What book explain the reason and general signs and patterns of

I think the search for general theories about the rise in fall of nations is unnecessary. It just becomes so watered down if you want it to apply to most situations that is effectively meaningless. Jared Diamond in particular reties too much on geographic determinism in his book. He down plays human agency too much.

File: 41zbA5dUKQL._SX351_BO1,204,203,200_[1].jpg (27KB, 353x499px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 353x499px

>>2664686
No book can provide a 'general law' for the development of all societies throughout history. Pic related is as close as you can get for the reasons why they fall.

There is an interesting collection called Macrohistory and Macrohistorians which covers the attempts of thinkers including Ibn Khaldun, Sima Qian, Hegel, Vico, Marx, Spengler, Max Weber, and Toynbee to describe patterns in history. At the back of the book is a series of graphs representing various thinkers' models.

History cannot be reduced to a formula.

>>2664686
https://pastebin.com/nqzsAWX8
Fuck off with your bullshit
Empires fall because other powers become too powerful, that's it

>>2664848
>biology isn't applied chemistry which is applied physics which is applied maths
Really makes you think anon

File: 1396843900942.jpg (28KB, 500x333px) Image search: [Google]

28KB, 500x333px

It's actually pretty simple, but I'll admit, low resolution.

As a society becomes richer and richer it becomes more decadent. Decadence transforms the values that created the wealth, into values that are life-denying and lacking in vitality and industriousness.

This coincides with the death of any concept of heroic masculinity and an increase in androgyny in every domain from art to gender relations.(See for example sculptures of men in the early period of Ancient Greece in contrast to it's later period).

>>2664916
>soft times make weak men meme
Really? It would be more accurate to say nomads than that, and nomads is even more generalised

>>2665009
Like I said, it's low resolution, but there's no doubt in my mind that decadence leads to a change in values, which is why the coastal regions of the U.S is filled with rich liberals who extol their virtues to one another during long nights of debauchery and drink, and literally think Donald Trump is the second coming of Adolf Hitler.

>>2664916
This is such a retarded /pol/-tier meme.

All the great empores of history, save for mongolia, grew out of comparativwly easy living, with better access to food and resouces than their rivals, and then made tgeir greatest achievements because their people were free from fightibg for their lives.

>>2665029
The same regions that also produce most of americas wealth you mean?

Last time i checked oklahoma didnt have an mit or silicon valley

>>2665072
Yeah, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the place where most of the wealth is concentrated is also the place where values that would never create such wealth in the first place emerge.

>>2665089
concentration of resources and knowledge stimulates further growth. You are wrong.

>>2665089
Except it was dorky and gawky "effeminate" men that created the tech you utilize today. It's they who innovate in ways beyond the brawn and exploitation of middle American mining/industry.

So clearly you're wrong and a child.

>>2665101
>It's they who innovate beyond the brawn and exploitation of middle American mining/industry
>Meanwhile, every single new innovation by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is made by factory workers in Chengdu, China, who make 150 dollars a week.

>>2665116
None of that is true.

>>2665129
Yes it is. It was tongue-in-cheek, but it is partly true.

Either way, upper and middle-class people have different values than the rest of society, and those values are usually decadent and hedonistic.

>>2664916
>>2665064
I wouldn't say the general concept is that far off the mark.

But the concept has more to do with groups of interests than with morals of the people.

As an institution becomes bigger, it will be less concerned with what it was initially created for and more involved in mere politics. That is simply due to the fact that as the resources increase, so does the interest to control them and competition for such positions. The attainment of resources becomes a second priority to merely controlling them.

Smallest examples would be a couple of friends who have the same hobby and interest for something and create a company for it. But as they grow older and the company starts raking in more money and instead of being merely an outlet for their passion it becomes their livelyhood, they will get bogged down in the 'politics of business' - arguments over ownership, rights, responsibilities, etc - and a lot of effort that used to go on increasing productivity will now go into infighting, competing for the amassed resources. This may not inevitably lead to overall failure, but it certainly increases the chances.

A larger example would be a company that as it expands and increases, the amount of enterprising industrious people in its leadership will decrease in relation to corporate career sharks who did not help in creating the value but jumped in the fray once enough value to get their interest was amassed.

This isn't hard to extrapolate to entire nations.

One could argue that this is exactly what's taking place in America, now that previous industry pioneers and value producers are replaced with bankers and value speculators. People who earn their riches not through adding more resources but through controlling more.

This goes not only for economy and business but also for politics - the bigger/important a country becomes the less are there genuine idealist politicians and the more are there career politicians.

This is just an idea though.

>>2665145
source: muh feelings

>>2665146
Sounds like a lot of vague conjecture based on anecdotes at best

>>2665152
I'm betting you're precisely one of the people I'm talking about.

>>2665157
Not him, but as opposed to what exactly?

Do you really think people's opinions on social phenomena ever exceeds the level of conjecture, and reaches the level of scientific fact or what?

If that's the cause you're either high or delusional.

>>2665161
So rather than engage with the arguments you simply pidgeonhole me?

Did you assume this would convince me?

>>2665170
Engage with what arguments exactly? Your characterization of Silicon Valley techies as "dorky and effeminate" is somehow a serious rebuttal to my point?

It's not at all. People can be as dorky and as effeminate as they want, they can still be decadent and have life-denying morals.

We'll see if there is even any Silicon Valley left at all in 30 years. I doubt it.

>>2665165
To answer your question, no.

But a lot of people seeking political power often engage with this nonsense, which is what im opposed to.

Mind you, i dont care what the politics are, so long as they are based on something more measurable than larping a fantasy of the fall of rome.

>>2665172
Im not that guy.

But your claim that powerful nations stem from hard living has been disproven by history over and over again.

>>2665190
My claim isn't that powerful nations stem simply from hard living.

But a culture and a society is the sum total of the beliefs and goals of that society.

If people don't believe in the society's moral grounding anymore, then the society will either change or be destroyed.

And you're seeing all over already. People denying that free speech is necessary. People demanding that innocent until proven guilty should be dispensed with. People demanding that the state categorize people according to race and gender, and give them preferential(or not) treatment based on it. People don't care about family. They don't care about their community.

All people want is money, status and power by doing nothing for it.

>>2665209
You seem to believr that a bunch of flimsy anecdotes means the world is ending.

Sounds like you lack perspective

>>2665157
Well Communism seemed to follow that pattern, with ideology driven effort preceding and somewhat during the Russian revolution and civil war being replaced with incessant infighting and political maneuvering lacking any ideological basis, being only rooted in power. The size of the Communist Party increased hugely after they gained power. You can guess how many of those people were committed revolutionaries as opposed to opportunists who jumped on the bandwagon as soon as Communism came out on top.

And that being the case with any large revolution, I believe.

When reading about any revolutionary politician or ruler, you will inevitably notice how their youthful idealism and innovation often contrasts with their later realism and trying to retain the status quo. What seems to happen is that once they accumulate a certain amount of power and wealth, they become less interested in boldness and more in preserving what they've gained.

Look at religion - what started as a grassroots movement amongst the lower class people, as it grew bigger and accumulated more power, lost its spirit and instead became a platform for politics, full of people in it not because of piety but of the doors it opened.

Fuck, look at even Youtubers. Any Youtuber that grows large enough will inevitably come to the point where they have to start catering for the large, general audiences instead of their original crowd. This is followed by dumbing down content to suit the teen dominated market that is Youtube. This going against their initial reason for creating their channel which used to be a hobby/interest but has now become money.

This has been true for two famous channels that I found before their popularity (and they're huge now). Third one seems to be on the same course. That's a 100% accuracy rate for the data I have.

>>2665227
You are cherrypicking and shoehorning cases to fit your narrative

>>2665227
>100% accuracy rate
>From the cherry picked data I have.

>>2665214
>>2665249
>>2665250
Stop samefagging with zero arguments. Pointing out fallacies isn't an argument fagtron.

>>2665261
Yes it has.

Oversimplifications to fit narratives are in and of themselves worthless.

I dont have to engage with them to know they are wrong

>>2665264
>I dont have to engage with them

Then fuck off.

>>2665249
>>2665250
The 100% accuracy was only referring to Youtube channels, and that is so simply because these three were the only channels that I witnessed the growth of. If I had witnessed any other with a different pattern, I wouldn't have formed the ideas I have.

And how is that cherrypicking. I've given examples from massively different areas.

Or do you have examples of the contrary?

Of revolutions that didn't lead to infighting? Of powerful nations whose politics isn't a complete shitfest? Of powerful religions that haven't been used as politic tools?

>>2665264
So what's an oversimplification? Mathematics is largely oversimplification of reality, is it worthless then?

>I dont have to engage with them to know they are wrong
>all oversimplifications are wrong

>not engaging in oversimplification
I hope you're shitposting on purpose.

>>2665269
I'd be happy to, but you idiots constantly encroach upon political life and fill up this board

>>2665274
Who the fuck are you talking about you paranoid schizo?

>>2665270
by your logic, all governments are shitfest. Hence, only looking at revolutions amounts to cherrypickibg.

As for oversimplification, its textbook definition is that it is wrong. Take it up with webster, not me

>>2665305
>by your logic, all governments are shitfest
What is 'my logic'?

A government is meant to represent the will of the people and to manage a country effectively. Politicians are essentially the peoples ambassadors to congress and in theory they must have only the interest of their electors in mind.

The reality seems to be unarguably different, with a political career being an end by itself. Where politicians are more concerned with their reputation and where the parties engage in shitflinging to blame each other for any mismanagement because the survival of the party is a priority over serving the people.

This shitfest has been going on for so long that it has become so accepted as to the point where this seems to be the only possibility. In reality, with government, it indeed seems to be an inevitable outcome. But by no means should that make it an acceptable state of affairs.

To prove the relevancy of this to my hypothesis of the relative increase of the chance of such things happening the larger an institution becomes one need only to take a look at smaller communities which are governed by less corrupt means.

The explanation behind my hypothesis may be wrong, though. The increased chance of infighting, corruption and whatnot may not be due to the larger amount of resources involved, but due to a larger number of people. It is much harder to be a machiavellian douche in interpersonal relationships than it is in large nearly anonymous corporations.

>Hence, only looking at revolutions amounts to cherrypickibg
Which is why I also gave several examples from wildly different areas?

>oversimplification
Before calling something an oversimplification you first need to draw the line as to where the line of an image becoming distorted lies.

Also what's my narrative? I forgot to ask earlier when you mentioned it.

>>2664686

Plebs and their own theories can fuck right off to /pol/.

Here's a list, OP

A Culture of Growth - Mokyr
Why Nations Fail - Acemoglu and Robinson
The Sinews of Power - John Brewer

>>2665172
I think what his "dorky and effeminate" point means is that there wasnt a Silicon Valley built by strong and virtuous men. It was started by degenerates, grown by degenerates.

>>2665227
This is confounded by the fact that "The" Communist Party was the only surviving faction of multiple socalist groups in the revolution. You can build a narrative where the Bolsheviks were always a party of shitty people who stole the "true" revolution from the other soviets.

The union will be divided and the division shall be united.

>>2666495
Then why did the HRE and Byzantium not unite?

>>2664901
wtf I only think rationally now

>>2664916
>hard times create strong men
>strong men create good times
>good times create weak men
>weak men create hard times

>>2667629
>This meme
Get aload of this guy
>>2664916
>>2665009

>>2664686
The book was pretty good. Although the title should be 'Guns, Germs and New Guinea'. Author jerks himself off a lot about how he lives with the natives. He also didn't spend enough time on China as I would've liked bit it's a cool overview and good place to start.

>>2664730
>Macrohistory and Macrohistorians
Wow thanks for that recommendation. Looks really interesting.

File: b9c7e128f8efaf6237ebe024ae24cddb.jpg (97KB, 564x613px) Image search: [Google]

97KB, 564x613px

>>2667576

Because Byzantine nobles didn't want Charlamagne to marry their QT empress.

the egyptian book of the dead would explain all of that

>>2668836
Mai waifu

Decline of Western Civilization by Spengler, Revolt Against the Modern World by Julius Evola (gives a somewhat metaphysical perspective, but even if you are not into that is a rather interesting read), I'd also suggest Might is Right.

>>2667629
>>2668241
Except that wasn't what I was saying at all. But I get that it's easier to reduce something to ironic memery than actually having arguments.

>>2664916
Fuck off Aurini, go polish your head.

>>2664916
>living fatly at the expense of the industrious
>Sitting in the shade sipping wine while my slaves do all the work is so hard guys!

Caeser should have nailed all the Pompeians to crosses