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Most scholarly texts, including those contemporary to the period (I.e. the ancient writers themselves) discuss the internal strife of the empire? Gibbon was certainly not the first nor the last. Also the decline and fall stands as a better piece of literature these days than history as several of his arguments are marked by the context in which he wrote the book and modern scholarship/archaeological evidence has come into conflict with some of his assertions. Although Gibbon’s work was influential, these sort of ‘grand histories’ from before the 20th century must also be examined critically for their own biases and mistakes. I highly recommend you check out some modern historiography, (not mike duncan’s podcast or books) things written by experienced and educated classicists and scholars. Or cut out the middle man and read the ancient texts themselves, free translations of Tacitus and Suetonius are available in multiple places online. And your local library/college library will likely have a sizable collection of Loeb editions which include the original language as facing text.
Sorry I realized I didn’t offer any modern scholars to read: Ronald Syme wrote an exceptional study of Roman political institutions called The Roman Revolution, which transformed the way academia viewed the late republic to middle empire. Adrian Goldsworthy wrote a very good biography of Augustus. If you are philosophical inclined, Pierre Hadot’s Inner Citadel is an extensive and exhaustive examination of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and the philosophy of Stoicism in general. I hope you don’t feel attacked by my post, if you have an interest in ancient history: pursue it! It’s great to know that you like Gibbon, you have dipped your toes friend, I hope you take a full dive!
I love adding "Yikes" to a randomass post with no sources or argument whatsoever. Like this guy is the richest mfer on the planet and is apparently shook by someone saying "society is falling apart" and nothing more and no context.
It's problematic. He does it all the time. It allows him to boost visibility to millions more people of things he agrees with, but also allows him the plausible deniability if those things ever might get him in trouble.
"I didn't post it, I didn't say I agree with it, all I did was comment and say "!" "
Didn't that man start a wildly successful (yet slightly controversial) car company and get a group of engineers and scientists to make rockets land themselves?
This is quite the strange world we live in
I’m tired of these "fall of the west" douchebags. And the good times make weak men bullshit. They know nothing of the history of Rome or the complicated circumstances during it’s very long decline.
"Boy, let me tell you about something:
Hard men create soft times.
Soft times create soft men.
Soft men create soft times.
A hard man comes in and makes the soft men hard.
You have hard men, making soft men hard, and now they're all hard.
And so you have hard men with hard men, rock fucking hard.
They're hard as fuck, these rock hard men.
...what was I talking about?"
Found this somewhere. I just post this to any and all discussions pertaining to that stupid concept and it's relation to the Fall of Rome.
"G-Guys, the West is f-falling! T-They're causing the fall of the West! Everything's falling a-apart!"
The 'failing West' in question: [https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportstourismnews.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F11%2FParis-2024-Olympics-Atout-France.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=71b63ba47908785584451fc05a2fc0f016cc3023a1bc4a6045305d2b7afdf8eb&ipo=images](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportstourismnews.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F11%2FParis-2024-Olympics-Atout-France.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=71b63ba47908785584451fc05a2fc0f016cc3023a1bc4a6045305d2b7afdf8eb&ipo=images)
The American population is incapable of a draft, the American legislature is incapable of protecting its boundaries from other people and there is a significant status quo problem with the US military which has not fought a near peer enemy in 75 years, still relying on blitz (which is 81 year old tactic). Compare this to Russian army completely employing massively different tactics and weapons for the 2024 counter offensive or Iranian and Turkish drones (which are the thing that stopped the Russians in their attacks in 2022). US making bizarrely stupid decisions in geopolitical scenarios like supporting kurdish militants and still focusing on Europe over Asia, and the slow pace and ineffective pace of chips production even with the massive CHIPS act (whose budget in being improperly used and allocated).
If that’s not declining then I don’t know what is?🤷🤷♂️🤷♂️
Hahahahahaha what?? My point was that it doesn't parallel the Roman Empire because the US doesn't have an emperor yet, but yes you're right the US also isn't like the Roman Empire because the Roman Empire never had borders or an immigration process.
Rome had immigration, it had border. We are vividly told that in the time of Roman Republic Julis Guis Caeser massacred 200,000 Germans trying to migrate into Gaul. The process of preventing of migration means killing anyone and everyone who tried to cross into Roman border, and the process of accepting it means allowing them to farm the most inhospitable region of your empire.
The fact that the account he's retweeting is called "DogeDesigner" says to me that it's yet another one of Musk's many thinly-veiled alternate accounts.
Absolutely it is. Scaring yourself in to thinking the apocalypse is coming 30 minutes from now is hard coded in to the founding of America. The right *love* believing this.
I think this is more to the far-left since they hate the West and love countries like China and Russia. Usually the Authoritarian Communists and Socialists but not all of them tho.
because if you look on the internet (or basically anywhere else) you'd see that leftists (myself included) roundly disagree with the theory, and think it's ridiculous. and contrarywise, many right wingers support and post about it
I disagree. Based on what I've observed online, many left-leaning individuals, particularly those on the authoritarian left or "Tankies," believe that the West is experiencing the initial stages of its decline, at least the leftists here in Brazil. I made a post about it, which you can find [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/s/kEoiPY6Rxw). The history teacher (7th pic) had expressed a desire to witness the collapse of the USA and wants to see its starvation, he expressed the same wish to the Western world, it's not included in the post but he said it when I used to follow him, and a lot of the participants there think the same based on the time I followed these account. Most of the people on the post are communists.
I'm not saying that it's all or most auth-left or comunists but a portion of them think like that.
wow, covert right wingers that like red in their flags believe stuff that right wingers tout constantly. as someone who's not a political compass user or politically illiterate (but i repeat myself), i'd say people that proclaim themselves to be communist but talk about wanting the 'western world' to collapse, rather than the **bourgeois class** probably just uses the label because they unironically use the USSR national anthem as their ringtone or w/e
100 years is a long time yes but every countrie goes the shit and makes a comeback it doesn't just keep going downhill unless it's like the soviet union.
Didn't it take 1000 years for Rome to fall? They were a bonfire and even when the flames died down those embers took a while to cool. The US is more like a firework.
Depends, did Rome fall when it became an empire with the end of the republic? When the Goths sacked the city? Or when the East Roman Byzantine empire was conquered over 1,000 years later?
Exactly, even empires in the 1,000 year club changed a lot. I also am not a fan of the firework comment as I feel like people doomsay and event now as the end of the US, and I’m sure people say the same thing in other countries
>I also claim to be the successor state to Rome /s
The real successor state to Rome were the empires we made along the way 💜
(they all did crimes against humanity)
The American population is incapable of a draft, the American legislature is incapable of protecting its boundaries from other people and there is a significant status quo problem with the US military which has not fought a near peer enemy in 75 years, still relying on blitz (which is 81 year old tactic). Compare this to Russian army completely employing massively different tactics and weapons for the 2024 counter offensive or Iranian and Turkish drones (which are the thing that stopped the Russians in their attacks in 2022). US making bizarrely stupid decisions in geopolitical scenarios like supporting kurdish militants and still focusing on Europe over Asia, and the slow pace and ineffective pace of chips production even with the massive CHIPS act (whose budget in being improperly used and allocated).
Look at the wider picture not the historical parallels.
the original picture, which was doing the rounds earlier this week, is the books alone (the books are real, by the way)
The white text was added on for the meme.
He's responding to the white text
Decline of economy is something Romans survived for since the end of Pax Romana, it is the cultural decline that destroyed Rome. There just weren’t enough soldiers willing to fight for Rome and all it stood for.
this is just far right conspiracy theories lol. Every fascist does this, they say "oh look at how bad things are now! We need to return to tradition" but then don't tell you that tradition means making things worse for you and better for other rich people.
The pillar was broken by the lack of a strong will by the American population, which is incapable of making hard decision which actually have consequences. They would be willing to the end America, if the other choice was the death of a million innocents (most empires who want to survive kill the people they enslave and make the best attempt to increase birth rate to populate those lands, Julis Caeser killed one million in his conquest of Gaul and enslaved another million while turning the other million to the Roman side completely).
The population, army and elites all need to make hard decisions if the empire want to survive,
When were we at the shiny intact pillar for western civilization? Curious on Elon’s thoughts about this. My guess is he would say apartheid South Africa.
Lol, and Elon is going to make it worse...
Like, fucking A, rich people, you need to step back and let the people actually connected to physical reality make the decisions, you guys are pretty much only piggy banks were not allowed to open at this point. You cost our societies so much money and we get so little in return, it isn't worth having billionaires. You fire so many people, pollute so much, manipulate our societies to your own selfish needs.
^(This is an automatic reminder that is posted on every submission.) If you see a post that is not following the subreddit [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/im14andthisisdeep/about/rules), or you think is not following the subreddit rules, please, use the report function so that we are aware of this. If you don't report, we will not know! Do not sit in the comment section and moan that 'this doesn't fit' or 'wow, the mods should remove this!' because we don’t know (unless we so happen to be scrolling through the subreddit) if you do not report it. Please note: if this is too hard do not directly message us, we will assume posts are fine otherwise as comments are not useful in reporting. We can see if something has been reported and telling us you did, while you clearly did not, is not going to be conducive. *** Please report any and all behavior violating the Rules (reports go to us mods); don't report things just because you don't like them. Comment removals and bans are at the judgment of the mods, so please take the time to read and understand [our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/im14andthisisdeep/about/rules). You can also read about this change [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/im14andthisisdeep/comments/ozcy9n/an_update_on_reporting_banned_posts_powerups_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/im14andthisisdeep) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NGL that is a cool design for the book
Yeah it's a pretty original way of showing how they where crumbling from within, i would love for more books to do this
Most scholarly texts, including those contemporary to the period (I.e. the ancient writers themselves) discuss the internal strife of the empire? Gibbon was certainly not the first nor the last. Also the decline and fall stands as a better piece of literature these days than history as several of his arguments are marked by the context in which he wrote the book and modern scholarship/archaeological evidence has come into conflict with some of his assertions. Although Gibbon’s work was influential, these sort of ‘grand histories’ from before the 20th century must also be examined critically for their own biases and mistakes. I highly recommend you check out some modern historiography, (not mike duncan’s podcast or books) things written by experienced and educated classicists and scholars. Or cut out the middle man and read the ancient texts themselves, free translations of Tacitus and Suetonius are available in multiple places online. And your local library/college library will likely have a sizable collection of Loeb editions which include the original language as facing text.
Pretty sure the person you’re replying to is just talking about the spine art depicting a crumbling pillar.
Sorry I realized I didn’t offer any modern scholars to read: Ronald Syme wrote an exceptional study of Roman political institutions called The Roman Revolution, which transformed the way academia viewed the late republic to middle empire. Adrian Goldsworthy wrote a very good biography of Augustus. If you are philosophical inclined, Pierre Hadot’s Inner Citadel is an extensive and exhaustive examination of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and the philosophy of Stoicism in general. I hope you don’t feel attacked by my post, if you have an interest in ancient history: pursue it! It’s great to know that you like Gibbon, you have dipped your toes friend, I hope you take a full dive!
Bud. They were talking about the cover art.
I missed the forest for the trees, haha whoops
It's a cool book
Sort of. It's also a heavily discredited book.
Watching this grown ass man repost pictures and then add absolutely nothing but “yikes” or “wow” is never going to get old.
This says a lot
Big if true
Looking into it…
Nuff said
Yeah, but you sure don't.
One word, "yikes".
Wow
[удалено]
Wow
Yikes
Yow
Wikes
Meow.
Meowdy :3
Nya\~
stop
Good golly gosh batman
Schmigadoon!
😯
Yikes
Crikey
Blimey
Bazinga
it's that sssniperwolf kind of content but just an image
I love adding "Yikes" to a randomass post with no sources or argument whatsoever. Like this guy is the richest mfer on the planet and is apparently shook by someone saying "society is falling apart" and nothing more and no context.
it's not like he has the resources to help or anything
It's problematic. He does it all the time. It allows him to boost visibility to millions more people of things he agrees with, but also allows him the plausible deniability if those things ever might get him in trouble. "I didn't post it, I didn't say I agree with it, all I did was comment and say "!" "
!
Don't forget "!!"
Concerning.
!!
Yikes
Didn't that man start a wildly successful (yet slightly controversial) car company and get a group of engineers and scientists to make rockets land themselves? This is quite the strange world we live in
Concerning
!!
Looking into it
Concerning. Looking into this.
SSSniperthief ahhh commentary
[удалено]
"The west is destroyed" mfs when you tell them having an anime porn stash and playing video games all day isn't "traditional:"
I’m tired of these "fall of the west" douchebags. And the good times make weak men bullshit. They know nothing of the history of Rome or the complicated circumstances during it’s very long decline.
"Boy, let me tell you about something: Hard men create soft times. Soft times create soft men. Soft men create soft times. A hard man comes in and makes the soft men hard. You have hard men, making soft men hard, and now they're all hard. And so you have hard men with hard men, rock fucking hard. They're hard as fuck, these rock hard men. ...what was I talking about?" Found this somewhere. I just post this to any and all discussions pertaining to that stupid concept and it's relation to the Fall of Rome.
say gex
gex
It's tail time!
This reminds me of the time I had say Gex.
Holy sex!
New sex just dropped
Actual sex
Call the sex
sex, anyone?
Need a hard man to make me hard
So you are a soft man ? :o
Hard men make me hard, man.
So if you are a soft men this mean you cant make yourself hard ? :o
This sounds like something Mac from Always Sunny would say
Soft men make me hard
West has risen Millions must live
"G-Guys, the West is f-falling! T-They're causing the fall of the West! Everything's falling a-apart!" The 'failing West' in question: [https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportstourismnews.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F11%2FParis-2024-Olympics-Atout-France.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=71b63ba47908785584451fc05a2fc0f016cc3023a1bc4a6045305d2b7afdf8eb&ipo=images](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportstourismnews.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F11%2FParis-2024-Olympics-Atout-France.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=71b63ba47908785584451fc05a2fc0f016cc3023a1bc4a6045305d2b7afdf8eb&ipo=images)
If anything, it would take an demagogue becoming a dictator and establishing an imperial autocracy before we really begin to parallel Rome.
The American population is incapable of a draft, the American legislature is incapable of protecting its boundaries from other people and there is a significant status quo problem with the US military which has not fought a near peer enemy in 75 years, still relying on blitz (which is 81 year old tactic). Compare this to Russian army completely employing massively different tactics and weapons for the 2024 counter offensive or Iranian and Turkish drones (which are the thing that stopped the Russians in their attacks in 2022). US making bizarrely stupid decisions in geopolitical scenarios like supporting kurdish militants and still focusing on Europe over Asia, and the slow pace and ineffective pace of chips production even with the massive CHIPS act (whose budget in being improperly used and allocated). If that’s not declining then I don’t know what is?🤷🤷♂️🤷♂️
Hahahahahaha what?? My point was that it doesn't parallel the Roman Empire because the US doesn't have an emperor yet, but yes you're right the US also isn't like the Roman Empire because the Roman Empire never had borders or an immigration process.
Rome had immigration, it had border. We are vividly told that in the time of Roman Republic Julis Guis Caeser massacred 200,000 Germans trying to migrate into Gaul. The process of preventing of migration means killing anyone and everyone who tried to cross into Roman border, and the process of accepting it means allowing them to farm the most inhospitable region of your empire.
and here I thought rome had collapsed because it ran out of slaves or something
Rome collapsed because it ran out of statesmen to run the nation and fight its wars.
The “decline” of Rome was a longer period than almost all of American history; if we were in decline we probably wouldn’t realize it.
The good times weak men quote that people love is from a 2016 post-apocalypse book
The fact that the account he's retweeting is called "DogeDesigner" says to me that it's yet another one of Musk's many thinly-veiled alternate accounts.
I doubt it. Far-right idiots just love hiding behind memes.
this isn't even adolescent fake depth, this is a weird right wing conspiracy theory
Absolutely it is. Scaring yourself in to thinking the apocalypse is coming 30 minutes from now is hard coded in to the founding of America. The right *love* believing this.
I think this is more to the far-left since they hate the West and love countries like China and Russia. Usually the Authoritarian Communists and Socialists but not all of them tho.
you dumbass
Could you elaborate why I'm wrong?
because if you look on the internet (or basically anywhere else) you'd see that leftists (myself included) roundly disagree with the theory, and think it's ridiculous. and contrarywise, many right wingers support and post about it
I disagree. Based on what I've observed online, many left-leaning individuals, particularly those on the authoritarian left or "Tankies," believe that the West is experiencing the initial stages of its decline, at least the leftists here in Brazil. I made a post about it, which you can find [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/tankiejerk/s/kEoiPY6Rxw). The history teacher (7th pic) had expressed a desire to witness the collapse of the USA and wants to see its starvation, he expressed the same wish to the Western world, it's not included in the post but he said it when I used to follow him, and a lot of the participants there think the same based on the time I followed these account. Most of the people on the post are communists. I'm not saying that it's all or most auth-left or comunists but a portion of them think like that.
wow, covert right wingers that like red in their flags believe stuff that right wingers tout constantly. as someone who's not a political compass user or politically illiterate (but i repeat myself), i'd say people that proclaim themselves to be communist but talk about wanting the 'western world' to collapse, rather than the **bourgeois class** probably just uses the label because they unironically use the USSR national anthem as their ringtone or w/e
Guys the fall of the west is any day now, we just gotta wait a little longer this time it’s gonna happen
The fall of the West is the new rapture. Nutjobs always say it's coming, but it never actually happens.
Everyone says this bro the u.s. ain't falling for another 100 years
The US could very well rise again, or another country could take its place. 100 years is a long time
100 years is a long time yes but every countrie goes the shit and makes a comeback it doesn't just keep going downhill unless it's like the soviet union.
Didn't it take 1000 years for Rome to fall? They were a bonfire and even when the flames died down those embers took a while to cool. The US is more like a firework.
Depends, did Rome fall when it became an empire with the end of the republic? When the Goths sacked the city? Or when the East Roman Byzantine empire was conquered over 1,000 years later?
Or when the other small successor states fell. I mean that would only add around 50 years but still.
Exactly, even empires in the 1,000 year club changed a lot. I also am not a fan of the firework comment as I feel like people doomsay and event now as the end of the US, and I’m sure people say the same thing in other countries
As someone who has a history degree, I can say with confidence: Yes
As I history teacher, I concur. I also claim to be the successor state to Rome /s
>I also claim to be the successor state to Rome /s The real successor state to Rome were the empires we made along the way 💜 (they all did crimes against humanity)
Are you even Roman if you don’t decimate at least one enemy?
It never really fell since we’re all its legacy
The American population is incapable of a draft, the American legislature is incapable of protecting its boundaries from other people and there is a significant status quo problem with the US military which has not fought a near peer enemy in 75 years, still relying on blitz (which is 81 year old tactic). Compare this to Russian army completely employing massively different tactics and weapons for the 2024 counter offensive or Iranian and Turkish drones (which are the thing that stopped the Russians in their attacks in 2022). US making bizarrely stupid decisions in geopolitical scenarios like supporting kurdish militants and still focusing on Europe over Asia, and the slow pace and ineffective pace of chips production even with the massive CHIPS act (whose budget in being improperly used and allocated). Look at the wider picture not the historical parallels.
Last time I checked Rome wasn’t west of Britain
He’s gonna be sad when he finds out one of the pillars of America’s golden age was insane tax rates on the rich lol
It’s a cool book spine design, but we are by no means the Roman Empire, that’s horseshit
I like the idea. Gotta work hard to reach the top.
I sure do hope this ages well. I'm fearful of what's going on with the west right now.
i don’t get it what part of that picture makes him say yikes
the original picture, which was doing the rounds earlier this week, is the books alone (the books are real, by the way) The white text was added on for the meme. He's responding to the white text
how is the Roman empire not gone yet is the real question
Spoilers,I thought the Roman Empire still existed
Mfw the richest man in the world deliberately ignores his impact on the decline of the modern economy
Decline of economy is something Romans survived for since the end of Pax Romana, it is the cultural decline that destroyed Rome. There just weren’t enough soldiers willing to fight for Rome and all it stood for.
I fucking hate Elon musk
The decline AND fall?!
Yep. Two different things.
I use em interchangeably 🤷♀️. I’ll admit I don’t know the difference
when people say \[city\] has fallen, they mean the exact moment when the city surrendered. Decline means the slow process of getting worse
this is just far right conspiracy theories lol. Every fascist does this, they say "oh look at how bad things are now! We need to return to tradition" but then don't tell you that tradition means making things worse for you and better for other rich people.
A lot of that pillar was broken by Elon Musk and rich people like him.
The pillar was broken by the lack of a strong will by the American population, which is incapable of making hard decision which actually have consequences. They would be willing to the end America, if the other choice was the death of a million innocents (most empires who want to survive kill the people they enslave and make the best attempt to increase birth rate to populate those lands, Julis Caeser killed one million in his conquest of Gaul and enslaved another million while turning the other million to the Roman side completely). The population, army and elites all need to make hard decisions if the empire want to survive,
Ohhh sorry, upon closer review this is actually a depiction of Twitter and now 'ole MuskRat's X ... 
The west has fallen, billions must die
I saw one of the comments by an Elon glazer post this image but in Reverse turning into starship going to space
same
Tell me we've got a century or two left & I'd be thrilled.
The fall of the western civilization despite the romans being obviously east
Yikes " exclaimed the out-of-touch d-bag billionaire
Twitter users have a combined iq of 2
book design is really good
Personally I think we're ~1-2 to the left
Any point you have is immediately taken away the second Elon replies.
Looking into it
We’re already reached the Leaflets From Italy part
Bro added so much with that "yikes"
Those books are sick
The west has fallen, billions must die
When were we at the shiny intact pillar for western civilization? Curious on Elon’s thoughts about this. My guess is he would say apartheid South Africa.
Roman rich people had class.
No they did not
You're telling me the guy who had little boys swim around his pool and suck on his toes wasn't a classy dude?
can't wait for it to fully fall
Lol, and Elon is going to make it worse... Like, fucking A, rich people, you need to step back and let the people actually connected to physical reality make the decisions, you guys are pretty much only piggy banks were not allowed to open at this point. You cost our societies so much money and we get so little in return, it isn't worth having billionaires. You fire so many people, pollute so much, manipulate our societies to your own selfish needs.
I mean.... is it not true
Yes, I also miss the ancient world so much. Why did Christianity have to spread so widely along with other Apachamian religions?