Posted on 08/23/2010 2:08:52 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
It's high summer and we're all out there seeing each other. We're not hidden away in our homes and offices as we are in winter's cold. We're part of a crowd—on the street, in the park, on the boardwalk, on the top deck of the ferry to Saltaire. And we can see in some new or clearer ways how technology is changing us.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
And there was the way people consumed information. The empire was awash in texts. "Elite, literate Romans were discovering the great paradox of information: the more of it that's available, the harder it is to be truly knowledgeable. It was impossible to process it all in a thoughtful way." People, Seneca observed, grazed and skimmed, absorbing information "in the mere passing." But it is better to know one great thinker deeply than dozens superficially.Great, another ubiquitous, undeniable, insidious parallel to the Roman Empire, of dubious memory.
The Roman Republic/Empire lasted from 509 BC to 476 AD, a length of 985 years.
When we say “the collapse of the Roman Empire”, we are still talking about a period of about 200 years near it’s end.
So to compare the United States to Rome is pre-mature by three quarters of a millenia and not necessarily a bad comparison.
but it would be denial to say the US isn't on the brink (if not past it); and to refuse to entertain the possibility that things happen faster at the speed of light than they do at the speed of oxen.
The parallels are genuine and probably universal. However, if you conclude that I'm declaring an absolute parallel, you attribute to me the sorts of fallacies that are better attributed to those who make draw sweeping conclusions about the remarks of others on scant evidence.
I don’t think your drawing an absolute parallel. But at the same time I don’t think there was a single rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I think there were a large numbers of cycles of rising and falling. The big falls lasted generations and the big rises lasted less than a single generation for the most part.
As things have sped up, we may be looking at cycles where there is 5 to 10 years at the pinnacle and 20 to 30 years in the doldrums.
I don’t think we have hit our peak and I don’t think we are at the precipice of doom.
fortheluvofgawd.
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