CDZ Devolution of the USA?

[jwoodie]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

 

[Mac1958]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

Some feel that you can judge the trajectory of a society by the way it entertains itself.

I agree with that, and using that as one measuring stick, the decay is pretty clear.

Add to that a commitment to lowering standards and expectations at every opportunity, and you have a real problem here.
.

 

[Agit8r]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

 

[Bush92]

Immigration. Rome was overran by Non-Romans.

 

[Bush92]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

Economy is booming in the Red States. You want a Red Peoples Republic of the United States.

 

[Bush92]

American Sheeple have become morons. Television certainly bears this out. Hollywood and NYC cable news media have a leftist agenda that is out of touch with the people. Hence the rise of Trump.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

And yet the "Red" states are outperforming the "Blue." Sure, you don't want to think about that a little bit more?

 

[The sheeple sea]

Well, we need some invaders weakening us and later finishing us off. And if we had a few more civil wars as well it would be closer to accurate. People didn't forget their technology, but record keeping was a lot less permanent than today. The internet cannot be burned and plundered, libraries and universities can.
As to people being dumber today, I can't refute that, but much of it can be blamed on freuds nephew a few decades back who introduced modern public relations. His take from psychological learnings was that you could appeal to emotion and have better results in convincing people of things rather than logical arguments that appealed to reason. His philosophy was widely accepted and applauded by politicians and companies alike, and he became one of the foremost sought experts of his day.
This appeal to irrational emotion and not logic began our departure from one the foremost trait that made us a dominant species, and its pervasiveness to this day is apparent in everything from commercials, debates, speeches, news programs and about anything else you can think of.
We are now having second generation citizens who have been born into this culture and know nothing else, to me, this more than anything else is the downfall of the American people.

 

[Ravi]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

Rome Becomes Christian, Western Empire Ends

Time Line of Early Christianity--The Lost Gospel of Judas--National Geographic

 

[jwoodie]

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

Your attempt at logical deduction fails. Freedom to practice Christianity was the basis on which most of the Original Colonies were established and a uniting force for independence from Great Britain. As for the fall of the Roman Empire, I don't recall that the barbarians were Christian. But perhaps you know better?

 

[Ravi]

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

Your attempt at logical deduction fails. Freedom to practice Christianity was the basis on which most of the Original Colonies were established and a uniting force for independence from Great Britain. As for the fall of the Roman Empire, I don't recall that the barbarians were Christian. But perhaps you know better?

Looks like you forgot all about the Boston Tea Party.

 

[Agit8r]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

And yet the "Red" states are outperforming the "Blue."

only in draining the federal coffers.

 

[william the wie]

The Roman Empire instituted the Christian religion under Constantine, and his puritanical laws made it a place that was no longer worth living in. Same as with the Red States.

Your attempt at logical deduction fails. Freedom to practice Christianity was the basis on which most of the Original Colonies were established and a uniting force for independence from Great Britain. As for the fall of the Roman Empire, I don't recall that the barbarians were Christian. But perhaps you know better?

A non-issue. The Roman empire like most early empires was destroyed by the merging of disease pools. "Plagues and Peoples" is the most popular history on the subject. While it did experience overreach, religious conversion and Barbarian invasions Gibbons thesis about the Roman empire does not hold water. The massive upturn in worldwide tectonic activity that prevented restoration by Justinian, for example, is not treated as a major cause nor the Plague outbreak that was its most famous knock on effect.

 

[LoneLaugher]

If only we can elect Trump! We'll make America great again.

On the whole....we aren't less intelligent. Standards have not been lowered. Expectations remain high. Much depends on your zip code....and that of your parents and grandparents.

This nation remains strong. The negro in the white's house has not brought us to our knees.

 

[Syriusly]

There are many analogies to the fall of the Roman Empire, but I have not seen much about what happened to the Roman people themselves. Did they forget their own technology for the next 500 years? How did this "dumbing down" happen?

Is it also happening here? It seems to me that the average American becomes more illiterate and less knowledgeable every year. If so, who is going to keep things running in the future? Are we looking at an elite class of technocrats who manage to keep the masses occupied with "reality" TV shows and video games?

What happens when the masses achieve critical mass?

Literacy rates have improved over the last 100 years. I have yet to see any evidence that Americans are 'less knowledgeable'- they are perhaps knowledgeable about different things.

Which makes this thread somewhat ironic.

Why don't know you know what happened to the Roman Empire? That used to be taught i schools.

There are lots of books about the 'fall of the Roman Empire'- and also about the period between the 'fall' and the Renaissance- worth reading if you want to know what happened.

 

[jwoodie]

So much for cogent expressions of serious intellectual activity...

 

[I amso IR]

Rome's arch enemy, ISIS, took over and they are marching again! Like a bad case of STD, they keep on keeping on.

 

[jwoodie]

Like I said...

 

[I amso IR]

Utopia is boring and defeatist. When people have meaningless tasks, mundane tasks, removed and performed by mechanization, people become lazy. The electronic and computerized cash register is an example. No need to add, subtract, multiply and divide as the machine does it. That is one source of dumbing down. Now you can extrapolate from there. The sky is absolutely the limit. Consider this as a "cogent expression of serious intellectual activity ...."

 

[Damaged Eagle]

"… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: Bread and circuses."
Juvenal

“The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’
‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.”
Robert A. Heinlein

*****SMILE*****