I had an argument with a friend on MSN, he claims that the United States is going to collapse and never rebuild, like Rome. I countered, saying that the USA will rebuild, it might not be the same, but it would still be the United States.

My counterpoints to his "Rome" were:
+Germany faced economic depressions, a horrible dictator, was split in half, and is still Germany today
+Russia faced Communist Revolutions, A horrible dictator, economic collapse, and is still Russia today

Modern nations don't "Disappear" like the nations of the old days, there are still people in Spain who want to have an independent Catalonia and Basque Country. France survived several revolutions and was completely annexed by Germany in WWII. (Vichy France was a puppet state, I count that as annexed)

So, what does the Boiler Room think? Will the United States collapse like Rome, or pull through our problems and become stronger in the end?

it would take a world-wide collapse and loss of the international community for countries to collapse like Rome.


I don't doubt this could happen as resources become scarcer and the superpowers get crushed under more and more debt. But not in the near future.

Anyone claiming that USA could actually suddenly just disappear like Rome did obviously doesn't have a damn clue about why Rome actually collapsed and what kind of process it actually was.

Well, the person is hardly a good debater (They started the argument then when I offered counter points said "I have a headache, $%&@ off"), but still, It seemed like boiler room material and an interesting debate on weither the United States will collapse or simply be "reborn".

Uh, neither?

I have no doubt the U.S. will probably cease to exist at some point in thee future. For all practical purposes, the universe is eventually going to end and even then humanity isn't very likely to last long enough to see it, to say nothing of modern civilization as we know it. That said, complete societal collapse is not something that is likely to happen in any of our lifetimes without significant nuclear help. Or possibly bioweapons.

The inevitable entropy of the universe doesn't count in this argument.

The worst part of the recession is over, the Depression was close to a hundred years ago. There is no horrible dictator. The closest thing to splitting in half we have is Republicans and Democrats going 'NO U' over and over.

You both lose.

Well, you're both wrong but you say annexation is the same as puppeting a country? That's utterly inane, it's completely different from what annexed means.

Well, the US probably doesn't have as strong chance of staying together as Germany, France, and Russia. "American" isn't a national identity that is rooted in thousands of years in history, and while Americans are really damn patriotic, our attachment seems to be heavily to our rights and freedoms. If those suddenly go away, I can imagine America being significantly less sturdy than some other nations. I do not know if regionalism would play a large role in American disintegration than other nations, though.

As for America actually collapsing like Rome...well, not bloody likely. If we were invaded by large barbarian hordes that our conventional forces couldn't repel (and it's going to take a LONG time before the Cuban, Mexican, and Canadian armies can march to American cities and burn them to the ground without resistance), we'd be calling out the nuclear arsenal. Plus, any sort of occupier is going to have a very large headache. Americans have lots and lots of guns.



Also, the fundamentals of the American economy are still decently strong. We're being held back by our financial system and our lack of political willpower, but this depression isn't going to kill us. A much more likely outcome is a second double-dip that ends up being MUCH deeper than the first one, and then America spends a long time in the crapper and elects Sarah Palin president.

Then proceeds to collapse from there?

Does the German invasion of Vichy in 1942 count as annexation?

It wouldn't be a Rome-type collapse, but we would be the Sick Man of Earth.

The U.S. and most other modern nations will probably only lose their nation identity in the midst of a global crisis unseen before, or when humanity moves to the point where we are the human race and going to distant places in space.

Actually you just proved my point, I was saying that the US WON'T collapse because other countries have seen WORSE and survived. I was COUNTERING his point that we will collapse.


You're right, a puppet government makes the ignorant people happier because they don't realize they're controlled by another country, and makes the bureaucracy larger.

Annexation and Puppet governments don't work like they do in HoI2, Kenadian. If you have control of a nation's government that's as good as owning the land yourself, you just need to go through a few more channels than usual.

That makes it inherently less good than owning the land yourself...

There are trade offs, You don't have to deal with revolts yourself and it looks better internationally.

Then having a nation as an ally is just as good as ruling the nation yourself, since they can carry their own weight.

Not really, because then they can say no. A puppet government doesn't say no.

Has he been to Rome? I mean, there are worse places to live.

We can't be sacked like they were, we hold the world hostage with a massive thermonuclear arsenal.

But will our 'empire' (financial/corporate, not territorial) slowly wane and our influence diminish from its peak?

Inevitably. And the only thing lost will be a little ego. People will still live very nice lives.

People need to learn their history. Rome didn't fall all at once. It took a couple of centuries for just the western half to collapse. And the Eastern half lived on for a thousand years after the western half died.

And yet, they are specifically not the same thing. That's like saying margarine is butter.

Rome didn't even 'fall' when most people think it did. I think that the moment Attila the Hun went to the Pope rather then the Emperor to decide the treaty was the 'end' of the significance of the Western Roman empire--it had been replaced by the Catholic church.

Indeed. Rome was basically ruled by utter anarchy for well over a century after the last of the Five Good Emperors, and it mortally weakened the empire. Diocletian and Constantine tried to restrengthen it, but ultimately Diocletian's Tetrarchy was another utter failure. It just made things worse by empowering four competing heads (two emperors and two Caesars) vying for complete control and power. The barbarian invasions were not the cause of Rome's demise, they just brought the killing blow to an already battered, moribund empire.

Rome fell from Internal struggle(Civil War), foreign attacks, and economic struggles. I don't see any Civil War, I don't see any attacks on America, and the economy is away from the brink. If America falls, the world would too.

If America (or any major first-world nation) "falls" it will be more a result of a merge due to globalization, probably.

For example, in 100 years, as attitudes and national identities evolve, it is entirely possible Canada, the States, and Mexico might merge into some hypothetical North American Union.

That, or the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse will cause us to break down into a tribal society.

I can see a Soviet-style collapse with states going independent but the total conquest and loss of national identity of America? Considering that basis of Roman law is still in place in the West and that Russia and America saw/see themselves as the restored forms of the Roman Empire/Republic, even Rome didn't suffer that fate.

Didn't the Pope go to Attila?

And the Britney song was on. hands up... blah blah blah, it's a party in the USA!

America as a successor to Rome? What biased history book were you reading? We did model ourselves on Roman law and egalitarian ideals, but we never claimed to be a successor to the Roman Empire or even its Republic form (do you know how chaotic the Roman Republic was in its final days and how it was primarily a tool for strengthening the power of the Roman aristocrats?). Russia and the Ottoman Empire claimed to be the Third Rome, I never heard of America's founding fathers billing the United States as New Rome.

From what I understand, it would take total economic collapse for the American government to disintegrate. I would also have to disagree with the use of the example of Rome.

Rome was a huge empire, but it didn't even nearly have anywhere near today's technology. While the fall of Rome did take decades a large reason to that is that if there was any news it had to sent by conventional means. A message from Germany could take anything from a week to a month depending on importance to reach Rome. Any changes in investment today is almost instantaneous, just look at the stock exchange, compare that how people would know whether they had made a profit or not back then. Then you have the difference between what their power was built on.

Rome. Glory, Prosperity and Peace through conquest.

America. That has still to be defined, but it could possibly be power through oil.

Today an economic collapse can come within weeks, not years and it is very real idea that if oil to disappear America would collapse. Also if we went along the same lines of economic collapse which is probably more likely than nuclear or biological threats, it would not be just be America collapsed. Even if it was for some reason only America that ran out of oil, the whole world would be dragged down with it. America is such an economical and political power house, that its sudden departure would be like a economical black hole.

Say good bye to the world as we know it.

It doesn't matter that much about how long nations have existed or how much history they have, when the food stops coming, because there isn't any left or they simply can' afford it everything will fall apart.

Just my opinion.

I think where many people get this concept of America being Rome because they were both superpowers of the word during the time of Rome, Rome was considered an ancient superpower being able to field large and advanced armies. America is a superpower because we have the abilityto deploy troops anywhere in the world under 24 hours, have a bases stationed in over 20 countries and we have the most advanced military in the world.

Second thing is that the Roman Empire imploded on itself from corruption, stretching itself too thin against foreign attacks and cultural sabotage. By the end of the Roman Empire the people cared for only games and bread and let foreign ideas and cultures assimilate into the masses and before some realized it Rome lost its idenity and became something other than Rome.

Same thing that is happening in America right now. I'm not saying you are right or wrong I'm basing an observation. Compare the two in this way: (Note none of my sources are from wikipedia)

Rome: Superpower 247 BC to 476 AD (Some historical nut is going to call me on this but humor me)
America: Superower 1950-2008 (2008 is when things started to go down hill)

Rome: Stretched itself too thin against the barbarians in the north and west (Visigoths, Huns and other Germanic tribes) and Middle Eastern uprisings from the Persians and Egyptians.

America: Stretched thin from cut budgets and trying to maintain an Empire overseas with addition of the Iraw and Afghanistan war.

Rome: Corruption and collapse of regional governments. The latter Emperors appeased the Roman people with games and bread.

America: Socialism, corrupt Federal government, outrageous spending and the destruction of Capitalism.

There are similarities but is America going to out like Rome? Not in the same way. Rome fell completely and never rose again as Rome or identified as such. America...well it has not fallen yet but if the Bolshivism in DC continues we will have total economic and social collpase.

You say things are going downhill, yet would you say that the US isn't the superpower now? I'd say the US is still ahead of other SINGLE countries by quite a ways.



They might be stretched thin, however, is it thin enough to cause a collapse of any kind past what has already happened, which can be recovered from.



First off, explain what socialism has gotten into the US, how the federal government is corrupt, "outrageous spending," and what you mean by the destruction of capitalism (note, I'm not going to agree or disagree yet, I want to clarify what you are saying).



Please explain how what is going on in DC is "Bolshivism."

America's political system is still not anything like the Roman political system, and that was a source of a lot of Roman difficulties.

Well, now I know why I got a C on that midterm.

But the point remains the same.

Yeah, we were a superpower at an earlier time, we just didn't start acting like one until '40. And, yeah, we went through a recession in '08. Big woop, so is the rest of the world. How else can we say that 1 year ago things started going downhill?



Cut WHAT?
WHAT?



No, the EVERY CONSUL EVER did that. Bread and Games was something done by every politician from the point the population of Rome became too large to support via local agriculture. If anything, the problem was that Rome became too decentralized. The larger farms had basically become Feudal estates by the beginning of Rome's fall.



The what?
Bolshevism?
Bolshevism. Like the system...what?
Who the $%&@ accuses politicians of Bolshevism? Are we in the 1920's again?

Yeah, that new-fangled Christianity lark was just terrible, wasn't it? Because that is what you are saying, no?

As for foreign ideas and cultures destroying Roman identity, how exactly? If they hadn't picked up anything from the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Persians, the Egyptians and other ancient Mediterranean cultures, there wouldn't have been a Roman empire.



How did they appease the masses beforehand then? Giving the people "bread and circuses" was a staple appeaser used by many emperors prior to Rome's decline and fall. It's not like in Gladiator where the dude in charge tries to cover his militarily inept rear-end by throwing parties and the like.





Ah, and you might have had a bit of a decent argument to make, but that hysterical raving just discredited everything you have and probably will say. Well done.

Mmm, maybe to an extent. Attila wasn't actually a Christian, as far as I'm aware, but I think the Huns had a lot of respect for Christianity. I do think that this was pretty much the end of the empire though, not because of the Pope, but because of the moronic emperor who killed Flavius Aetius, the last true Roman.

I'm not saying it was the end, but it was a good turning point. The large estates were becoming more and more independent, and the Church was becoming more and more powerful compared to the Western Emperor.

My prediction: The Republicans will splinter between their moderates and their conservatives, and GVChamp will use this power vacuum to successfully run for President in 2012, defeating Obama in a sweeping victory (with Palin as his vice). In the following years, he shall institute policies that restrict personal freedoms, and, in January 2015 (after the Democrats are swept into power in 2014), he conducts secret, clandestine talks with Mexico and Canada, and, before the new Congress can be seated, GVChamp will announce that this Congress will not be seated, that the United States (a creation of "liberals and hippies") will be replaced by Oceania, that the US Constitution will be dissolved, and that private ownership of books, media, and everything is illegal, all the while proclaiming himself to be "The Legendary Lost Economist". Eventually, the tyrant GVChamp is toppled by the Socialists and Communists, lead by the legendary Che Cthulhu (who awoke to fight the Fascist menace), and a new President is found in mastab (or was it Gustave?), who leads America to a new, Golden Age of Anarchy.

All in all, an eventful few years ahead of us. I for one, welcome My Dear Leader.

I think some of you have already touched on something but I want to put a bit more emphasis on it. The world is so closely connected now it simply would not be us falling, it would be parts of the global system chaining together, like dominos. That's what makes it so bad, the snowball effect. Bad things can happen before anyone in a position to stop them can do anything about it, like owning a stock that crashes in after market trading. So a big collapse would likely bring down a lot of other nations with us.

Have any of you ever read the preamble to the original Gamma World roleplaying game? I laughed at it as being ludicrous as a teenager, but it seems much more believable today. An ideological war rather then a civil war between states or a conventional war between countries would have a much better chance of destabilising the country. There are already weapons terrible enough that a tiny fanatical minority could make use of, and we are only as safe as the least stable among us. I could actually see this happening to the U.S., in a worst case scenario.

Also, the only reason I read this thread is I saw Baron Uberstein had written it. How are you doing Ubie?

Rome was an Empire that maintained much of it's territory only by military occupation, with those territories being as much in its nebulous sphere of influence as an intricate part of the empire. Borders often fluctuated in the give and take of constant war with neighboring empires and tribes.

The United States is a nation state with very well defined borders and peaceful relations with its neighbors. Even if we decline economically and in terms of relative power, our nation will likely still exist.

Unless there's another major transformation to the way the political world works, like there was when we moved from nebulous empires to well defined nation-states we are unlikely to collapse like Rome did.


Edit: To get past the word filter of nation-states, as I'm not using it in the context of that other game. >_>

What's nuts is that before the treaty of Westphalia we totally could have had a system of your job is your nationality.

That would have been awesome.

Please, do elaborate.

Priests, or noblemen, had more loyalty to each other than they did the peasants who were on their land.

Peasants would probably have more things to talk about to other peasants miles away than a noble from the same town. Merchants were similar. Nationalism was invented after the 30 years war.

Ohhh, I was confused by what you said. You said "your job was your nationality" and I was thrown off. That's not what I thought you meant.

I'd just like to point out that I don't advocate caste systems, but there is a science fiction writer repressed deep down inside that occasionally comes out and goes "OH MAN THATD BE SOO COOOL"

I actually thought you meant that your nationality was literally your job. I thought, "How the hell would that work? Are the British shipwrights, Italians artisans and bakers, Germans are military officers, Americans are cowboys, Canadians are lumberjacks and Mounties, and Aussies are prisoners?"

I imagine the USA's status as a superpower will disappear in the relative near future, but as a nation it will remain. You really can't stay powerful when all your companies are moving oversees and the one that do stay in there are going bankrupt.

That would suggest that the corporations are becoming autonomous, which would suggest that !@#$%* are starting to become a silly concept, isn't it?

I mean, if the thing that you work at is international, why regard yourself as anything other than international?

hahaha, i love when words like that get snipped... further proof of the unintended consequences of regulation