Below is the second in a series of essays on the fall of Rome by our Dutch correspondent H. Numan. Part 1 is here.
How Long Before the Dark Ages Return?
Part 2
by H. Numan
In my previous essay I gave one of the many reasons why the West Roman Empire fell, while the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire didn’t. The circumstances of our present situation are strikingly similar. Before we continue, you’ll need some background information.
Agriculture: until about 1800 most people were farmers. Most certainly during the ancient period. The percentage varied, but you can safely assume well over 90% of the entire population was working in the fields. Experts set this percentage even higher, at 95%. What we learn from history is what the other 5% did. That 5% consisted of urban citizens, the middle class, civil servants, the church, nobles (equites and senatores) and the imperial court. Only after the invention of inorganic chemistry (fertilizer) and steam power did the 95% go down drastically. That’s around 1850; not that long ago. Before that starvation and famine were very serious problems.
Money: yes, it existed. But not as we know it today. Wealth wasn’t measured in coins or gold, but in arable land. Especially during the later days of the empire. Mining for gold and silver was no longer possible; the European mines were exhausted. The later Roman empire had a chronic shortage of money. Sound familiar? The EU has the same problem.
Real insecurity: Castles — the word comes from the Roman word castelum — look so romantic. I can’t feel any more at ease than when quietly strolling over ancient town walls in a medieval town. That’s how we look at them now. Entirely wrong! Those walls and castles weren’t build to promote tourism but out of sheer necessity. You needed them to stay alive. To get a taste of why they were built, watch a Mad Max movie. The Roman empire didn’t have or need any walls until the 2nd century, when the barbarian raids became an everyday threat in all parts of the empire. Until that time the elites invested in public buildings (bath houses, temples, markets, etc.) and games (theaters, chariot races, gladiatorial games). Not in fortifications. After the 2nd century that stopped and money was diverted to provide for more security. Sound familiar?
We’re not done yet. Rampant insecurity necessitated that the elite invest massively in protecting their property and assets. Cities were walled, villas (a roman villa was usually a very large farm anyway) were fortified. They didn’t do that free of charge for the public good. Surrounding free farmers got an offer they couldn’t refuse: remain a free independent farmer, and die for sure during the next barbarian raid. Or become a serf. In that case you could flee to the nearby villa for protection. Sounds a bit like the currently fashionable economic freelance contracts? You’re probably right. People didn’t fancy becoming serfs, just as most people in Europe really don’t want to become freelancers. Both simply didn’t have another choice.
Education: The Roman elite invested a lot of money in their education. Only the very wealthy could afford it. You weren’t really an upper crust Roman unless you were 100% fluent in Latin and Greek. Mathematics, law and rhetoric were essential part of the curriculum. Education was privately funded and very expensive. Without it, you couldn’t build a career.
Vicious circle: The Roman empire had to be defended. That cost money, and a lot of it. There is a maximum limit how much tax can be levied. The Dutch prime minister is unaware that it exists, but it does. During the late Roman empire taxation was at its absolute maximum. More could not be extracted. It was barely enough to provide security most of time to keep the barbarians at bay.
The crux is in ‘most of the time’. Sometimes it wasn’t. Barbarians weren’t fools. They usually waited for a weak emperor or governor or a civil war. As soon as the attention of the empire was focused elsewhere, they attacked the weakest spot. Usually in hope of booty, but should the opportunity present itself they happily dropped anchor and settled down. That area was lost for taxation. The empire had less money to pay the army, which caused more attacks, which caused less tax revenue. A vicious circle the Roman empire couldn’t get out of. Now you have the groundwork we need to continue.
How long before the Dark Ages return? Just three generations. That’s the short answer. Here’s the explanation:
A generation is a time period of approximately fifteen years, in which people grow up in the same circumstances and within the same time period. That’s in peacetime. In war, that period is much shorter. I can’t say exactly how long but less than five years up to ten is a good estimate. Three generations therefore is less than fifteen years up to a maximum of thirty years, as we are not living in peacetime conditions anymore. In other words: our dark ages will take hold serious between 2025 and 2035. You don’t notice much. At best that in the past everything was better. Every step is small step back. Usually baby steps. And suddenly …. WHAM! You’re again in the dark ages. That’s how it worked in the Roman empire, and that’s how it can work for us.
The barbarians lived mostly outside the Roman empire. Their societies were constantly at war. For them, peace was the short period between wars. They lived in semi-nomadic or basic permanent settlements, spoke their own languages, had their own religions. Most often they were illiterate or barely literate (and then only the elite), and had their own form of law. Usually spoken only. Raids against neighbors were the rule. Who that neighbor was didn’t really matter. If your neighbor was foolish enough not to guard his herd of cattle, you ended up with a much bigger herd the next day.
As long as Rome was strong and powerful, the raids (most often for plunder and cattle) were limited. During the 2nd and 3rd turbulent centuries, the power of Rome vastly declined, and raids became more common. The opportunity presented itself to settle down permanently. Large areas of the empire were lost that way, before it actually fell. In today’s terms: large areas are now no-go areas, where the police dare not enter without military support. The inhabitants live there in their own societies under their own rules and religion.
The problem the barbarian realms had was management. Let’s look at the Goths and Burgundians. The Visigoths took over Spain, the Burgundians the south of France. Rome was no longer able to drive them out. Their settlements were now permanent. In Spain they were very strong, in the South of France much less so. Controlling an area militarily is one thing. To administer and manage it, quite another. For that you need people with much better education and experience. The Romans had it, the new rulers lacked it.
The local Roman elites also had a problem. Their wealth was in land. What they would have liked to do was to bundle everything up and move elsewhere, but that was impossible. You can’t move land. Either you move yourself and live elsewhere, in Constantinople for example, poor as church mice. A few did so, but not a lot. Or you look to see if a deal is possible.
The new barbarian kingdoms needed managers. The managers were available and willing. Both needed something from the other. The Roman elite in the South of France got a fairly good deal, their colleagues in Spain less so. They could keep part of their possessions and in return they managed the Visigoth and Burgundian kingdoms for their new overlords. Roman law applied to Roman citizens, Gothic law for the others. The Burgundians fairly quickly converted to Roman Catholicism, the Visigoths remained Arians. The Roman elites collected taxes, administered law and handled foreign correspondence. The difference was that they didn’t get to keep the money anymore. Everything remained — outwardly — pretty much the same.
The kings themselves could read and write, but not a lot. Their expertise was in waging war. One doesn’t need an expensive education in rhetoric for that, nor did they have to. They had the Roman elites to do it for them. Make no mistake, the first generation of barbarians had one big ideal: to become real Roman citizens. They — very much unlike our own barbarians — admired Roman civilization. They wanted to be part of that, with as little (mental) effort as possible. If they looked down upon anything at all, it was their own, definitely not Roman, culture. Therefore, after a hard day of work at the court, the king happily invited his Roman managers to entertain him and his court with some rhetoric performances or quoting Homerus. The Roman managers, of course, duly obliged. Just as ours do today.
Very soon the need for lengthy correspondence abroad fell away, for Rome itself had fallen. Constantinople was even further away. There wasn’t any need for a very expensive education anymore. The Roman elites had to make both ends meet, just like everyone else. The son got a good education, with some Greek, but not a lot. Some rhetoric, but mainly so he could entertain well. Not to shine in a court of law.
Now we go forward in time. About five to ten years. The fall of Rome is not forgotten, but it’s the past. About as far away as 9-11 is for us now. What’s going on in Constantinople is no longer of much importance. What happens in the Germanic kingdom across the border is. The new Germanic kingdoms are constantly at war with each other. The son of our first generation Roman elite has taken over the job from his father. A very much diminished job, because the king doesn’t really need them anymore. The deal struck still applies, but the need for it is almost gone. Therefore also the privileges. His son learns to read and write. That’s about it. And how to fight well, so he can stay alive.
Finally, again we skip five to ten years, money is a now thing of the past. The economy relies entirely on bartering and serfdom. The serfs are now serfs as we know them today. They have no relation anymore with their previous Roman elites. They belong to and work for their Germanic elites. That elite took over their Christian religion (not in Spain, the Visigoths kept to the ‘wrong’ Arian version). Most of the administrative work can be done by lower clergy. A village priest is enough for most administrative jobs. The Roman elites have by now almost completely vanished. Some are still there, but no longer as elites. Perhaps at best as middle class. The elite are now Germanic.
In a time frame of fifteen to thirty years society changed from a large international one into a bunch of much smaller rural societies constantly at war. The original population — then and now — wasn’t asked anything. The elites were just as eager to strike deals as ours are today. Sometimes it was a good deal, sometimes it wasn’t. The original population barely noticed any difference. They had to toil. Hard. Very hard.
That’s a difference between then and now, because you will definitely notice that things have changed. For the worse. More about that in the next article.
— H. Numan
An excellent overview by, in some ways, a modern Roman living in one of the outer, outer realms of a former Empire’s reach, and content to be there. That ancient need to “belong” has become vanishingly small.
When I look at the parallels today, my attempts to line up what happened with what’s coming runs athwart a kind of Singularity. It is this:
‘experts’ claim (see sidebar for Uncivilization: Urban Geopolitics in a Time of Chaos http://amzn.to/2nuvWRX) that circa mid-century there will be an unprecedented demographic implosion which will greatly reduce the human population everywhere. This die-off will happen fairly rapidly and the aftermath is unprecedented since it will not be due to the usual famine, pestilence, war, etc. In addition, the current global neural connectivity will remain in place so that everyone will be aware of what is happening as it does so.
That book by Sir Gregory Copley is not a lone prophet crying in the wind. The UN has said it’s coming, and at the very least China is trying to prepare for it by getting rid of its one-child policy. Unfortunately, the Chinese are no longer willing to produce more than one child – showing again the folly of state interference in individual decisions – and no other country seems to be paying attention. At least not public attention, though one has to wonder if the invitations to present-day barbarians by European governments isn’t some desperate ploy to keep their populations afloat by any means possible.
In the U.S., the lower classes (and especially the underclass) are reproducing well beyond replacement levels, while also bringing in large numbers of immigrants (yeah, Trump is doing it too, at the same rate as Bush and Obama did, but lower than Europe’s rate).
Is the 21st Century’s Great Migration from MENA and points beyond being pushed by the elites as they attempt to cope with the even greater chaos that begins in, say, 2040 or so?
Here’s the thing about that coming implosion: it will change the human geopolitical map in unknown ways, and some of them may be even quite benign. Copley’s book has an extended explanation of what experts claim is a mathematical certainty but offers few remedies (there aren’t any to offer). He does recommend that urban areas maintain friendly relations with their surrounding rural folk: they’ll need them.
Our by-now almost neural network of communication will remain in place; that is a big difference from past population declines. Or it will if we harden our skies against an EMP attack. The New Barbarians are qualitatively more malign and destructive than were those Germanic tribes.
I hope H. Numan takes the Coming Chaos into consideration in his next essay. It’s the elephant in the room that no one will discuss. Except the Chinese and the UN, that is…
great comment, I also reckon that “Coming Chaos” won’t happen everywhere with the same grade of malignancy, – but it will be needed to find new stabilization principles/mechanisms.
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David Goldman (the ever-popular “Spengler” in the Asia Times) wrote on the subject the year before Sir Gregory…
It’s Not the End of the World, It’s Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of Nations
http://amzn.to/2oPtNjW
He thinks the U.S. and Israel will manage to hold on despite the coming chaos because of our native population’s stability (despite immigration) among the religious classes. Those church-and-synagogue attending enclaves scattered across America (Israel is too small to use “scattered” in the same sentence) will provide the basis for some civilizational continuity. Both countries have a large secular class, but it’s the religious ones who are reproducing (in fair parity with the underclass). If he’s right, then China and Africa figure ought be factored in since the center of gravity of global Christianity is moving to both.
It’s been too long since I read either book, but I can’t remember what they have to say about the re-emergence of the city-states to replace a vanishing nationalism.
America’s former federation of states has morphed into a bloated central government which can’t respond to local needs. The cultural fragmentation is proceeding apace, helped along by the phenomenon of Sanctuary cities -those meccas for illegal aliens – which have already seceded, de facto though not yet de jure. When the Central Bloat in D.C. begins to cut their funding for lack of legal compliance, look for things to get real — and ugly. Families, fearing for their children’s well-being, will flee to outlying towns. Or, as in New York, simply leave the state entirely. At any rate, the break-up of the U.S. will pick up speed in keeping with Copley’s forecast of urban chaos. [BTW, in that 2012 book, he correctly forecast the outlines of the American presidential election of 2016. He predicted a strong leader, not afraid to point the finger of blame, one who would unite disparate groups under the banner of nationalism. He also lamented Australia’s coming economic problems re fossil fuel stability due to the mess a Socialist PM would produce… oh, wait: that was his first book. I’ll get back to you on that one.]
from practical viewpoint, one should keep in mind the following:
– Western manufacturing is now located in (generalized) China
– R&D, technology/design also migrates there
therefore
– protection of naval and airline communications is paramount
– as well as safety of civilizational allies
other words, Singularity on the terms of West can only happen under global security umbrella.
otherwise it will degenerate into misery and bloody jungle for all.
to make it easier, interested parties e.g. may implement simple principle like “no heavy weapons in wrong hands”.
by “heavy” e.g. one can mean, heavier than 0.5.
you can do elephant, and that’s enough.
recent US airstrikes in Syria lead in that direction.
and certainly, Israel for years strikes weapons places in different neighbouring places, not much worrying about their “sovereignety”.
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Let me get this straight. The fact that we import loads of manufactured goods from China justifies sending a bunch of cruise missiles to bounce a Syrian airfield on the grounds that the Syrian army used chemical weapons in an internal civil war.
The justification is strengthened by the knowledge that the Obama administration certified already the Syrian government had divested all its chemical weapons, that the rebel groups, jihadists and Islamists all, have been known to have stockpiled chemical weapons, and that the Assad government was already on its way to winning the civil war.
But, as our first priority is defeating ISIS, we should grant our government broad latitude to pursue the singularity of crippling the one fighting group most likely to defeat ISIS.
I just love the logic of singularity.
New York and California are already losing people. I live in Montana and as a retail salesman, run across new people who have fled California and are quite open about it.
These are internal refugees. These people are not Jerry Brown voters. I see people fleeing Blue/Socialist/Islam welcoming Blue State ‘refugees’ every day. We have a large Leftist contingent in Montana but it is not hopeless like NY and CA. That is why I am here along with others.
it is hard to imagine how this may apply to the present day reality.
namely, such agents as relgion, violence and zero-sum games become de-valued in Western hierarchy formation.
to the contrary, technical skills, charity and free-choice based meritocracy are promoted.
other words, West becomes synonimical to societies combining modern secular moral, high IQ and individual freedoms.
being projected on current social/political landscape, that may mean the following:
– self-governing Western enclaves
– geographically, demographically and logistically separate from non-Wesrtern “rest”
– globally linked by the needs of culture/technology, education, separation of labour, and security
to find concrete practical solutions and examples is the nearest biggest challenge.
in late Roman times, the conflict was mostly within Archaics, albeit weakining of Rome was added by incompatibility of new Christian religion with established societal order (slavery).
not sure if one can find modern analogy, it looks like nothing like this exists today.
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H Numan is writing about the future – fifteen or twenty years hence when many of those reading his words will have shuffled off this mortal coil. It takes a certain sang-froid (in a good way) to be willing to contemplate a future with a microscopic hole where once upon a time one lived and moved and had his being…
When you say not sure if one can find modern analogy, it looks like nothing like this exists today I would remind you that Western history is conceived of as linear, not cyclical. Thus while there are lessons to be learned from the past, history doesn’t repeat itself…though sometimes there is an echoing rhyme if one listens closely. The fun – if such it be – lies in contrasting the differences and what events might impede the development of “differences”. One good EMP attack from Iran (yes, they *can*) would zoom us back to the 17th century, sans their necessary infrastructure. Can’t dig a decent furrow with a dead cell phone…
I think patterns of competition and group structures within the same order may be quite similar.
some can be traced back to animal kingdom, such as duels, infanticide, parricide, mob killings, harems, – one can find that in different species.
what we are witnessing is rather a chain of conflicts and separations resembling something like phylogenetic split.
as a result, the most viable branch (generalized “West”) will survive, while those trapped in Archaics will die out.. at least they do batter each other full stop now, with no end in sight.
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The world view you present is entirely innocent of genetics and heritability. You’re assuming that because the West has developed the technology, that the West will necessarily form viable enclaves promoting its own identity and safety.
Do you know a Russian breeder turned the fox from a snarling, mean-tempered animal to a cuddly pet in a few generations of selective breeding?
In the West, through the welfare state, transfer payments from productive families to dysfunctional breeder women, and the systematic disruption of stable ethnic, family, and community enclaves (fair housing), we strongly select against traits needed to maintain a community, enclave, or country.
With no evidence, I suspect this is the root of the breathtaking haste of the Swedish population to extinct itself.
With all due respect, your logic is based on analogical, rather than syllogistic reasoning. In other words, simply because you can find a phenomenon or dynamic in non-human animals, does not mean that phenomenon is applicable to the current political and demographic situation.
yes degeneration and Archaic retreats are possible, in terms of probability. But they usually don’t last long, as probabilities are driven by corresponding forces, – and the dominant among them is that the West is immeasurably more powerful than the rest.
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I don’t buy this line that Christianity helped weaken the empire. It’s an old theory that no one takes seriously any more as a cause of decline and fall. Why did Constantine convert? Putting aside the possibility of sincerity, he saw a lifeline in Christianity, and his conversion and the initiative he took was a stabilising factor, for the short term anyway, until other factors brought about the decline.
One good EMP attack from Iran (yes, they *can*)
As far as we know, NO, they can’t- yet. It’s a tough call for Trump- Iran or North Korea?
NK is further down the road of nuclear weaponry but has yet to develop the delivery systems and then miniaturise their primitive nukes for ICBM mounting and re-entry technology. But Iran seems more technologically advanced & the mullahs every bit as lunatic as the Fat Boy. Meanwhile, Islamic jihad continues unopposed.
Logically, the 3 big powers SHOULD cooperate to remove the two nuclear threats, then continue to batter Islam. But of course stupidity reigns, self- interest and political paralysis is just the ticket for the jihad…
Furthermore, IF an EMP event happens it will be detected & I surmise an automatic full retaliatory strike pre-arranged to counter the loss of command + control after EMP. I’m no nuclear weapons expert but the size of the USA would require a massive series of airbursts or detonations outside the atmosphere?
Russia or China could do it easily but Iran? N Korea? I have doubts, at this time. Trump may be able to persuade China to rein in Fat Boy, even de-nuke him, in its own interests. But Iran? No way. It will have to be pre-emptive force involving Israel.
Your post got me to read some of the reports freely available on the internet.
One EMP device can easily cover 3000 -4000 square miles. I think 10 or so would be fully capable of totally disabling our communications, electronics, and infrastructure. See, for example,
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack: A Preventable Homeland Security Catastrophe
I think the US should be extremely wary of thinking of Israel as its proxy. Israel has its own interests. If Israel sees it as in its vital interest to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, it should do so, as it did with the OSIRIS facility in Iraq under Hussein. If the US sees it as a vital US interest to attack Iranian facilities (which I’m skeptical about), then the US should do it and not rely on Israel. The worst possible outcome would be to have a poorly-conceived plan and rationale based on the assumptions of Israel and the US that each can get the other to do the heavy lifting.
I’m not so sure that the private positions of Putin, Xi and European leaders vis a vis Trump are well known enough to be discussed. Look at how quickly Trump changed position on Syria. Are you sure this action was not preplanned if the circumstances warrant? Circumstances can be found to justify state actions. I think Putin may very well know what actions the USA may take given a certain stimulus; same with Xi. “Surprising” military actions are well thought out in advance, usually.
Also, I don’t think Trump is really in charge of the Pentagon. He is one of the first to know when changes are afoot, though.
I agree with your final statement, except Trump wastold, he didn’t decide. Our actions in Syria directly contradict what he said during the campaign. And since his major support is drawn from the same sector of the populace whose children are most likely to be in the military, the “hue and outcry” could get quite loud. Those folks have his Twitter statements on their cellphones.
My Occam’s Razor cut to the paranoid side, taking into account Trump’s pride in being able to make deals and several other factors: (1)the bloated intel community’s tentacles into all aspects of the permanent bureaucracy; (2) its laundry list of the personal sins of Congress persons to use as bargaining chips when they need something (note lack of any movement on Benghazi claims – they should have gone to court by now).
By my calculus Trump was told by the Arabists among the IC to keep his hands off MENA. In exchange, he gets his Supreme Court appointment and his domestic policy plans for infrastructure, etc.
Things are as murky as ever in Foggy Bottom. Tillerson may wish he was back at Exxon when he realizes how little power/input he has on foreign policy decisions. Undo Hillary’s mess? Not likely. BHO and his housemate, Iranian Valerie Jarrett, have the loyalty of the permanent bureaucracy there. John Bolton despaired of ever being able to clean out that place – which he described as an Augean stable. I’d agree – and those horses are on steroids.
I agree with Dymphna.
Trump has picked a bunch of Bush/Rove/RINO’s for his foreign policy/national security advisors. Robert Spencer is all over this, uncovering damning speeches by Mattis, McCloskey et al. He points out these clowns are even trying to hire ex-Obama people. These advisors have been brainwashed about Islam. Their speeches give them away. This is very dangerous.
Why do you think Foggy Bottom wanted to get rid of Flynn? Ask yourself that question.
That’s a complex topic. Flynn is Erdogan’s advocate in the NatSec community, which means he would have been vigorously opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood. I think the Ikhwan pulled various strings to help ensure his removal.
If Flynn had remained, the administration would have tilted more towards Turkey than the Brotherhood, like it is now. I don’t reckon we’d be better off that way. We’d have Beelzebub instead of Satan. Big improvement.
I agree with Dymphna
Consider this. Remember when Trump won the election and started getting his presidential briefings and then the subsequent problems he had with the intelligence community(IC) when he refused to swallow the swill they were trying to sell him. And then came the talk how unqualified he was, along with talk of impeachment and assassination.
Then came the 2nd warning by the IC. Remember how the conversations he had with foreign leaders was released to the public? That was terrifying because of what it implied.
He wouldn’t have gotten another warning.
Notice how he now holds meetings at Mar-i-lago, where his own security team can sweep the residence as opposed to the SS. He doesn’t trust the government facilities or employees anymore.
One item that was not discussed is the onslaught of drug addiction that is rendering Gen X and Gen Y impotent and unusable in any circumstance. Us baby boomers may have to go it alone because our progeny have given in to drugs and video games.
BTW, my brother is was in law enforcement and still maintains his contacts. the statistics aren’t pretty at all.
You make an important point.The linchpin is the family and right now the family structures aren’t enough to hold “kids” who get caught up in the drug cycle – I mean thirty-year-old kids who’ve been through various addictions since the age of twelve or so. It’s truly horrific; I wish we had some real figures, but I suppose one way to look is at the numbers of rehab centers and their rate of increase. That’s a money-pot, and it won’t be long before government is pushed big time into the rehab biz. Cities are *almost* unlivable enough to have reached the tipping point, but we’re not there yet.
We subscribe to our local paper to keep up with the surface of local goings-on. It comes out three times a week and covers the “news” in a fairly large geographical area – at least four counties.
White kids on drugs make the news via meth mishandling. Either they blow themselves up or they get caught in distribution.
Black kids prefer (generally) cocaine and its siblings.
Both use high amounts of weed, and this is not your dad’s weed from Woodstock. This stuff has been bred to produce some bizarre side-effects.
And then there is heroin, always there is heroin. Or black market painkillers, to stave off the worst of whatever you’re doing.
The social costs are horrendous. If we could magically get rid of every single drug, the crime rate would plummet. The killings in places like Chicago would drop to nothing because there’d be nothing to kill for…but then the prison industry would dry up and we’d have even higher unemployment – i.e., the huge number of ex-felons and their suddenly out-of-work “correctional officers”, parole officers, the whole lower level bureaucracy of legal and judicial system workers from undercover police officers to paper pushers, to maybe a small city’s worth of “counselors”. The main raison d’être for many gangs would be shaky, too, but they’re resourceful – they’d find some other outlet for their grievances.
I guess we’d have to ban alcohol and tobacco to get larcenous blood flowing again…
Many in my family have died too young from the longer term effects of alcohol; others have ‘chosen’ an even shorter walk to the grave from the consequences of drug addiction. The latter is a quicker path to eternity; both are self-perpetuating because the painful dysfunctions they cause in families echo down the generations. Particularly sad are the children left behind because their parents died way too young. The loss of a parent is a grievous blow to a child’s ability to form stable attachments and the pain can be -often is – the gateway to drug experimentation to ease the pain of loss.
/end of sermon, acuara. Your brother surely bears a burden from the many sad stories he’s witnessed.
I wrote a long reply on what we see of drug addiction here in a very rural area but somehow erased it. Fumble fingers. I think our numbers are smaller but still proportional to the urban population. Mind-altering addiction is destructive not only of the user but of his or her family.
Think of the huge industry that’s grown up around this, the worst of our social problems (it dwarfs Islam, even). Not only the drug rehab centers (that don’t work), or the prison system with its huge bureaucracy – that’s merely the last bureaucracy, preceded by the need for more police officers to cover the social crises, a bigger judicial bureaucracy to handle all the law-breakers (the paperwork emanating from that one is a veritable river), the social workers/counselors, etc., the need for businesses to install expensive security, the death rate of the innocent killed in vehicles, home invasions, etc. And the higher rate in robberies and car accidents. Those are billions in social costs.
This is self-perpetuating. Kids who lose parents to drug abuse, whether to prison or through early death, are in turn traumatized by the attachment “disorder” of their absent parent and the concomitant shame. In turn, they look to drugs to dissolve some of the pain.
There is no facet of American life that drug/alcohol abuse doesn’t touch. The cost is beyond reckoning at this point. The damage that murderous Islam inflicts is minuscule in comparison. But the latter is not so ubiquitous. For each Islamic fatality in this country, there are hundreds – if not thousands – more deaths due to drugs and alcohol.
Thia is definitely the elephant in the darkening room where waits the Dark Ages Redux. Ah, the wonders of modern chemistry.
Why can’t we genetically alter certain pathogens to attack and destroy coca and poppy plants and thus wipe out drug production in one fell swoop.
Pathogens like phytophthora (potato blight) or tobamovirus (destroys tobacco plants) could be genetically altered. Their gnomes have already been mapped and we have the technology.
Since these will become new pathogens the plants will have no defence and a small infestation will spread like wildfire wiping out the entire crop in two to three years. We could design a genetic trapdoor to turn them off in the future if we want to.
That solution is akin to just making alcohol illegal because, “you know, no one will drink anymore if it is illegal”. Besides such meddling will certainly lead to unforseen consequences with cascading effects throughout the entire ecosystem.
The drug problem has more to do with a certain percentage of the populace being predisposed to addictive and destructive behaviors, general feelings of hopelessness and malaise among both sexes who have lost the purpose and meaning to their lives through loss of meaningful employment (in the case of men) and for women, the destruction of the traditional role of woman as wife and mother. As well, a social safety net and public intervention allows and often enables such destructive tendancies where before at-risk individuals would have either self-eliminated themselves from the gene pool, or been dissuaded due to social pressure, ostracism, or fear of consequences.
Drug use, like poverty and war, will always be with the human species and the strongest defense against it is strengthening the traditional roles of both sexes to minimize the attraction of such a chemical escape from a dreary and pointless reality.
I think you hit a couple of home runs.
What we need is a half-baked, genetically-modified organism spread around for which plants have no defenses. The organism decides that the coca or poppy plants don’t provide enough food, and decides to chow down on corn, wheat and soy.
Again, we are providing support for drug-soaked mothers to have drug-soaked babies. You can postulate a spiritual, or ennui reason for addiction, but spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to incubate, dry out, nurse, and medicate the babies until they, too, are old enough to use and sell drugs on their own…you’re encouraging the expression of genes. Public support for drug-soaked (or any other) mothers who can’t support themselves should be contingent on voluntary permanent sterilization. Strictly voluntary: no public support = no sterilization.
In my own family, the drug-soaked, mentally dysfunctional girl couldn’t wait to have babies with sociopath, unemployable, criminal blacks, all on public support. The girl seems to have gotten herself employed, but the babies are, naturally, being raised in fatherless homes, the father being a guest of the state for the foreseeable future.
The baby boomers are the ones who started the practice of recreational drug use and addiction. I don’t see how you can corral the millennials or gen x and blame them for drug use. It’s the baby boomers who first experimented with recreational drugs, and they are the ones most vocal about legalizing pot. And I am a boomer, so I know what I’m talking about. I was just never a drug user.
Actually, it was the generation before ours — the Beats — who helped pot migrate into white youth culture. They were enamored of everything black because it was so cool and hip, so they imported all that cool and hip stuff, from pot to coke and heroin, to the milieu of affluent white urban kids. The Boomers (my generation) were simply the suburban phase of the same process.
Yeah. I’m a baby boomer. The high school I attended had no drugs at all. Five years later (actually one year later, since there’s a five-year gap between my sister and myself), drugs were everywhere in the school and freely available. What a difference a year or two makes.
Vlad the impaler
Dear Dymphna,
Sorry I didn’t get the reason why human population is supposed to implode within the next three decades. The horsemen of the apocalypse used to be very reliable in reducing the population, but I heard that they are grounded.
Nevertheless, some worrying thoughts have occured to me.
We don’t know what’s being concocted in secret labs, concerning biological weapons. HIV and Ebola might be seen as harmless, compared to that.
We keep worrying about nuclear strikes. They are archaic. Modern warfare is far more efficient with e.g. vacubombs, which extinguish all life within seconds, without contaminating the premises.
Healthcare: our food and our medical treatments are rendering us sick and dumb. Actually, I have to go back to Africa in order to escape the everyday poisoning and brainwash.
Religious faultlines are BS. Yesterday, on Palmarum (the Sunday opening the Holy Week) I listened to a radio station in central Europe and had to turn it off, because they were ridiculing Luther and the christian faith in general. Fancy them doing that with Islam! But all those kids who get indoctrinated with PC-narrative are bound to wake up sooner or later to brutal reality. And it’s going to be pay-back time for all those manipulative morons who told them lies about immigration and tolerance in the first place. As a German saying goes: “Not lehrt beten!” (Misery teaches you to pray).
Drugs: Am pretty sure that addiction, together with pedophilia, is sending our civilisation down the drain. Feminism has destroyed feminity, taking away the mother as the epicenter of family life. In any job you can be replaced; in every partnership substitutes can be found; breaking up the symbiotic bond between a small child and their mother causes severe damage to the weaker part. Socialism took the babies away from their mothers in order to have physically healthy, but mentally insecure individuals who are prone to addiction and manipulation of any kind. The breaking up of the traditional family as a save harbour leaves the children unprotected. Nurseries, schools and similar institutions are hunting grounds for perverts, who take advantage of the children’s need of trust and affection. Since this has been going on for a very long time now, with a hidden snowball effect, I’m convinced that the greater part of politicians in Europe are drug and sex addicts.
But in the US they are always a few steps ahead of us, so we can watch and learn.
If you want to understand the demographic implosion China and the UN – and no other polity besides China – are facing squarely, I again suggest you read Sir Gregory Copley’s book on the coming fall and decline of nations. It’s partly a mathematical certainty, but also a historical and anthropological treatise. You can get a free download of the whole book here:
http://artofvictory.com/UnCivilization-Download.htm
I chose the PDF because I don’t have the necessary extension to do the e-pub version.
Copley has previously forecast many events. In the 70s he said when and why the USSR would collapse. When the US was claiming the USSR was using three to four percent of its GDP on defense, he showed how it was really using far larger amounts and would therefore implode. That wall fell just as predicted.
He also has a paper on our extreme vulnerability to cyber attacks and EMPs, here:
http://artofvictory.com/PDFs/Hurricane%20Sandy%20impact%20Oct%2030%202012.pdf
He uses the natural event of Hurricane Sandy to demonstrate the long-term effects of a man-made attack on civilization.
The refusal of Western governments to harden their skies against EMPs is a disgrace. Only the state of Maine has done anything to address the problem.
He has a newer book out, another one on geostrategy that will affect huge swaths of the globe:
Rise of the RedMed: How the Mediterranean-Red Sea Nexus is Resuming its Strategic Centrality
http://amzn.to/2oYvPL9
Rise of the RedMed details the strategic transformation of the most vital trade link and intersection in the world, which is, for the first time in 500 years, without a dominating external power presence. US and European influence is waning, and the PRC s influence is rising, but, in the meantime, major conflict in the region (Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Somalia) is threatening the stability of the littorals to this trade route. Rise of the RedMed details the intricacies of the regional states, and their transforming interactions, while looking at the longer-term impact of instability in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the actions of Iran, and the growing strength and stability of Egypt. Six key authors cover differing facets of this globally-critical region. And the extent of China’s African and Indian Ocean trade, maritime, and security links up into Pakistan are also examined. Security, economic, political, and historical factors are probed in this unique study.
As far as your dystopian view of our ruination, he agrees with you regarding the destruction of the family unit but he carries it to its logical conclusions…we will, sooner rather than later, devolve back to a 21st century version of the city-state.
If you want the quick verdict, download the book and start at page 123.
Paedophilia, sadly, is not new; it is a sign of progress that in the “civlised” world it’s being taken seriously.
Drugs, like alcohol, are with us always; better to legalise them and control quality and (relative) toxicity, while disabling the criminal gangs and reducing the great harm they do, especially in countries such as Mexico.
No need to go as far as Rome – look what happened in Iran or Afghanistan just a few decades ago (Iran is a better example). Look what’s happening in Turkey. Iran was well on it’s way to become a West country, women had rights, there was education, then they turned to religion and no protests could help them, now it’s a fairly degenerated society with few left who remember the old days – not exactly the same situation, but gives you enough insight on how quickly such things can happen, more so when there’s an additional force from the outside.
I have intentionally held back commenting on this posting.
The “history lesson” laid out before the content of the posting is at best, questionable, and in my opinion, offensive. (the “history lesson” is not what I believe happened)
The content of the posting is without factual content.
I would never question the right of any person to push forward any opinion they may have, no matter how objectionable it is to me, or anyone else. Debate is the cornerstone of human understanding.
There are many postings that have been published after this one, and the “wagon train” is on to the next water hole by now, which is why I am commenting on this now.
When in the events of human interaction, issues arise which should be debated among men, there should be a pause in the actions around them for which they should take time to evaluate. Should they not take this time, nothing will be understood, nor will a single problem be solved.
I can’t even think of where to start on this posting.
How about the fact that our ancestors were not stupid. Genius was there then, just as it is today.
They learned science, religion, music, and literature, by experience, and passed it on to their children. There was no internet. The internet makes no one a genius, and everyone.
Yes, there were wars, and there always will be. But not one single advancement of mankind has ever happened without the death of the weak. Not one.
The strong will always prevail in the end, no matter how much attempt is made to pull the weak into the fold.
Historically, in Europe, the middle East, and much of Africa, since the end of the time of the Pharaohs, the God of Adam, Moses, Abraham, Noah, Christ, has had control.
Then came Muhammad, and with him the “dark ages”.
It wasn’t until Muhammadism was thrown out of Europe, just months before Columbus “discovered” the New World, that the age of Enlightenment began.
Nothing in the Western (advanced mankind) world is a product of muhammadism.
NOT ONE THING.
Muhammedism has nothing God-like anywhere in its teaching.
Anyone who doesn’t see this is blind.
This is spot on. The BEST I have EVER read. Europe is a goner/finished sad to say. It’s only a matter of time. I might even see it, I am 70+. Most ppl have NO idea what the islamic hammer will do to society in the West and to the rest of the world. USA might NOT fall. As a minor student in global history I think not. Extreme violence in the end usually wins.