Latest / The Overlap / Can this Civilization be Saved? - Part 1

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Can this Civilization be Saved? - Part 1 · The Overlap

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Welcome back listeners to the overlap podcast.
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If you are just joining us for the first time, my name is Joshua.
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And with me is my co-host, Will.
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We talk about weird things, a combination of politics and AI and
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technology and things that are going on today, as well as history and
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historical lessons viewed through our current lens or something to that effect.
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Today, we have a fantastic episode for you called, can this country be saved?
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Can this country be saved?
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Talking about, you know, not our country, but a civilization that's currently in
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decline, can they recover?
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Is it possible?
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Welcome to the overlap.
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If you are joining us after listening to us for a couple of times, you know, how
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we typically go, so if you just wait just a second, I'm going to cue in the audio.
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Like I said, welcome to the overlap.
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I'm Joshua and I'm will, and he is will.
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Will, how are you doing today?
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I'm doing my brother.
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I'm doing sometimes it's a hard day.
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Sometimes it's a long day.
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But it's always a good day for the overlap and all days got in.
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That's the good thing, right?
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Exactly.
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And we're coming to the close of one now.
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So look, we live in a period of cognitive dissonance, right?
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A time of AI driven, slop art and a looming climate crisis.
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That's going to probably end up with all of us just exploding into the sun.
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Kind of a time of instantaneous global communication and brutal
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19th century style land wars.
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A time of billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and what's the Bezos guy?
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Doesn't he own Amazon?
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Of course he does.
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Planning to colonize Mars while our own planet's ecosystems completely collapse
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from the ceiling to the ozone layer, to the ground.
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Yep.
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And completely on brand.
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We're going to call this time period in which all of these things
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are converging, the overlap.
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Meh.
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Not to be confused with the wonderful, phenomenal show, The Overlap, which
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is available on many platforms.
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Although I find his platforms, this is, this is the moment when the systems of
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the old world and the old world, which is, you know, the, the, the sort of the past,
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right, the yesteryear, the thing that our grandparents and great grandparents
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wistfully longed for when those systems are decaying, but the new world, for better
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or worse, has not yet fully arrived.
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You know, it's that, that, that new year's baby hasn't been born yet.
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You're probably feeling it right now.
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You felt it all along.
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You're like, why is it weird?
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Right.
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And you're living in two timelines and you're seeing them, like converge and
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collide in that feeling of dissonance, the sense that progress and profound decay
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can exist at the exact same time is the classic feeling of a civilization in
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transition.
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Or more to the point, a civilization in decline.
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Dun, dun, dun.
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Which brings us to kind of the central question of this episode and kind of the
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point, right?
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A question that's become both impossible to ignore and also impossible to quantify.
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We're kind of living in our own crazy, absurd, over the top overlap.
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And yes, sorry, if you're, if you're, if you're not in the branding world, you
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might start to hate how many times we use the overlap in this episode, but in the
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United States, essentially we've witnessed a president who, after an election,
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allegedly of dual, you know, certification and all that stuff by, by the Supreme
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Court and no, Supreme Court doesn't certify elections.
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The vice president of the United States, Congress, the Senate, yada, yada, yada
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attempted to prevent a peaceful transfer of power, uh, who's spoken of being a, a
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dictator on day one and who's stated political goal is the executive
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aggrandizement, the systematic dismantling of every single institution that are
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designed to check the power of the office of the president.
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And historians and political scientists are now, I mean, it's not too recent, but
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it's getting more obvious, they're drawing parallels to the fall of the Roman Republic.
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We're seeing a tyranny, um, I hate this word, but unprecedented in its history,
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uh, the replacement of the rule of the people with the domination of one man and
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his wealthiest friends.
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So, yeah.
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Yeah.
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So like, I mean, I guess the big question that we're, we're trying to answer and
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we're, we're having for ourselves and we hope, we hope our listeners out there are also
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experiencing this same existential crisis, but can it even be saved?
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Can, can a country, can a civilization, can an entire culture in decline ever
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actually return to greatness.
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Yeah.
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This is that moment when you watch the action movie and the, the plane is
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about to crash, or the building at the end of the runway and they're pulling back
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and they're yanking back on the stick as hard as they can, and you're asking
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yourself, is this, is this going to be permanent?
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Is this like, are they, are they dead forever or is there something that they,
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can they turn it around?
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And, uh, history as it turns out.
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Yeah.
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We're the narrator that pops in, right?
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Like, will they ever pull up?
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Are they going to survive?
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Check out next week on.
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Exactly.
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Tune in next week on the Bee Team.
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But, uh, history as it turns out has some very specific and often
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uncomfortable answers to this question.
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Yeah.
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When you hear the word societal collapse, what do you see Will?
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Well, so I'll tell you what most people seem to see is that they see the Mad Max,
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right?
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They see these ruined cities, biker gangs, cannibalism, you know.
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I mean, eventually.
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Eventually, right.
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Yeah.
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The decline leads to a cannibalism.
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It's not immediate.
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It's not like tomorrow we'll, it's not like tomorrow we all start painting
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ourselves in our neighbor's blood, but you know, whatever.
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Somebody is wanting out there, hopefully not in our audience, that's listening,
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like I can't wait.
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I can't wait.
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I hope it comes tomorrow.
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You know, like I really want to eat Susan.
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Right.
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Uh, but that's almost entirely wrong about how civilizational collapse has happened.
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The academic study of collapse is a little more boring, unfortunately.
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But of course it is.
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This is the overlap.
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Right.
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But perhaps more useful.
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One, the man who sort of wrote the book, as they say on, um, on civilizational
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collapse is an anthropologist named Joseph Tainter.
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No, I wish it was, I wish it was, but that's, uh, that's unfortunate.
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A real guide and our intellectual guide for this journey.
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Yeah.
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His 1988 book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies" is sort of the, the cornerstone
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text for which the later academics built on.
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And his definition of collapse is famously uncinematic, right?
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It's not going to be something you hear in a world.
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In a world.
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He writes that a society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss.
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Of an established level of level of sociopolitical complexity.
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I mean.
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It doesn't fit in a movie trailer.
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Yeah.
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A rapid loss of sociopolitical complexity.
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You mean the end of the middle manager?
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Oh, one of the things.
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Making, making problems seem, seem simple when they're really much more complex.
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Right.
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But also removing the complexity that adds to the, or the bloat that
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adds to the complexity.
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So it gets complicated.
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It's the sort of a chicken and the egg.
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It was a Michigan versus chicken or the egg and the answer is yes.
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Um, but, but basically what this rapid loss is, is a rapid simplification.
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And Taylor's big theory is why this happens.
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For decades, everyone had a different pet theory.
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Right?
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There's resource depletion.
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Right?
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Everybody just used up the tragedy of the commons or whatever they used the
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bullet they had and then when it all ran out, they just fell apart.
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Climate change, right?
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Climate change.
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That's, that's a nice one to point to when civilizations get wiped off the map.
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Invaders, the classic, right?
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Uh, that's us by the way.
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Genghis Khan came in and destroyed our society.
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Yeah.
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Or, or the Europeans came in and wiped out the native Americans
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with indigenous people in America.
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We don't talk about that.
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Right.
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And sorry, sorry, I forgot what podcast was on here.
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I mean, I mean.
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Awkward, awkward, awkward.
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Yes.
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Then we have class conflict, elite mismanagement, right?
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Um, these are the like, unfortunately genetically limited offspring
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of repeated dynasties.
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Yeah.
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We'll go into that.
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You know, inbreeding, it was, it was inbreeding.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Uh, so Taylor reviewed all of them and found them all lacking.
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Basically said, look, none of those things explain what he's,
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what he's finding in the history.
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Yeah.
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I mean, so ultimately he wasn't a big fan of like these mystical theories that had
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this like simplistic single answer and it brought down the entire, you know, like, because
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we had food stamps, it brought down the entire empire.
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Unfortunately, people like, like Oswald Spengler or also Arnold Toynbee.
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I don't even like the name, but you know, Toyn, sorry, T O Y N B E E Arnold
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Toynbee, who we will put, um, list their contributions to this podcast in our show notes.
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Right.
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So, so Spengler and Toynbee saw civilizations as living organisms.
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I hate they thought that they're born, they grow, they get older and they die.
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And if you see that as like the typical path, right.
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Then it's not so surprising or upsetting when a civilization passes on.
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It's just that it's lived out its lifespan, right?
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It's contributed all it can.
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It's grown to the extent that it can, and then it gets old and it dies.
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And the way they describe it is, is losing their creativity or their, it'll all be tall.
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We're embracing, we're embracing our Louisiana roots here.
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Right.
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So Taynors theory is far more brutal though.
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That's, that's the, the alternative theory.
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Taynors theory is that because it's not mystical in any way, he's saying
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it's an economic theory and there's one sentence explanation for why society's
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collapse is that the collapse, the collapse of a society is a response to declining
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marginal returns on investment and complexity.
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Yeah, that's not going to work for me.
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Maybe we could, maybe we could like work that out in English or something that
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our listeners are going to understand.
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All right.
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Let's, let's give it a shot.
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We'll give it our best try.
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All right.
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Human societies are at their core, problem solving organizations, right?
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The reason we collectivize, the reason we get together is because they're, we're
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trying to figure out some problem or solve some issue that we can't do on our own.
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Cause if we can do it on our own, we'd, we'd go do it on our own.
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It's a lot easier.
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Roads, bridges, pyramids.
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Like, I mean, exactly.
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There's a problem to solve.
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Infrastructure, defense, all sorts of things, right?
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Logistics.
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Um, so-
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Houston on defense.
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All right.
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Yeah.
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Or war, if you want to rename it.
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Okay, fine.
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So we invest in complexity to solve it, right?
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We, we take off, we take on sort of knowingly take on the things like when
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you, when you have a problem and you want to solve it, right?
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Like I said, you need to take your own solution and go after it.
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What if you're wrong, right?
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What if you're making a mistake or you're wasting time?
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You might want to consult some other people, but then once you bring in a
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committee, it's inevitably complex, right?
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There's going to be discussions that you would have had-
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Different opinions, different views, different ideas.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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What we call diversity, which, which I see as a strength, the show sees as a
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strength ultimately becomes a problem.
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Right.
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Because of the complexity of it, right?
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Like that's where it comes down to, is we start, we start solving the simple
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problems and then the more complex problems come in, you added the complexity
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of the people solving it and then it just becomes a cycle.
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Yeah.
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Should healthcare be a human right?
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You know, complex problem.
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And then more, more like how do we pay for this human right?
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Right.
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How do we make it all available and sure make it help people.
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So, um, the, uh, the core of the problem is that complexity has a cost, right?
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It offers massive advantages in the sense of resources and other people, but it
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also has a huge cost and it requires energy and resources to maintain, right?
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That's, that's part of it, like, even though it doesn't see it as a living organism,
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it's still something that consumes our resources.
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And eventually you hit the point of diminishing returns.
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The more, the more complexity you throw at a problem, you're just, it's just not working.
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Right.
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Um, you've already solved the low hanging fruit and now you have to spend
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the exponentially more to just get a tiny marginal benefit, right?
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So it's like 90% of the way to like, to universal healthcare, maybe one level,
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but they may take a thousand times as much to get that final 10%.
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And that's where we're into the problems.
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So, Taylor cites four key areas in which we see this happen.
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These are the products of society or civilization.
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Agricultural production, which gives you more labor for less return per worker.
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Knowledge production, you have to spend exponentially more to sustain existing
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growth levels, right?
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And that's where you start to see people have to specialize in like really tiny
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niche areas of science in order to advance our understanding.
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Those are valuable.
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I want to say, I just want to point out.
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Those, those specific scenarios are very valuable.
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Like we, we particularly, especially love those, like really unique weirdos who have
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like, I don't know, they hone in on one very specific thing.
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They're like, I really love birds in Southwestern Oklahoma, and I'm going to
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devote my life to recording them and putting them out there into the world.
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Yeah.
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I think it is more like, you know, when you get into like the subatomic level, right?
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And again, still value for these things, but like, when you talk about, okay, we
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study atoms and we study the reactions and atomic, atomic particles, right.
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At that level, you can do that in a basic lab, like maybe a high end lab, a lab
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that's, you know, not, it's reasonably priced or any single university or something
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like that, but then you want to start.
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That lab gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because industrialization.
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Right.
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But on the other hand, you get the large hadron collider, right?
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If you want to study what happens at the moment of the big bang or something like
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that, that's going to be a lot more expensive as we've seen.
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That's a big donut.
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It's a big donut.
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That's right.
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So much icing.
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Hard to swallow for a lot of a country's budgets.
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You know.
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But, yeah, so that's, that's the trade off for knowledge production is once
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you solve all the easy problems, solving the harder problems becomes that much
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more difficult to much more expensive.
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Still, still again, we're not talking about valuation, not whether this is worth it
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or not, just this is what happens.
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Next step you have bureaucratic power.
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You get administrative bloat and anybody who's worked in a university or been
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around universities has seen this.
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You have more costly administrators and less frontline work.
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You don't have money to pay professors, tenured professors, so you hire adjuncts
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and you pay them next to nothing.
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Meanwhile, you have to, somebody managed all these adjuncts, so you have to hire
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administrators, you get paid more than all of them combined.
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I would argue in, not just in the academic world, like almost every business world,
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once you have these really high paid managers who are implementing, you know,
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agile and safe and all this other stuff, you've got, you don't have a whole lot of
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budget leftover to actually hire the people who do the work.
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Right.
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So that just feeds itself like everything else.
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And then economic productivity, which is the whole system just gets sluggish, right?
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Money doesn't move efficiently.
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People sit on their, their horns of wealth and, um, it just, the whole system bogs
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down and that's where you get that complexity that ends up killing your civilization.
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Yeah, this sounds familiar.
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I mean, the sense that like modern society and the world we live in is a mess, right?
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Like a world that's so complicated that no, no ordinary man, no ordinary man can
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fully conceive everything that's actually happening.
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Right?
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So it's basically beyond any single human's control except for either exceptional humans.
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Very best high IQ you ever seen human beings.
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Big, beautiful human.
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Big, beautiful humans.
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Yeah.
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But you know, let's get back to Tainter.
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Yeah, this is, so this is where his theory connects with our own modern political
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crisis, which is this ever-increasing complexity and the diminishing returns
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that it now creates is what fuels the popular resentment that populists exploit, right?
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Because what you see is back in the early days when we were solving the
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low-hanging fruit problems, everybody was benefiting, right?
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Everything was just rolling, you know, we were getting more and more.
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Yeah, like water.
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We're taking care of water filtration, like sewer, you know, taking
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care of the basic needs of human beings.
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But also like, you know, the new advances were big, right?
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So I mean, you know, streaming, streaming content on online or like
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the internet or things like that.
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The iPhone.
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The iPhone.
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Yeah.
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That reinvigorated the phone.
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All being made possible through all this.
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But then once you start getting the admission returns, once you're at iPhone
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75 and it's like indiscernible from iPhone 71, people start to get ticked off.
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And that's basically what we're seeing now is like, you know, government 3.0 is
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no better than government 2.5.
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Yeah.
17:41
I mean, yeah.
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Yeah.
17:44
So iPhone 74, trademark, by the way, we do have to point that out.
17:49
They've already trademarked it, but that's not true.
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I mean, I don't know.
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It might be, who knows.
17:53
iOS 74 is probably much higher up on their, their rings, but wrongs.
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But basically people feel like these, these like incredibly complicated,
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overwhelmingly, amazing.
18:06
What's another word?
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Labyrinth, right?
18:07
Like a labyrinth.
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Labyrinthine.
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Labyrinthine.
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Thine?
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Is it thine?
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I think it's thine.
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Labyrinthine.
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Okay.
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So labyrinthine.
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Gross.
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I don't, I don't ever want to use that word again, but the ideas of trade, being
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basically a labyrinth of policies and ideas and thoughts, technology, population
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movement, and also the, the agreements that we, we come to with other countries.
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We have, you know, I mean, and look, it's a lot we have, we have North
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American Trade Organization, NATO.
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We've got the UN, we've got the AMBLA.
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No, that's Manbla.
18:48
That's men loving.
18:49
No, no.
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Men loving a different thing.
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Anyway, point I'm trying to say is we have all these organizations, we
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have these different treaties, we have these different trades, these different
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ideas, right, like, ultimately we're responsible for them.
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We sign them, we agree to them.
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And every organization within, I say every organization, no, every, every
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part of our government has a responsibility ultimately to adhere to
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these international agreements.
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They, they basically, they don't provide recognizable benefits to the average
19:23
human being, and we're seeing it now, right?
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I mean, this isn't, this isn't a labyrinthine, hmm, to use a very, very
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PhD kind of word, um, this, this, this labyrinthine idea, we, we get it now,
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like we're living it, because we're responsible to so many things that you
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need, and an example I think of this is, is like, like law, dealing with, with
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simple ideas of labor law and paychecks.
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And, and you have to pay me within a certain amount of time and these sorts
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of things, like that reality is so incredibly complex that we've put a
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whole computer system that can answer those questions into our, our realm for
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the purpose of answering these complex questions, but back out just a second.
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I went a little bit deep there.
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The whole point is when it's so incredibly complicated that you need
20:22
additional parties to help you parse the information, it kind of becomes an
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ethereal blend of fog.
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It's completely unrecognizable in the terms of what we agreed to.
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So benefits to us that we don't even recognize anymore.
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Will, do you agree?
20:45
Yeah, I don't feel like the benefits we used to expect when it's things like, and
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just get so complicated, it's exhausting to even think about, like when I think
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about taxes, like you said, the tax code or things like that, it's just exhausting.
20:56
I think we want to begin on the tax code.
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But, you know, that's what allows an insurgent politician, so to speak, to come
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in and offer simple answers, right?
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Slogans like take back control or make America great again, direct response to
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the feeling that complexity is becoming an unmanageable burden.
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People, people obviously, I mean, they choose the simplicity and locality over
21:17
their complexity and they choose their own individual identity over internationalism.
21:22
Yeah, a hundred percent.
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I mean, ultimately at the, at the personal level, right?
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This has become exactly this.
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It's become this country and this gubernatorial isolationism from our perspective.
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I mean, I'm speaking only for the United States and what I'm seeing in the world,
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in mainstream media, it's internalized, right?
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There's this idea that it's easy.
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It's an easy fix.
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All we have to do is eliminate migrants, eliminate minorities, eliminate women,
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eliminate diversity, equity, inclusion, take out just, just not with a scalpel,
22:00
but with a chainsaw, let's remove every portion of our lives that bring about
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equality, which is what we set out to be.
22:12
We set out to be equal.
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We set out to be putting everybody on the same playing field.
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We tried to create equity at a base level, but they became so complex
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that just like Tainter's theory, which really, I mean, his theory is not just
22:28
about a society or a civilization in decline, it's about, it's about being
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exhausted because that's what Donald Trump sold to the public was this idea of,
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well, we're just tired of doing all of this stuff.
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Tainter agrees and it supports Tainter's idea that says that society is so bloated
22:50
and bureaucratic, that it can no longer actually afford to actually write the check
22:57
to be what it is to uphold those rules and laws.
23:02
This is really where Tainter's theory hits its most scathing point, which is he
23:09
removes morality and collapse is not a tragedy, it's an economic correction, right?
23:13
So again, these sort of dry objective bases.
23:16
When the cost of maintaining the complex state becomes a greater burden than the
23:19
benefits it provides, collapse isn't just a disaster, it becomes a rational choice
23:26
for the average person to simply walk away.
23:28
They abandon their cities, they stop paying taxes and revert to a simpler local life.
23:33
Hey, libertarianism!
23:36
Welcome back.
23:37
Right.
23:37
Like, literally anybody like me who's gone from what I would call mainstream
23:43
right wing to somewhere in between, like a libertarian viewpoint.
23:47
Now I did embrace libertarian ideals for like a Fortnite.
23:52
So, you know, I'm giving myself a little bit away here, but so when I, when I upheld
23:57
these ideals, I said, like I said, a Fortnite, the logic didn't last for very long.
24:02
I mean, ultimately it was like, well, we have to all stop paying taxes and we need
24:07
to revert to this simple, do it yourself philosophy.
24:11
Everybody lives on their own five acres of farmland and we negotiate every time
24:17
we want to go anywhere further than our own home.
24:21
It got so incredibly simple by being incredibly complex, but the state as
24:28
it exists doesn't get conquered, right?
24:30
It gets, it gets divorced.
24:33
It gets like, oh, so long, girl.
24:35
Bye girl.
24:36
No, thanks, girl.
24:38
Don't call me anymore.
24:39
Block that number because it's no longer worth the amount of money that we're putting in.
24:45
And look, a lot of us are feeling that right now.
24:47
Well, you're certainly feeling that right now.
24:50
Absolutely.
24:50
We're putting in so much of our tax dollars and look, I specifically still very much
24:55
identify with the libertarian ideals of this because when you look at what the like
25:01
Northern Finland and Scandinavian countries pay in taxes, it's like 2% more than we're
25:08
currently paying, like 2.7%.
25:12
I compared it.
25:13
I did the math.
25:14
I looked at the numbers.
25:16
We pay about 2.7% less and they have universal health care and they have guaranteed vacation.
25:25
They have up to 36 months of parental leave for new parents.
25:31
Paid.
25:32
Like, what are we doing?
25:34
That feels gross.
25:37
Yeah.
25:38
And when you get to the point, like, like we all, I think, I think collectively we're
25:42
becoming to the point of it's not worth how much we pay in taxes and how much we do.
25:48
It's not worth the investment.
25:49
No, thanks.
25:51
And so at that point, it's a rational thing to just walk away, opt out.
25:55
Exactly.
25:57
So now, now we're going to turn to some examples of this throughout history.
26:01
I will have the familiar ones that you may have heard of you listen to this before.
26:04
So feel free to skip forward or whatever is new for you.
26:07
But.
26:08
We're going to start with the gold standard for this sort of economic collapse or
26:12
civilizational collapse, which is drum roll, wait for it.
26:17
The Roman empire.
26:18
Yeah, Rome the OG, the hardcore first, first to die OG collapse.
26:26
The one that literally launched a thousand decline and fall of books.
26:32
And those are just the ones written by Edward Gibbons, but.
26:35
Thanks Edward.
26:35
We appreciate you on this podcast.
26:38
Feel free to sponsor it.
26:39
Right.
26:40
So, but specifically here, we have to remember that we're talking about
26:43
the Western Roman empire, right?
26:45
So what we think of as the Roman empire is the part that one ruled by, you know,
26:50
I guess, well, up until Constantine, it was the whole thing, but then.
26:54
I was gonna say it like, like Rome, Italy.
26:56
Yeah, Rome, exactly.
26:58
The Roman empire, the Eastern empire, which was Constantinople and.
27:03
Istanbul and all that.
27:05
Yes.
27:05
That's the, that's the, that's actually, I'm sorry, I hate to interrupt you.
27:08
It's Istanbul, not Constantine Opal.
27:12
Is that what it is?
27:13
I thought it was Istanbul now, Constantinople.
27:16
That's yeah.
27:17
Nope.
27:17
It's not.
27:18
Unfortunately, it's Istanbul, not Constantinople.
27:22
Got it.
27:23
All right.
27:24
Yeah.
27:24
Well, so when we're comparing this to the U S we're comparing.
27:28
Trump, Donald Trump, president Trump to like Caesar or Caesar or someone like that.
27:35
Those are the ones we're looking at.
27:37
So yeah, I mean, that's kind of what he'd like to be compared to.
27:41
I think, I mean, Trump is no Caesar.
27:44
Like he, that's literally what he dreams about.
27:48
And I think he puts it on truth social that about his dreams.
27:54
Imperial designs.
27:56
Exactly.
27:56
Yeah.
27:56
So the alternative parallel that has greater resonance here is not
28:00
the story of the emperors.
28:02
So we're not focusing on the emperors that we're focusing on the processes through
28:04
which the empire emperors came to power in the first place.
28:07
Right.
28:08
For those who value America's democracy, the fall of Rome's Republican
28:11
experiment provides the clearest parallels and the most severe warnings.
28:15
Yeah.
28:15
So we're not.
28:17
Go ahead.
28:18
No.
28:20
Okay.
28:21
We're not in the empire phase, right?
28:23
Like we're living through the collapse of the Republic, meaning this is like, this
28:29
is like 30 years after they have breads, they have circuses.
28:34
And they're living out both.
28:36
This is the collapse.
28:37
They're trying to convince people that their far reach is normal.
28:43
Their soldiers dying is part of the, you know, it's part of a
28:46
landscape of building an empire.
28:49
It's, you know, collapsing Greenland, the United States, it's annexing Canada.
28:56
It's, you know, these bags must be broken for them.
29:00
Exactly.
29:01
It's the collapse of the Republic.
29:03
And there's some eggshells here and there.
29:06
Right.
29:07
So let's look at some of the parallels.
29:09
After Rome became the undisputed power of its world, the first and only super at
29:14
the time, the only superpower in the Western world anyway, immense wealth became
29:18
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
29:20
Imagine that later.
29:22
This led to the age of the great men and dictators.
29:25
These were popular generals who bound their allegiance to them with
29:27
oaths of personal fealty.
29:29
Again, never heard of that.
29:31
Anyway, continuing on.
29:34
What was that?
29:36
They were defined by populist mobilizations based on immense wealth, the capacity to
29:41
purchase public affection, and the ability to defy one's cherish and conventions with
29:47
impunity.
29:48
Yeah, I mean, you know, that sounds, uh, sounds par for the course.
29:54
That sounds, uh, as I would call it, Mar-a-Lago.
29:59
I mean, I can't help but feel like this is literally the exact moment we're
30:03
living in right now.
30:04
I mean, uh, this podcast is not shy away from overlaps, you know, AKA our branding,
30:13
but ultimately this is exactly what we're talking about.
30:18
This is the moment where that we're currently living in the United States is
30:23
currently looking directly on Fox news, on CNN, on MSNBC, and all of the other, the
30:31
other private networks looking at a completely unprecedented, and I will say
30:38
unprecedented tyranny and its history.
30:43
Right.
30:44
The replacement of the rule of the people, which is exactly what a democracy
30:50
stands for with the domination of one person.
30:55
Um, I'm just going to put a little star here and all of his wealthiest and most
31:00
beneficial friends like Elon Musk, like Jeff Bezos, like Metta, like all of the
31:07
little millionaire billionaire fanboys that donated billions of dollars to
31:15
Donald Trump's presidential library.
31:19
Yeah.
31:21
So we're left with the leader who defies, openly defies the constitution by talking
31:26
about third term as president.
31:28
I mean, again, it's in plain written English in the constitution.
31:32
I will say, I will say.
31:34
He did recently, very recently, and that makes this episode, not as evergreen,
31:40
but he recently said, it seems pretty clear.
31:43
I'm not going to have a third term.
31:45
And he gave a speech after some really fantastic election wins this past season,
31:52
a season of November that specifically kind of highlighted exactly that he felt
32:00
it would be conducive for him not to have a third term, which means he's coming
32:06
around at least to the idea that he doesn't get to be a king despite other
32:12
facts that we'll talk about later.
32:14
Unless this is all just more distraction and this whole thing's a red herring.
32:21
But we have this Trumpist movement that undermines the institutions, conventions,
32:27
and culture that have governed democratic lives in the American Republic.
32:29
Yeah.
32:30
So ultimately, Caesar, quote, "did not destroy the Republic," as one of the
32:37
historians that we researched wrote about.
32:40
But basically the Republican order was already spent, like its entire conventions,
32:47
every precedent that it had ever held true to be sacrosanct, they shredded it.
32:54
They just literally put it through a shredder, like the one my grandma was like,
32:57
"Hey, there's scammers out there that are trying to get your information."
33:01
I'm like, "Yeah, everything's online now."
33:04
Yeah.
33:04
They were, they shredded it.
33:07
They were just like, "Yeah, it's all gone.
33:09
Sorry."
33:09
All of the information that you thought was true, all the precedent that we've ever had,
33:16
yeah, we're not going to do that anymore.
33:17
Basically, every institution was undermined.
33:22
They were like, "Yeah, you know, that doesn't really fit our narrative."
33:26
He was just the near-perfect expression of that new broken political culture.
33:32
And this institutional delay we're talking about was happening long before the final fall.
33:36
I mean, look at the elite failure of the Emperor Honorius in the fifth century.
33:41
And this is a man ranked by many historians as the worst of the worst Roman emperors.
33:46
Not for his tyranny, but for his mind-numbing incompetence.
33:50
He was basically a personal power vacuum at the exact moment the empire needed a leader.
33:54
So what we see here is that when you're facing these moments of crisis, you needed a strong leader to step up, and they did not have one at that time.
34:03
These sorts of things allow for people like Caesar to come in and take over, and that's basically what he did.
34:08
He took advantage of the fact that the Senate couldn't oppose him, and the fact that people weren't really all that interested in maintaining the status quo.
34:15
If everybody's happy and well-fed and everybody's enjoying life, they might be more willing to step up and defend their existing power structure or existing civilization.
34:26
But once that starts to fail them and it no longer serves its purpose, what is their motivation for fighting for it?
34:32
Now, Emperor Honorius actually did have one competent general, Stelico, executed.
34:38
So, I mean, he not only was terrible as a leader, but he actually executed one of the best leaders he had underneath him.
34:45
And then when the Gothic leader at the time, Alaric, offered a pretty decent deal for peace, Honorius told him to pound sand basically, which led directly to the avoidable sack of Rome.
34:57
So the Goths at this point are willing to make a deal, and instead he's like, "No, I'm not making any deals with you all. See you later."
35:05
And this is the kind of elite failure that we all recognize, but his real failure wasn't just incompetence in leading the empire.
35:11
It was actually, as Tanner would predict, economic policy.
35:15
And I remember that I studied Roman history or the history of the Roman Empire, in college a long time ago.
35:21
But what I remember from one thing that stuck out with me is, every other, or every third emperor, Rome would be bankrupt.
35:29
Like they would just spend everything and empty out all the coffers, and then somebody would either execute that person or they'd run away in shame.
35:37
And then it would be left to the next person to rebuild the coffers with taxes and all sorts of other things.
35:41
Because, surprise, surprise, running an empire is expensive.
35:45
By the time we get to Nero in 64 AD, the state needed more money, but they couldn't just raise taxes because that would cause a revolt.
35:52
So Nero and the political elite discovered a means to increase the spending without raising taxes.
35:58
This sounds like a fountain of youth or alchemy, you're unable to turn lead into gold.
36:03
Well, how'd they do it?
36:06
Their magical plan, and this again will sound very familiar, was the policy of inflation.
36:11
Wait, what?
36:13
Inflation?
36:14
That's...but that...we're at an all-time high here in the United States.
36:17
That would never happen.
36:19
Gas is the lowest price it's ever been.
36:21
Eggs are the lowest price they've also ever been in the history of humanity.
36:25
Never have eggs and gasoline been lower.
36:29
How can we even have inflation?
36:30
That's fake news.
36:32
Fake news, right?
36:33
Ignore the price levels at your local grocery store.
36:39
Look not at the surrounds of you.
36:43
Don't look behind the curtain.
36:45
Just trust us, it's never been lower.
36:47
Yes.
36:48
Yeah, so they, what they did was to cause inflation, they debased the standards over a coin,
36:55
the denarius, by infusing it with cheap metals such as copper.
36:58
They also clipped coins, which is like shaving the edges of the coins to
37:01
meant new smaller ones.
37:04
So they literally invented quantitative easing, or as I like to call it,
37:09
right sizing or shrink flation.
37:12
Right.
37:13
And it worked for a little bit of time.
37:15
Yeah.
37:16
But the solution had declining returns by 200 AD, the denarius was only 50% silver,
37:22
which led to a massive rise in the cost of living.
37:24
Imagine that.
37:26
Exactly.
37:27
And here's our loop, our feedback loop, right?
37:29
The state is now paying its soldiers and worthless money can no longer afford its
37:34
own problem solvers, the army.
37:37
And what happens when the Roman state can't pay its army?
37:40
Or the government shuts down and they can't pay their army?
37:42
I mean, the army becomes the problem, right?
37:44
That's, that's the thing.
37:45
At the people that were supposed to be keeping order and keeping things in
37:48
line, suddenly they're not getting paid.
37:50
Like, well, we still got all of our weapons and all of our training.
37:53
They don't.
37:54
So let's see what we can do about this.
37:56
And that, that's when you get situations where you have a collapse, like between
38:01
two to two 35 and two 84 AD groups of military deserters, whom the Roman state
38:07
was unable to pay, roam the countryside, pillaging small towns with farms.
38:12
I mean, that makes sense.
38:14
Right.
38:14
I mean, like ultimately Roman soldiers pillaging their own towns.
38:21
I mean, yeah, that's, that's where they were, right?
38:23
That's where they could go to get the resources they need.
38:26
You got to meet them where they are.
38:28
Yeah.
38:29
And I mean, again, because you, here's the thing.
38:31
You go fight somebody else's cities, right?
38:33
You go try and sack somebody else's cities.
38:35
Their armies are going to fight you back.
38:37
But if you're the army in your own country, who's going to fight you
38:40
when you go after the towns?
38:42
You're the army.
38:43
It's like, like when the police come and do something like, you know, what
38:46
are you going to call the police?
38:47
We are the police.
38:48
So that's, that's basically the result of what happens.
38:50
The barbarian invasions were the cause of the collapse.
38:53
They were the results of a system that had already eaten itself more than.
38:56
Like so- Go ahead.
38:58
Yep.
38:59
As you say, by the time the barbarian showed up, there was just nothing
39:01
left but the bones to pick.
39:03
Yeah.
39:03
And that ultimately is the system and Arius was leading, right?
39:09
The man who, and look, I don't want to underestimate him because nowadays
39:14
you could probably, you know, really do a number on the host of your favorite
39:18
podcast, but one of his most infamous acts of oversimplification, he basically
39:24
finally told Roman Britain, now Britain at the time was conquered by Rome.
39:30
Besieged by raiders to quote, you know, look after yourself for their own defense.
39:36
He was presiding over a system that literally couldn't afford to exist any longer.
39:42
Now, wait, I just want to say, I know this sounds like exactly what Republican
39:50
senators and congressmen are telling you right now, but wait, there's more.
39:54
Yeah.
39:55
So Rome is our didn't recover case.
39:58
This is a civilization decline that clung to their complex loaded inflationary
40:02
system and that shredded Republican norms until it broke.
40:05
Yeah.
40:06
So this isn't the only way a civilization ends, right?
40:11
I mean, before we look at the recoveries, we have to clear away two popular myths.
40:19
And look, these are stories we as podcasters and as historians love to tell about the collapse.
40:27
But unfortunately for you listener, dear listener, hashtag dear listener, this
40:33
episode has now come to an end.
40:35
We are actually going to finish this episode next week.
40:39
The next time you listen to this podcast, we're going to tune in.
40:42
Will thank you so much for being here with me.
40:45
Thank you for being here with me.
40:46
Of course.
40:47
I really hope you enjoy the information in this podcast and if you didn't, well,
40:53
you know, we might not be the podcast for you.
40:56
You might want to check out.
40:56
Okay.
40:57
That's something about history with Dan something.
41:00
And, uh, what's the one?
41:03
Dan Carl.
41:04
Eating cereal with eating cereal with killers.
41:08
I don't know.
41:09
Anyway, I'm sure there's podcasts out there for you.
41:11
If this wasn't isn't for you, great.
41:13
If it is for you do me two favors.
41:16
I would love for you to give us a five star rating on your podcasting app of choice and
41:22
also share this episode with a friend.
41:24
If you feel like they would really appreciate it.
41:27
Will do you appreciate it?
41:29
I certainly do.
41:30
That's why I will certainly appreciates it.
41:32
Exactly.
41:32
Will is a poor, starving artist who certainly appreciates it.
41:38
And we're all poor.
41:38
And that's not true.
41:39
We're not, we're not poor.
41:40
We're not starving and we're not artists.
41:43
We, we have one goal and it's to spread the truth.
41:46
It's the spread the truth.
41:47
It's to, it's to inform the average public in a way that isn't pretentious.
41:53
We hope it's not too pretentious.
41:54
If it is, you should absolutely send us an email, send it to spam@theoverlappodcast.com.
42:03
They would love to hear it.
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42:07
No, seriously though, if you want to continue listening to our podcast, check us out on
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42:12
We're on Spotify as well.
42:14
You can check us out on our website at F dot foundation.
42:17
That's HTTPS colon slash slash F dot foundation.
42:22
That's friends of the future foundation.
42:25
That's us.
42:25
We are friends of the future and we are the foundation for your news.
42:30
That's weird.
42:31
We're not a news podcast, but it felt right when I was like reading it out there.
42:37
It rolled off the tongue.
42:39
It did.
42:39
It rolled off the tongue.
42:40
Anyway, we will, we will be so happy to have you back next week to conclude our episode.
42:46
They were talking about about upon whether or not declining Republics can be saved.
42:50
Will, like I said, it's been a pleasure.
42:52
It's so, it's so good to see it.
42:54
So good to be here with you.
42:56
And do you have anything else to say to our wonderful listeners?
43:01
Just thank you.
43:02
Thank you for sticking with us.
43:03
Thanks for coming back and we enjoy this.
43:07
So let us know if you enjoy it too.
43:09
Yeah, of course.
43:10
Same and peace.
43:12
Please.
43:15
We're begging, we're begging you.
43:16
Please, please.
43:17
Please.
43:18
Please, please.
43:18
? ?
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43:26
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43:30
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43:34
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43:38
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43:42
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43:46
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