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URF8
08-25-2012, 09:14 PM
I wrote this elsewhere. I think of this place as home. So I would like to share it with my family.


The reason for someone to study history is to gain insight. With sufficient study one can stroll through time and escape the limitations of time, space and personal experience.

In most of Western civilization history has been viewed as linear in dimension. In Confucian cultures history is generally seen as cyclical.

In my opinion history is neither linear nor cyclical. It is random. The limitations of human nature and the circumscribed expanse of human behavior make the course of events seem cyclical.

Conceptualize history as a pinball machine. Once the lever is pulled the ball takes on a life of its own. However, if one is skilled it is possible to use the opportunities presented by the movement of the pinball to score. When one is prepared and the opportunities present themselves it is possible for a society to advance. But there must be an alignment between preparation and opportunity. In the absence of either there is no advancement.

A society or civilization is like a complex organism with many different systems that must work together for the organism to live and prosper. Societies and civilizations don't fall or collapse because a single system fails. They fall when enough systems fail that the society or civilization can no longer breath, circulate, digest, and live.

That is what happened to Late Period Egypt prior to the Macedonian Conquest. That is what happened to the Roman Empire in the West. http://www.financialsense.com/contri...k-civilization. (Thanks again Peter.)

And that is what happened to Qing Dynasty China. It is all a question of the alignment of preparation and opportunity.

No polity or society in all or recorded history has survived a prolonged and protracted period of financial instability. None. Not one. The story is always the same whether it be Bourbon Dynasty France in 1789, Qing Dynasty China in 1911, or the Soviet Union in 1989.

America won't survive financial collapse either. The land will still be here. The people will still be here. But the polity that has become the established order in this country won't survive. This coming week the National Debt will exceed sixteen trillion dollars. There is no way to pay all of this money back short of seizing at least one third of the principal assets held in the private sector. Any attempt to do so will trigger civil war.

America is not exempt from the forces and processes of history. America is not exempt from economic collapse. All that is required for economic collapse is for enough people to lose faith in America. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius said something in his Meditations to the effect that that which is old shall be new again. He didn't mean that in a good way.

Peter1469
08-25-2012, 09:38 PM
Great post!