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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32174 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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I mean, degeneracy and collapse is a common feature of almost every empire for which we have historical records.

Presumably there's many more that experienced the same decline yet didn't leave a record.

Why do we suppose ourselves to be the exception?

Every past civilization has by definition collapsed, but what is "degeneracy" and what does it have to do with those collapses? Major civilizational collapses have been caused, at least in part, by at least the following set of different factors: Foreign invasion, climate change, natural disaster, disease, religious conflict, over-spending on public works, failure to maintain physical infrastructure, rebellion, civil war and other internal power struggles, changes in technology, changes to the surrounding economic situation, and resource depletion. And these causes may overlap, or cause one another. So, what counts as degeneracy and what is the evidence that it's related to collapse?

So, what counts as degeneracy and what is the evidence that it's related to collapse?

If I were to be broad, it's basically the social/material weaknesses that are exploited by or vulnerable to outside forces and hollow out the wealth and power of the nation if they are not repaired/corrected.

That is, the features and factors that allowed a civilization to rise to prominence can be acknowledged as a core part of that civilization's success. "Degeneration" occurs when those features or factors are allowed to slip away without efforts to preserve them. And if a civilization depended on those factors to maintain their success, then seems almost definitional that losing them will lead to some sort of collapse.

Lot of arguments to be had about what the features/factors of civilizational success are, but it's probably possible to measure the factors and determine if they are degenerating relative to the past.

Take a simple example: what do you think would happen to Saudi Arabia if it lost it's ability to extract and process crude oil?

Would you say that the availability of crude oil within it's borders is a big reason for Saudi Arabia's success in the last hundred years?

If so, would it be fair to say, then, that if Saudi Arabia were to allow it's oil reserves to be depleted without investing in some other means of supporting it's economy, it would be 'degenerating?' It would certainly be 'degeneracy' if Saudi Arabia started setting it's oil fields and extraction equipment on fire for no good reason, no? Or, at least, they would call it such.

I like them as an example since quite a many civilizations have risen and fallen in that general geographical area. No reason to think they'll escape it.

That all seems reasonable, but it sounds then like "degeneracy" is simply any cause of a collapse, or perhaps just a description of collapse/decline. So what's special about TikTok, or any of the other things that are normally referred to as "degeneracy"? How do we use this concept? Is there a prediction beyond "if a civilization loses the things that made it successful, it will no longer be successful?" Is that even true, or do the needs of a civilization change as it develops?

To give an example in a different direction, consider the Bagan Empire of the 9th to 12th century in what is now Myanmar (formerly Burma). This society had a system of state-supported religion, where kings built temples and supported monks working in them with land and precious metal. They derived their public legitimacy from this support, as well as it providing widespread employment. But over time, since the Buddhist monks were immune to taxes, they accumulated more and more of the wealth of the country. Adhering to their ancient traditions contributed to their downfall!

edit: there's a choice quote to this extent around 1:29:50 into the linked episode.

I didn't say otherwise. The initial claim was not, "like all societies, the West will someday collapse." The claim was that said collapse is relatively imminent, specifically because the basic premise of liberal democracy renders it vulnerable thereto. That is the claim that has been made repeatedly.

The problem with the collapse debate is it inevitably involves moving goalposts as to what is defined as collapse. It's hard to agree on what is means for a society to have collapsed. Is it conquered, split, dissolved, or morph into something unrecognizable from its original state?

At a bare minimum, the birthrates have collapsed... indeed to below replacement. A naive projection of this trend would mean some kind of decline is inevitable because of this, alone.

It's entirely possible to chalk a lot of this up to liberal democracy, or, perhaps, the wealth and freedom this brings to the average citizen.

Material conditions have improved, but a lot of basic stats regarding human happiness have declined, and unless people start having more kids or we crack the aging problem, in 50 years we aren't going to have the manpower needed to maintain the services we depend on.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Tiktok is a source of this issue but more like a warning sign. Such an app wouldn't, one would argue, be able to take such strong root in a healthy culture.

It's entirely possible to chalk a lot of this up to liberal democracy, or, perhaps, the wealth and freedom this brings to the average citizen.

But wealth and freedom are distinct from liberal democracy. India was a liberal democracy in the 1950s, despite being dirt-poor. Hong Kong and Singapore have a lot of wealth and freedom (and the concomitant shortage of children) today, without being liberal democracies (especially HK). China is heading in the same direction, despite the end of the One Child Policy.

in 50 years we aren't going to have the manpower needed to maintain the services we depend on.

50 years? Probably optimistic. The problem is pressing now with Boomers - the largest generation - retiring. The amount of healthcare money eaten up by the old is disproportionate and there isn't an equally large generation behind them to balance them out.

Canada already has a healthcare crunch and privatization or not is the topic of the day. It's probably only going to get worse from here. I heard some alarming population estimates for Japan in 2050, let alone 2070.

There's some hope that robotics and automation are going to stave off the impact. Life extension/anti-aging tech will probably be too late for the most part.

If we get AGI then no point in trying to predict the world after that.

But more to the point, Gen Z is the smallest generation (in the west) yet. Even if they started popping out kids like particularly horny rabbits there will be a protracted squeeze waiting on those kids to become productive citizens. And they don't seem to be having kids. So that's whence my 'fifty years' vague estimate comes from.

Will we even have enough people with the capacity to keep an increasingly advanced civilization functional?

It's entirely possible to chalk a lot of this up to liberal democracy, or, perhaps, the wealth and freedom this brings to the average citizen.

How does this square with the fact that China's TFR is only ~80% of the Untied States' TFR? If birth rate collapse = national collapse seems authoritarian China is ahead of liberal democratic United States on that front.

How does this square with the fact that China's TFR is only ~80% of the Untied States' TFR?

One-Child-Policy compounded with rapid urbanization?

The Chinese made policy choices that cratered their birthrates before they began to crater globally.

national collapse seems authoritarian China is ahead of liberal democratic United States on that front.

Yes?

One nation being on course for collapse doesn't preclude it happening to others. The argument is that this is a general trend of all nations, and that empires are not excluded from this.

Indeed, if the West is still overly dependent on Chinese labor when that happens, the ripple effect will accelerate issues over here.

(This is basically Peter Zeihan's thesis, incidentally)

in 50 years we aren't going to have the manpower needed to maintain the services we depend on.

That's why God created immigration

What will that imply for the countries that the immigrants are drawn from?

Given the higher productivity levels in the west, they can just pay the poorer countries a fee for every immigrant the West takes, and still leave everyone better off.

The west's ideology got to you. I know with all the controversies around your comments people where telling you to come back to your country. I say better stay with us, and don't ruin it.

Oh I agree, I'm a Westerner through and through. My internal moral system is thoroughly guilt based (like a Westerner) rather than shame based (like the inhabitants of my homeland). I recognise the great Past Masters of the West as being above what my culture produced, for instance I would wholeheartedly rank Goethe higher than Rumi.

What I'm not though is a Westoid. The two things are very different and current modern western culture is Westoid culture, not Western culture. I would much rather live under Western culture than my own (it's better in like, almost every way), but equally I far prefer my own culture over Westoid culture (now that, that's worse in like, almost every way).

Until the west renounces the social experiment of the last 70 years I will continue to advocate for the replacement of large amounts of its core tenets, since I genuinely think that would lead to an improved state of affairs for humanity as a whole.

What I'm not though is a Westoid.

Am not convinced. "I'll pay you to hand over your most talented people, this way we'll be both better off" is peak Westoidism. You've never seen a project fall apart, because key players moved on, and no matter how much money was thrown at it, it just stagnated or degraded?

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Brain drain that further reduces them relative to the US.

The loss of the most successful and mobile members of their middle class.

But I doubt it poses a great internal political impediment to the host nation; in Canada this is seen as a virtuous act and, tbh, I can see why the importing of a few hundred thousand Indians every couple of years (iirc they make up around 20% of migrants) doesn't rank highly in the Canadian mind as a moral outrage.

There are many reasons why the US may be an exception to this trend of empires rising and falling.

The US is much more dominant, head and shoulders above the rest relative to past empires. The closest competitor to the US is China, which does not really have imperialistic ambitions. What could conceivably replace the US? Nothing. Supposed degeneracy may mean loss of economic growth, but not being displaced or conquered.

which does not really have imperialistic ambitions

There was a time when the US didn't either. Some Americans must be rolling in their grave at the postwar empire subsidizing Europe for 80 years.

China does seem like a downgrade from the USSR in terms of imperialism. So this would require for China to create a bloc , which it has slightly hinted at and has been much less successful compared to the USSR. Ironically, China being a communist country probably works to the US advantage. Historically, conflicts have always arose from imperialism, the takeover of land for economic reason. The US acting as a 'world police' does not even meet this criteria.

China does seem like a downgrade from the USSR in terms of imperialism

Partly it's due to old conceptions of what China is and specific Russian geographic weaknesses driving incentives. But part of it is that the US bribed China into the global trade system precisely to weaken the USSR and communism. Why would it need to fight when it can get everything it needs to industrialize without that? Especially when surrounded by US allies... This also calmed other previously martial powers like Japan (who were also isolationist and showed no signs of wanting an empire...until they did)

However, the situation is changing: the US is being more hostile to China specifically and, arguably, the global trade system in general and China imports huge amounts of food and fuel from very far away in order to maintain its newfound wealth. It's no longer the Middle Ages; technologically advanced nations require way more inputs and thus economic interconnections to compete.

These are the pressures that create navies and imperial incentives. I don't think it'll be some mass annexation of another nation into a formal empire nowadays but more than one way to skin a cat.

For a small-scale example: arguably China claiming the South China Sea and building artificial islands is a prelude.

What could conceivably replace the US?

Barbarism?

Or more likely whatever successor entity(s) coalesce in the aftermath... which is pretty much how it went with Rome.

Imagine the collapse looks a lot less like the world stage completely upending, and more likely that the U.S. fractures into a handful of entities composed of various states who have similar interests and maybe they do some warring against each other or politely agree to leave each other's interests alone and dealing with the rest of the world on their own terms.

At which point the American continent is probably still secure from invasion and takeover by a hostile power, but can't project force around the globe.

The US is much more dominant, head and shoulders above the rest relative to past empires.

And this is why Afghanistan is now being ruled as a distant colony of the empire after successful subjugation of the native population.

It seems facially evident that the U.S. empire isn't going to be able to maintain an ongoing presence around the globe capable of suppressing every regional dispute through military superiority if only because of our disfavorable demographics.

I'm going to read a book on the topic and see if I find this version convincing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_Is_Just_the_Beginning

Or more likely whatever successor entity(s) coalesce in the aftermath... which is pretty much how it went with Rome.

But Rome was literally surrounded by hostile entitles, like the Goths. Rome's demise was hastened by competing groups. Rome was also fractured by the rise of Christianity, but the US does not have such a similar schism. The left-right divide is not like this.

Imagine the collapse looks a lot less like the world stage completely upending, and more likely that the U.S. fractures into a handful of entities composed of various states who have similar interests and maybe they do some warring against each other or politely agree to leave each other's interests alone and dealing with the rest of the world on their own terms.

I think a breakup is more plausible, but though still unlikely

Rome was also fractured by the rise of Christianity, but the US does not have such a similar schism. The left-right divide is not like this.

In that there is not literal inquisitions going on to root out ideological heretics, perhaps not.

Do you think that the mental firmware that most people in the population are running is substantially different from that which was in play during the decline of Rome?

I think a breakup is more plausible, but though still unlikely

And a breakup would almost certainly mean the collapse of the 'empire,' is my point.

It's the inverse of your point about Rome being surrounded by enemies. The U.S. can easily afford to defend it's own borders... but it remains exceedingly expensive for it to project power overseas far from it's population centers if the host country doesn't welcome them.

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