Why civilizations must expand or collapse

[Arian]

The Expansion Factor is the simple rule of Civilizations:

If you do not expand you die.
Simple and example is Rome. The Roman Empire after a certain point decided it had conquered all the world that was important. It then built Hadrain's Wall.
The wall was a metaphor for stopping growth.
Now the expansion factor says that if a civilization stopps growth, it can only go backwards, their is no stalling. Kindof like a plane.

Thoughts?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Explain about China.

 

[Arian]

OOOH? China? I did that in the Pycohistory thread...

well, along time ago, China had a nice little Emperor. He had himslef built a giant fleet that would explore the world.
It went around the indian Ocean docking in harbors and ports and Sharing ideas. No wonder that during that ntime China was in a time or growth and golden years.

Yet, then, the good emperor died of age. His death, let a new Emeror come, who destroyed the fleet. It is no wonder that soon after, China entered a time of darkness and war. Their expansion gone, they fell inward, and spiraled into the ground...

 

[Pythagorean]

OOOH? China? I did that in the Pycohistory thread...

well, along time ago, China had a nice little Emperor. He had himslef built a giant fleet that would explore the world.
It went around the indian Ocean docking in harbors and ports and Sharing ideas. No wonder that during that ntime China was in a time or growth and golden years.

Yet, then, the good emperor died of age. His death, let a new Emeror come, who destroyed the fleet. It is no wonder that soon after, China entered a time of darkness and war. Their expansion gone, they fell inward, and spiraled into the ground...

I don't know if this has any significance, because it's based off of a civilization-style computer game, but one of China's perks (in the game) is when you start a new 'city center' you can start making peons (the workers that build your militairy and farms and all kinds of domestic stuff) right away, where as other players have to pump five peons from their mother city into the new 'city center' before it will create peons as their mother city (capital) does.

 

[Arian]

right...
should I make my comparison to the US now?

 

[selfAdjoint]

OOOH? China? I did that in the Pycohistory thread...

well, along time ago, China had a nice little Emperor. He had himslef built a giant fleet that would explore the world.
It went around the indian Ocean docking in harbors and ports and Sharing ideas. No wonder that during that ntime China was in a time or growth and golden years.

Yet, then, the good emperor died of age. His death, let a new Emeror come, who destroyed the fleet. It is no wonder that soon after, China entered a time of darkness and war. Their expansion gone, they fell inward, and spiraled into the ground...

No they didn't. Manchu invaders came and were tamed just as their Mongol ancestors had been, and Chinese civilization continued to flourish, as close to a steady state success as any civilization has ever been. And even in the awful twentieth century when so many empires fell, and the Chinese one with them, it took only a long generation for a new empire to be created, and in spite of the collapse of communist states elsewhere, and catastrophically bad decisions like the great leap forward, that empire persists to this day, and the western countries are scared stiff of its growth and success.

The emperor is a revolving door, but the Chinese way just keeps tickin' along.