Why civilizations rise and fall?

[jim hardy]

That way lies madness.The problem isn't that Congress legislates too little, it legislates too much. When you get monstrous bills landing on a representative's desk, bills running on for hundreds, if not thousands of pages, it strains credulity that any of this legislation can be comprehended by mere mortals. In addition to what bubbles up out of the Congressional swamp, each year the federal regulatory bureaucracy upchucks 60,000-plus pages of new regulations in the Federal Register.

Except for passing a budget or declaring war, it would be better if Congress just stayed home until needed, rather than fiddling and fundraising and fine tuning.

We don't disagree on the problem , only its solution. You'd reduce the time for congress to make mischief by ~92% (give them only one month a year);
i'd redirect their energies from building new laws to maintaining existing ones, culling the bad apples as in your Lincoln reference.

In addition to what bubbles up out of the Congressional swamp, each year the federal regulatory bureaucracy upchucks 60,000-plus pages of new regulations in the Federal Register.

It's like an unmaintained orchard, isn't it? Choked with weeds and underbrush.
In nature periodic brushfires unchoke things; a good horticulturist does it himself.

But then i spent a lifetime in a maintenance organization.

old jim

 

[SteamKing]

I blame air conditioning.

In the old days, congress was in session only during the cool months of the year, as DC gets very hot and humid during the summer months. Now, with modern climate control, there is little to restrain both houses from being in session year round, except when members adjourn for holidays or to campaign for re-election.

 

[SnowMan20]

Most civilizations crashed after following great "progresses" in some senses of the word. Most led to separation growing between the rich few and the poor masses, with the power lying with the rich few. If you look into most major civilization and even smaller ones(even the colonies breaking away from Britain) this is a pattern you will see towards the end of civilizations.

I can't help to think that that sounds a lot like the world today. Frightening.

Also look at this article about a NASA funded study on this subject:
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

 

[Dotini]

Most civilizations crashed after following great "progresses" in some senses of the word. Most led to separation growing between the rich few and the poor masses, with the power lying with the rich few. If you look into most major civilization and even smaller ones(even the colonies breaking away from Britain) this is a pattern you will see towards the end of civilizations.

I can't help to think that that sounds a lot like the world today. Frightening.

Also look at this article about a NASA funded study on this subject:
http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

Frightening, and potentially depressing, too, since it appears there's no fixing it. I believe this is why so many otherwise prosperous and intelligent people watch HBO's Game of Thrones. It brings us to terms with the ugly and brutal truth, all the while charming us with its beautiful, useful or necessary lies.

 

[lpetrich]

Peter Turchin has worked on this sort of question. His home page: http://cliodynamics.info/; his blog: Social Evolution Forum | Promoting discussion and collaboration in social and cultural evolution

He has written a book with Sergei Nefedov, Secular Cycles, on cycles of growth and decay in long-lived societies, like preindustrial European ones and Imperial china. He concluded that societies go through this cycle:

1. Growth or integrative phase: centralized, unified elites, strong state, order, stability, with wars of conquest of neighbors
   1. Expansion (Growth) - population increases
   2. Stagflation (Compression) - population levels off, elites increase
2. Decline or disintegrative phase - decentralized, divided elites, weak state, disorder, instability, with civil wars
   1. Crisis (State Breakdown) - population declines, elites continue, lots of strife
   2. Depression - population stays low, civil wars, elites get pruned
3. Intercycle, if it takes time to form a strong state after the end of the last decline phase

It typically takes something like 300 - 400 years to complete this cycle.

Peter Turchin also found a shorter cycle of violence, a 50 - 60 year one in the decline phases. He calls it the fathers-and-sons one, speculating that it's a two-generation one. A generation of people revolt, and their children don't want to repeat the experience, and don't think that their miseries are worth revolting over. But for their children's children, it is a more distant memory, and they have more to revolt over. So they revolt.

He's also taken on the history of the United States. He found a long-term cycle in various social indicators, but with a period of little over a century, and also fathers-and-sons spikes in violence in 1870, 1920, and 1970, though not one in 1820. That long-term cycle had a peak in 1824, a trough in 1904, another peak in 1960, and it's currently headed to another trough. He expects that the US will have a rough ride over the next several years.

 

[TheAustrian]

In my opinion:

Inhomogeneity can also be a problem. There were quite a few civilizations (most famous one being the Roman Empire) that fell apart because it had too many different ethnicity living in within the same borders. Once they were all given the right of being a Roman Citizen (this was given due to economical problems, the move suddenly increased tax revenues, but at a deadly cost) these ethnicities gained the right to vote and have an influence on the empire. They of course all pushed for their own agendas, and the Empire could no longer function as one entity. (Local Governors could often completely ignore Rome, or even act against it's interests) I think Europe is heading for a second Roman Empire style collapse and native population decline/extinction (e.g. the Latins have disappeared along with the Language), in which new civilizations will emerge, creating new nations based on the new immigrants' cultures from Africa and Asia.

 

[ptalar]

In my opinion:

Inhomogeneity can also be a problem. There were quite a few civilizations (most famous one being the Roman Empire) that fell apart because it had too many different ethnicity living in within the same borders. Once they were all given the right of being a Roman Citizen (this was given due to economical problems, the move suddenly increased tax revenues, but at a deadly cost) these ethnicities gained the right to vote and have an influence on the empire. They of course all pushed for their own agendas, and the Empire could no longer function as one entity. (Local Governors could often completely ignore Rome, or even act against it's interests) I think Europe is heading for a second Roman Empire style collapse and native population decline/extinction (e.g. the Latins have disappeared along with the Language), in which new civilizations will emerge, creating new nations based on the new immigrants' cultures from Africa and Asia.

The same is happening in the United States. I don't know why history is taught in the classroom it seems nobody learns from history.