Israel's; hopefully though one of the things they admit is it's also because of culture war idiocy and other arbitrary, fabricated social divisions; EDIT: Also the empire's insistence on capitalism and wasting the talents contained in around 350 million people; China capitalizing (haaaaa, see what I did there?) on their population with excellent access to really good education and health services has turned their one billion people into its most powerful asset, meanwhile in America humans are also an asset, but in the form of slavery (wage slavery and actual slavery).
-
Real empires go for much longer.
The US will not be more than a shitstain in the pages of history.
100 comments
Uh, yeah, not like this.
If you're sitting around waiting for the empire to fall, then it's never going to fall. Empires fall because people make them fall.
And it's going to be achieved with blood...
Also, ask when Rome fell, historians wont agree on any specific date. They were never the top of the town afterwards, but the fall was more of a gradual multi-century tumble punctuated by hitting every rock on the way down.
A watched empire never falls.
it's all fun and games until the emperor picks up a fiddle
Idealism is tossing a toll on your mental health
No, Tattorack is correct. Material conditions decaying makes it easier to topple, but Materialists know that without the working class organizing and acutally overthrowing the system, it won't fall. The system still has to be killed and replaced, otherwise it will linger on.
Not exactly true. USSR, felt without a single drop o blood, most because it's economic opening movement started too late. US government is taking actions that are isolating US commercially, increasing its debt and losing relevance in the world's diplomacy.
Haha USSR no single drop of blood that's a good one my friend
The USSR wasn't an Empire, which played into that. Further, the reforms it introduced weren't because it opened up too late, but because they played against the socialist system of planning. The PRC's approach to economic reform retained full state control and is focused on unity, rather than disunity, which is why it's working.
Comrade, this is number 1 bullshit.