Nowadays with mass media and the internet, we get aware of much more of the stupid shit happening all over than a common person would in the Western Roman Empire because stupid shit anywhere can be brought to people’s attention everywhere quickly, and since stupid stands out it does get brought to people’s attention.
Also real power is more centralized nowadays, also because of the speed with which information and people can travel enabling more centralised Command & Control systems.
So I would say that a fall due to internal social and political degenrence will happen faster and look a lot more stupid to bystanders, than back in Roman Empire days. Also the density of stupid timewise is probably higher now since everything is happening faster and in a lot more places at the same time.
That said, what’s happening in the US has been developing since at least Clinton’s time, maybe even Reagan’s, maybe longer than that - it’s just that the earlier stages which made the structural changes and created the conditions for what’s happening now, weren’t obvious to anybody but a handful of experts in some domains who of course weren’t given airtime on mass media or were deemed kooks by the rest of people when they did get airtime: any system’s eventual doom is guaranteed as soon as criticism of the structurs system itself is repressed or even de facto suppressed, though it generally takes time for it go through the stagnancy and then the internal-pillaging stages that lead to it cracking and collapsing due to becoming unable to serve most people in it.
Nowadays with mass media and the internet, we get aware of much more of the stupid shit happening all over than a common person would in the Western Roman Empire because stupid shit anywhere can be brought to people’s attention everywhere quickly, and since stupid stands out it does get brought to people’s attention.
Also real power is more centralized nowadays, also because of the speed with which information and people can travel enabling more centralised Command & Control systems.
So I would say that a fall due to internal social and political degenrence will happen faster and look a lot more stupid to bystanders, than back in Roman Empire days. Also the density of stupid timewise is probably higher now since everything is happening faster and in a lot more places at the same time.
That said, what’s happening in the US has been developing since at least Clinton’s time, maybe even Reagan’s, maybe longer than that - it’s just that the earlier stages which made the structural changes and created the conditions for what’s happening now, weren’t obvious to anybody but a handful of experts in some domains who of course weren’t given airtime on mass media or were deemed kooks by the rest of people when they did get airtime: any system’s eventual doom is guaranteed as soon as criticism of the structurs system itself is repressed or even de facto suppressed, though it generally takes time for it go through the stagnancy and then the internal-pillaging stages that lead to it cracking and collapsing due to becoming unable to serve most people in it.