74 thoughts on “The Age Of Conquests”

1. Beautiful. Awaiting the other Parts.

2. I like this series. Hope you continue until “decadence”.

   1. It is my intention. The Age Of Commerce is scheduled for next week.

      1. Can’t wait 😉

3. Keep them coming! Love this series….

4. Extremely enjoyable series. It shows the decline of western civilization as a whole in our time. That’s where our time is unique. All the western empires that have risen and fallen before our age, the Greeks, the Romans, the Spaniards, the French, the Brits, the Russians the Germans and so on – all of these empires were just one PART of a greater western civilization.
   Sure, in the days of Greece and Rome that civilization was in its infancy. But the later civilizations were built on three pillars – Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian faith. These institutions are all falling apart in our modern age. Hence, what we’re witnessing today is not the fall of an empire – it is the fall of an entire civilization. The consequences are much more dire in such cases.
   I don’t see us going down fighting. I see no last stand for the emasculated western civilization. It’s far more likely that we will just rot from within. Like a cancer we will kill our civilization from within and slowly wither away into nothingness. The worst kind of death that a man could wish for.

   1. Christianity was forced upon the Roman Empire 100 years before the empire officially fell, according to most historians. The reason Rome forced the religion upon their Empire was very simple. Rome was suffering from Barbarian rebellions/invasions and had a lack of Roman soldiers, so they turned to psychological warfare. The Roman Empire used to actually have a fairly decent freedom of religion for its time. Why would they ban all other religions, except for Christianity, which was an obscure cult religion until Constantine legitimized it. Rome never did anything that wasn’t calculated. Note that the Christianity we have today is the officially approved version of the Roman Empire. Constantine had banned all other forms of Christianity except for his version, Nicene Christianity. Why would Rome go from anti-Christianity to pro-Christianity? They probably noticed that Christians were ideal Roman citizens. Christians, after all, preached non-violence and a few other things which benefited the Roman government.
      1. Christianity told people to pay their taxes to Rome. (Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17 )
      2. It told slaves to obey their masters. 75% of the empire were slaves. (Ephesians 6:5, Titus 2:9-10; 1 Peter 2:18)
      3. It told Christians that the ruling government was put in place by God. (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13-14)
      4. It praised gentleness and meekness. Blessed are the poor. (Luke 6:20) Blessed are the meek. (Matthew 5:5) If Rome slaps you in the face, turn the other cheek to also be slapped. (Matthew 5:38–5:42; Luke 6:27–31)
      5. 1 Peter 2:17 says to honor the emperor.
      Christians are good subjects because they don’t fight back, and they focus on a life that apparently starts once they die! It’s the perfect religion for exploiting your subjects and keeping the peace. Note that at no point did the Roman Empire EVER follow Christian teachings. Christianity was meant for the people Rome had conquered. It’s one of Rome’s longest lasting legacies. After Christianity had taken over, Western Europe went into a 1,000 year Dark Age, which pretty much destroyed the Christian claim that a lack of Christianity is the cause of decline. The fact is, Christianity did nothing to stop the decline, and it was actually a renewed interest in pagan Greek and Rome that sparked the Renaissance. It’s arguable whether a lack of morality causes decline, but the fact is there are plenty of kind, moral people who are not Christians. So Christianity is irrelevant here.

      1. True it is not called the Roman Catholic Church without good reason. Forgetting one thing though. Christianity differing from Roman and Greek philosophy preaches that the poor and weak are the ones who will be rewarded with eternal life with God. The rich cannot enter the kingdom. This is very important because that was the essential selling point for the 1% of previous empires. The American empire sells it that anyone can make it to the 1% if they are rappers, gangsters and athletes. It keeps cogs turning that if you are low born you will remain low born. Having a strong middle class is the only true ticket to freedom. Unfortunately the middle class turned out to be whiney bitches who had no threw away the greatest gift of freedom for the shackles of serfdom.

         1. According to the Bible the rich can enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus says it’s hard for a rich man to enter heaven, but “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26) In other words, Jesus can get a rich man into heaven. Regardless, the Roman government never followed Christian teachings. Constantine even had his own son murdered. Not very Christian-like. As I said, Christianity was meant for the conquered subjects, to keep them docile and obedient. The Roman government was put in place by God, and therefore was divine. Every decision from the Emperor was backed by God himself. It’s no coincidence that Rome became the center of Christendom, despite Jesus never set foot there.

         2. Yes and it also allowed those in power to repent for their sins and buy penance. The best doctrines for absolutely mind fucking the commoners is to preach one thing but always practice another. We see that in America and the West today. Freedom of speech when it suits the elites but for the commoners you practice this you lose your job, livelihood and home.

      2. Rome probably had too much religious freedom. This left many in the empire feeling that religion was pretty much empty and meaningless. Christianity was one of many cults that allowed people to feel like they were part of an exclusive group. Christianity being adapted as a state religion was a shrewd master stroke. I believe that Christianity saved Western Civilization, and will also ultimately be responsible for its demise.

         1. Christianity wasn’t just adopted, it was FORCED upon the Roman Empire. Most Christians think the saints preached and converted the pagans one-by-one, but that usually wasn’t the case. The archaeological show many pagan temples were vandalized and completely destroyed, and then a Christian church was built over top of its remains. All over Europe there are Christian churches built on top of pagan holy places, so that the pagans had no choice but adopt Christianity. The fact is, most pagans didn’t like or want Christianity, so the churches absorbed pagan celebrations and Christianized them. For example, Easter is named after Ēostre, which was the pagan god of fertility, who had a festival in her honor in the spring. Hence the eggs and Eastern bunny, which are pagan fertility symbols. Christmas is based on pagan Yule and Saturnalia festivals.

         2. I said “adapted,” not “adopted” intentionally.

         3. The Greek and Roman gods were quite clearly fantastical and ludicrous. Good stories and capture something of human nature but still objectively nonsense. Christianity sorta sythesized the customs and the Hero-with-a-thousand faces and elements of Platonic philosophy. Something like Christianity was, if not inevitable, easy enough to anticipate. A Virgin God-man, resurrection and some magical miracles bound up in the ethical discussions in what would become the OT. A Mediterranean synthesis.

         4. This is where you are wrong. Here is a quick bought experiment. Synthesize the Roman Pantheon with the Greek Pantheon. Sythesize Druidism and Mithra, sythesize Greek and Egyptian gods. All possibly syncretic? Right? We know that Christianity did swallow up customs and titles from previous religions. We know that the Catholics found a fertile ground in Aztec territory. The various traditions of the Mexicans fit in well with the Catholic Mariolotry and that this is rooted in Isis worship from Egypt. Can you imagine a synthesis of Christianity and Islam? I cant. Christianity even has some recognition in the Hindu pantheon.

         5. Christianity is itself a country side religion. More pagan than pagan. It doesn’t exist in major cities in the US and much of European metropolitan world.

         6. The Roman Catholic version of Christianity especially during the dark ages is what you get when you combine state and religion. One of the reasons that Protestantism got off the ground was because every time Rome was about to squash those nasty german protesants by leaning on the German state it would get trouble from the muslims in the south.
            This is why the US started off with the doctrine of separation of church and state. This is a doctrine that will eventually be tossed aside.

      3. To a very large extent, I would agree. I am myself an atheist. I was not making a religious argument. I was merely stating the obvious. It doesn’t matter how you try to get around it – Christianity has been and continues to be an extremely important part of Western civilization. You cannot possibly begin to understand our history without knowing something about the bible.

      4. there’s fairly good evidence that Christianity was already in place a thousands years before the so called christ came along. It shares all the traits of many pagan religions that predate even the Romans….
         The gospels were a great way of quelling the jewish who were rebellious and causing a lot of trouble… showing them they’d killed their messiah….
         Then it became useful for the next 2000 years across a raft of societies…

         1. I’ve heard similar theories before. Jesus’ story parallels that of Pompey when he conquered the Jews. They both traveled to all the same places. It’s theorized that Jesus mimicking Pompey was a sort of inside joke. The Jews were expecting a warrior messiah, and different messiah-wannabes were stirring up rebellions in the Judah/Israel. Rome was not happy. How convenient that the the messiah apparently already came, the Jews killed him, and he preached peace and paying taxes to Rome… He died a Roman method of execution (crucifixion), yet the Romans somehow get off the hook? Hmm. Some think the Romans invented Christianity as a sort of psychological warfare against the first century Jews, to kill their morale. Modern Jewish scholarship harshly rips on Paul as a credible Jew. He relied on Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures, so he didn’t have any actual formal training. He was an amateur. Paul was clearly a Hellenist as his interpolation of original sin in Genesis seems to fuse Adam and Eve with the story of Pandora, the first woman from Greek myths who released evil into the world. Was he a Roman operative? It’s an interesting theory. Probably not true, but conspiracy theories are fun. Paul was probably just a Hellenized crackpot that hijacked the small following of a martyred Jewish teacher.

         2. If you ask a Jew they say the Romans killed him.
            A little background on the Empire. They fought a savage war for supremacy with the Jews in the Quitos War. Cyprus, Cyrencia, Anatolia, Egypt were all theaters in that war. Hundreds of thousand of people were killed.

         3. Now you’re going to tell me Woody Harrelson’s dad was on the Grassy Knoll. Jack Ruby was a higher up in the Mafia. Jim Garrison was sane. A missile hit the Pentagon. Sandy Hook was as false flag. Etc. Etc. All you’ve shown me is a hostility to Christianity. Your posts are interesting and entertaining, I will grant you that.

      5. “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”–Seneca the Younger
         That quote explains the phenomenon you describe in a much shorter, more concise version.

      6. Hardly now. Christianity wasn’t forced by Constantine on anyone. It was legitimized by him in 313, and was hardly an obscure cult before that. Christianity had become so widespread that there was political self-interest in presenting yourself as the champion of Christians, something Constantine did, and so did his father before him. Secular historians with no reason for personal bias are still divided on whether Constantine was a devout Christian or a self-interested politician who played along out of realpolitik, his recorded actions fit both hypotheses. Which means that if it was the latter, he certainly did a good job.
         Christianity was made the mandatory state religion in 380 by Theodosius, but by then, a very significant part of the population, possibly even an absolute majority, had become Christian of its own accord. Your notion that Christianity was an insignificant, obscure religion that Rome suddenly chose to pull off as a heist on the population does not stand up to historical scrutiny. And if, as you say, Rome always does everything with good reason and Rome had a self-interest in promoting Christianity, how come the three preceding centuries of Roman rulers never got the message, and instead ignored Christianity at best and forcibly suppressed it at worst?

         1. I never said Constantine forced Christianity on anyone because he didn’t. He simply created the Roman version of Christianity and standardized the Bible, which all modern Christianities are based on. Theodosius I forced Christianity on the entire empire. What’s your source that Christianity was the majority of the Empire by Theodosius? Fervent Christians from the middle ages? The Gauls forced Christianity on their people as part of their alliance with Rome. Regardless, Christianity WAS forced on the Roman Empire. The idea that Christianity was just accepted by the Empire is a myth. Most people preferred their old religions, thus why Roman Catholicism adopted so many pagan practices.

         2. How come the previous Roman rulers never got the message? The early Christians were blamed for the fire of 64 AD in Rome, probably because they were telling people to follow Jesus or burn for eternity. A major fire burns down most of the city, and what do people expect? Must have been that new cult. Besides, to the Romans all religions were ancient. The idea of a new religion was strange, just as it still is today. People are always suspicious of new religions. Think the Mormons in the 19th century, who were driven out of the USA to Utah but are now fairly mainstream. Same with Scientology. People are rightfully suspicious of new religions. Legend has it that Constantine’s mother was a Christian. Somebody certainly was a Christian and pointed out the benefits of a Christian empire. Keep in mind that the sources for Constantine were the early Christians, who obviously are biased. Finally, Rome was in desperate measures by the time Theodosius forced it upon the Empire. It was already in decline, especially militarily as they largely relied on the barbarians they previously conquered to protect the empire, which spelled imminent doom. Thus Rome had to get creative when it came to controlling their populations. The old religions clearly weren’t helping.

         3. All I can tell you is there’s NO WAY the dying Roman Empire would have went through the trouble of banning pagan sacrifice, and forcing Christianity upon everyone, unless there was definitely something in it for Rome! Incentive drives everything. Politicians back then certainly knew that religions were a useful way to control people. See the quote someone else left below by Seneca the Younger, who died in 65 AD.

         4. Constantine was a fairly well developed orthodox Christian world view. His personal correspondences suggest he wasn’t creating Christianity at all but had received his faith via traditions in his own family and in the existing Christian community. Nicene was simply a discussion with a handful of ground rules than nearly all Christians already accepted. You could still worship Jove and Mars or Baccus if you wanted.

         5. Christianity was a monotheistic religion. It draws people together in a much easier way than pagan religions where each area places specific importance on a certain God not a singular God. That’s more than likely why India and the sub continent is the only holdout of polytheism. Yet Christian belief had a redeemer character that was born very much in the occult. Differing from the sterile pagan beliefs. Christianity also gives you the ability to conquer to convert to prostethise otherwise you are a bad Christian. Huge incentive to keep the military industrial complex going. That and it’s far easier to tell people about some poor carpenter rooted in Jewish tradition than multiple Gods serving multiple purposes. Polytheism is far more complex to be an adherent of than monotheism.

         6. Yes, everything about Christianity is engineered to make it spread. Note how the Catholic Church always forbade birth control, even pulling out, and only allowed penis to vagina sex. You had to promise to raise your kids in the church. They wanted to keep those Catholic babies coming. The only exception was the early Christian obsession with perpetual virginity. It’s since been downplayed greatly to virginity-until-marriage, but the Bible strongly emphasized that Christians should remain virgins until Jesus returned. Forever a virgin. Every sect that tried to do that (ex. the Puritans) drove themselves to extinction. Evolution by natural selection.

         7. And your source for this is… early Christians? Hopefully not Eusebius. Constantine claimed Christianity helped him win the battle that made him emperor, yet it’s funny that the Arch of Constantine, which celebrates that victory and which I’ve stood next to, has absolutely no references at all to Christianity. It actually contains references to the pagan god Sol Invinctus though. He originally placed his arch next to a colossal statue of Sol in the Roman Forum. The funny thing about Constantine is that he claimed he seen Sol Invinctus prior to being a Christian. Apparently this guy knew a lot of different gods. In fact, ancient leaders often claimed contact with the divine or that they were divine themselves. There’s nothing reliable about claims back then. Stories of miraculous events were a dime a dozen. Constantine set the groundwork for Christianity, but it was Theodosius who actually forced it upon everyone. So if there’s a guy who had the political motivations I talked about, it was Theodosius. Christianity turns barbarian warriors into meek peasants who are proud of how poor they are.

         8. Dude, your argumentation has gone steeply into conspiracy-theory-land. You offer no evidence for your position except for the notion that it would supposedly have seemed like a good idea to those who did it. You ignore the lack of any primary source evidence in favour of your position, and dismiss all primary source evidence to the contrary as biased, rendering your position unfalsifiable, as conspiracy theories often tend to end up being. Nor does your theory have any explanatory power that the mainstream historical view doesn’t have.
            Rome has no incentives, nor does any other state. Individuals have incentives, incentives that often lead them to act in ways that are contrary to the good of the state. Did it ever occur to you that Theodosius’s suppression of Paganism might actually have something to do with him and his supporters actually believing in the religion they claimed to profess, and simply make a push for supremacy for its own sake?
            Besides, your understanding of ancient history has holes large enough to drive a humvee through. Rome was not distrustful of new religions. While Christianity was suppressed, other, foreign Pagan religions rose to rival classical Greco-Roman Paganism, and no effort was made to suppress them. What Gaulish alliance with Rome? The Gauls were conquered by Rome way before Christianity appeared on the religious scene of Rome, and had been thoroughly Romanized by the time Christianity started to become a significant force in Roman politics. There was never any Gaulish polity in any kind of diplomatic relationship with Rome at the time.

         9. No I’ve seen documents…it’s rather depressing stuff. Have you looked at any primary sources? I’m not talking about the Donation of Constantine btw.

         10. http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780472028382/
             Start here, it’s an analysis of Constantine’s Law Codes. His choice of Constantinople as a capital was a stroke of Organizational genius too. It extended a badly organized Imperium into a Thousand year Reich.

         11. The primary sources for Christianity at that time are… wait for it… the Christians. There’s no conflict of interest there! Anyone who’s read Eusebius knows he was a propagandist. For 1,000 years one Church had control over all the information in Europe, as well as all the learning. So our view of history is undoubted colored with a Christian bias. How convenient that many anti-Christian works from that era somehow disappeared. The Christians in the middle ages must have simply forgotten to copy them. No conspiracy though. Trust the Catholic Church.
             Nothing is more unfalsifiable than the Christianity assertion that they “won” because they had the help of the one-true-deity. Of course, had another religion won out their followers would be saying the same thing. Obviously, Christianity gained favoritism among the emperors and prevailed for some reason. You say it’s just because they liked it. Perhaps. Perhaps that Christianity taught the subjugated to be docile and proud of poverty, pay taxes to Rome, honor their slave-masters, and honor the Roman government that was put there by God himself was something the Romans in power didn’t even notice. 😉 That’s what you’re saying, right?
             Sorry, the Roman government was distrustful of brand new religions. “New” religions that were established and imported from elsewhere? No. New religions that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and worshiped a condemned criminal executed by Rome (crucifixion was a Roman method of execution). Yes. Concerning Gaul, I actually was actually talking about Clovis, who adopted Catholicism for political reasons.

   2. It’s actually just the fall of an empire – the American empire. Those old civilizations were much the same. Rome, Persia, and Greece all had central empires surrounded by a bunch of proxy states that were controlled by puppet governments, and who’s culture was designed to imitate and appreciate the parent government’s. And so it is today, with much of Western Europe and Oceania simply acting as proxies for America’s will.
      No doubt a new western civilization will arise, probably even one founded on Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Christian faith. It just won’t be anything remotely similar to what America is now.

      1. You’re wrong. I know from first hand experience that the fall is equal, if not even greater in Europe. That’s why I was saying that our entire civilization is dying. The same ideas that plague North America are very vibrant in Europe as well.
         The Frankfurt School of 68 started in Europe – don’t forget that. There are parts of the US that have been far more shielded from cultural Marxism than any place in western Europe. Eastern Europe is a different story but that’s another topic.

         1. Cultural Marxism is a subversion tool employed by the former Soviet Union to bring down the west. Something I have written on my blog about, and something I am writing for the ROK after I finish this series.
            http://thedeclineofthewesternworld.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/collapse-by-subversion.html

         2. What was happening in Europe in the 1930’s? And after WWII which two countries completely chopped up and remodeled the geopolitical landscape in Europe to fit their own political aims? And which of those two countries eventually succeeded in holding on to the countries it had assimilated?
            No European country is a superpower. Not even close.

         3. Correct, no European country is a superpower, however Europe is a very interesting place. People keep going on about Europe fading, etc, but the truth is that following the raw devastation and destitution left by the world wars they bounced back astoundingly well.
            I would say the European recovery was flat out unbelievable. Ironically they did this with a mix of left and right ideals that meshed well with the attitudes of Europeans at the time, despite many people vehemently believing these days being polarized one way or the other with respect to whether the left or right is worthless.
            Today the EU has marginally more wealth than the US and a combined military might that’s staggeringly powerful, even if it not really right to consider the military of the EU as one united force.
            Having said that, one of the most surprising things about Europe is in the fact that a continent that for the longest time was characterised by conflict IS effectively now united, albeit somewhat tenuously.
            I can never bring myself to treat the claims that Europe is dying seriously. It remains probably one of the most vibrant places in the world and many countries that form the union still manage to top the charts when it comes to tech, standard of living and science.
            It’s got a hell of a lot of historical residue that’s fading but the civilisation there is still going strong.

         4. Much of the division of Eastern Whites and Western Whites is the adaptation to the white conquest of the North American continent. The Russians radically rejected capitalism and democracy for a long time. The British quickly reacted to it by generating a Liberal Democracy (pensions, healthcare, backed by trade and a navy etc) the Germans reacted by creating Bismarcks Social Democracy (same as above backed by an Army and heavy industry). Russia went for Autarky, then the Nazis took over Germany and generated an Autarky. The Autarchy model keeps getting battered by the Liberal Democracy model which is more US friendly and consumerist. Autarchy is more likely to be aligned with a form of Social Democracy and to be continually under mined by the US led liberalization project.

         5. That doesn’t really have anything to do with my point…

5. A knight or baronet is always called by his first name, so the correct way to refer to him is as Sir John Glubb in the first instance, and then as Sir John in future references. Could this howler be corrected please?

   1. Thank you for the correction, I will edit right away.

      1. Thanks… It’s easy enough to remember, but it does get a bit tricky with women, and that is where all the fun begins.
         The female equivalent of a knight is a dame, thus if Jane Smith is awarded that honour she becomes Lady Jane Smith. However, if Miss Jane Jones marries Sir John Smith, she does not become Mrs Smith, she is called Lady Smith. It’s the way you can tell if a woman holds the title in her own right or as a courtesy via her husband.
         Trust me, you do not want to call a Lady Jane, Lady Smith, as she will get very pissed off!

6. To have conquest you need legions of beta schlubs to follow orders.

   1. A soldier is far from a Beta, there has to be a commander though, else it becomes just a mob. The Mongols were no Beta’s, thats why the has all the in fighting.

   2. Our armed forces are ate up with beta males.

   3. Since soldiers are obedient badasses they can be classified as greater beta. Soldiers arent necessarily schlubs. Though they get tooled by the snakes of politics.

7. “After a tribe or nation bursts out, they will capitulate on their success, regroup and push on to conquer vast lands or overseas domains.”
   Thanks for letting everyone know you have been affected by the same brain rotting mind virus that is destroying everyone else’s brains. The word you were looking for is capitalize, you pseudo-intellectual cretin.
   Most of this article was copy pasted from your previous article. So much wasted potential.

   1. Unfortunately I have to agree with you. The author needs to check his wording and spelling. We are better than this.

      1. The spelling was originally capitalise, when using the proofread function it must have changed the word as it is set to American spelling and it could not recognise the word. I don’t use Z because thats not how its spelt.

         1. Spellcheck is the bane of english I see.

         2. “that’s not how its (sic) spelt.”
            heh. nobody learns european portuguese.

   2. Empires often lead to the dissolution of the founding stock. See the rapidly negrifying London and the brown out of places like Birmingham. So “capitulates” is infact a nice accidental twist. The provinces often drown the center.

8. Kick ass series. Love to read about history of empires. how they ride and fell. Great series

9. Good series….
   How can you talk about the Mongol invasion of the Song (China) without mentioning the Wen Tianxiang, hero and defender of the dying Song?
   “All men are mortal, but my loyalty will illuminate the annals of history forever.” – Wen, when captured, tortured by the invaders, who were attempting to force a surrender..
   [Wikipedia] Wen refused both and suffered for 4 years in a military prison before his execution in 1283. During this time he wrote the famous classics “Song of Righteousness” (Zhengqige), and “Passing Lingdingyang”.
   I’m disappointed at the glossing over of the conquest of china by the Mongols:
   “What ensued is a classic siege warfare. The Mongols camped and waited. They feasted on the supplies they captured whilst the Chinese starved themselves within the walls. Disease spread and the Chinese resorted to cannibalism in desperation.”
   It was a lot more complicated than “The Chinese sat behind their walls until they starved and ate themselves”. If that’s all they did there would be no China now.
   [Wikipedia] Kublai continued the assault against the Song, gaining a temporary foothold on the southern banks of the Yangtze. Kublai made preparations to take Ezhou, but a pending civil war with his brother Ariq Böke—a rival claimant to the Mongol Khaganate—forced Kublai to move with the bulk of his forces back north. In Kublai’s absence, the Song forces were ordered by Chancellor Jia Sidao to make an opportune assault, and succeeded in pushing the Mongol forces back to the northern banks of the Yangzi.
   It’s not like the Sung made no counter attacks and waited till they were conquered.
   I don’t know if it’s possible to figure out how or why, but it would be cool to see think about how China has been through all the 250 year cycle so many times. The Qin, Han, Sui, Tong, Sung, Yuan (mongols), Ming, Qing. Everyone of these were empires in their own right, most of them went through the 6 stages described in “The Fate of Empire”. As one empire fell, another rose, in one place, with the same people. I’ve read John Glubb’s “The Fate of Empire” but it makes not many mentions of China (probably the author was wise enough to have refrained from writing about a people he had little experience of – He talks about the Ottomans more since that’s what he’s experienced).”

   1. Hello. When I wrote this piece, I attempted to use a historical example to drive home the point Sir John was making about the Age of Conquests. As you correctly said, China underwent several cycles of empires, each being a different dynasty. Sir John lacked the knowledge of Asian empires, his knowledge was on European and Middle Eastern empires so that is what he wrote about.
      Sir John lamented not having enough time or resources to look into all the worlds empires. It would be a good idea, if you are interested, for you to write about the different Chinese empires within the fate of empires cycle. You can ask Roosh about authoring articles. That’s how I originally started.

10. Do you mind if I tell you a story about General Sir John Glubb?
    When he was first based in Arabia after the Great War the tribes in his region were constantly raiding each other to grab horses, camels and women. Sometimes this turned into nasty little wars, with lots of dead on both sides so Glubb had a bright idea.
    He sat down and came up with a set of rules to cover raiding and then got all the tribal chiefs to agree to obey the rules! The result was that they were able to carry on raiding each other, but the death rate sank to almost zero.
    Only the British could come up with a rulebook for raiding. Say what you like about the empire – it wasn’t all bad.

    1. Thank you for that story. That was quite funny.
       I have more praise than criticism for empire. As the satirists of the life of brian pointed out in a sketch: “what did the romans ever do for us?”
       

       1. Nice work @MarkAnonRok:disqus this piece made me go back and re-read The Age Of Pioneers.
          Keep ’em coming sir.
          

11. Empire creation = building structure & form out of the surrounding primordial swamp.
    Decline & dissolution = entropy just doing its thing

12. Doesn’t trying to capture civilizations in separate stages have a major logical flaw as being reliant on a narrative? This seems like a classic case of the narrative fallacy to me. I don’t take things seriously that depict complex events as a convenient step by step narrative–there are so many logical flaws with the methodology.

13. In the context of the individual human life, empires or civilisations mean absolutely nothing. It’s fun reading about them but what’s the use? Choiceless awareness.

14. People always forget a key point. Empires are near always a numbers game. They expand because of lack of domestic resources and their utility. The domestic elites then cut back on having children to maintain their lifestyle. Like the Romans who would only recognise heirs through wealthy marriage and the children who were a product thereof. Something to remember in today’s society is only ever dare sow your seeds in high born women. Christianity was a way of legitimising who people have children with and on the terms. Early feminism.

    1. Something to remember in today’s society is only ever dare sow your seeds in high born women. </i<
       Are you sure? Highborn usually means fucked genes and high sense of entitlement.

15. Examining the rise and fall of empires is definitely relevant…we are living through the decline of our own empire right now.

16. The problem in the western world is that people are living longer while at the same time population and productivity per person is increasing. There are not enough quality jobs. Young people feel trapped because there is no room for regular advancement anymore in the basic corporate system. It used to be when you hit your 50’s you were out of the work force and maybe died a few years later, now that is looking more like late 60’s and 70’s. The old system left room for new workers to move up the ladder every few years. Now its not uncommon to see someone in the same corporate level for 20 years.
    People today must self finance retirement into the 90’s. With pensions gone, SS very restrictive, and only 401k/IRA etc investment plans, once someone has obtain a decent position and pay, they stay until they are forced to leave. Blocking the road for others to move up. Modern financial advice is to stay employed as long as possible to minimize your risk of running out of funds and maximize what you can do when you decide to retire outright.
    If you want to get off the “western world is failing” band wagon:
    1: Stop looking to the big corporations to lift you up with a job and title. Start your own business or work for a small operation were you have actual responsibility and real value.
    2: Secure the ability to get time off when you want it and job flexibility. It is better than a maximum salary in a walled cube with 2 weeks a year time off.
    3: When you follow your own path, your friends and even your family will try to tell you to get a “real” job. Others will try to drag you down, ignore them.
    4: Jump early and don’t be afraid to loose what you have today. In your 20’s and 30’s you have a lot of years to recover from even the worst failure. Most of the world is in drone mode and don’t understand that escape is based on the willingness to loose what you have now in exchange for the possibility to do much more and have far more freedom. The old hack, 80% of business fail is fine, just make sure you plan on re-setting 10 times. It gets easier each time.
    5: Stay healthy and fit. Making sales, meeting people, everything is easier when you look and feel good. You are not well off if an easily preventable disease can put you in the hospital.
    6. Stop complaining and change what you don’t like in your own life. In the west you have that choice.

17. Excellent work on the stages of empires.
    I think the big difference between Conservatives ad Progressives is a subconscious recognition of those stages. Conservatives want to dig their heels and remain in the age of commerce or affluence. Progressives generally hate their empire and want to blaze through into decadence and decline.
    At the end of many an empire, including ours, there are soldiers from an earlier stage still fighting on the frontiers for something back home that is long gone.

    1. If conservatism is only delaying the inevitable. Is hurrying up the collapse preferable?
       Perhaps the collapse is the opportunity to lay the foundations for a future civilization. May we enjoy the decline the minimize the harm to ourselves.

       1. Sometimes the collapse is followed by a Dark Age.

          1. We are on the cusp of a really bad one.

18. I’m pretty sure we are in the end game with Russia. I just read two Opinion Editorials in the New York Times. One by Roger COHEN and one by Arnon GRUNBERG. Chuck SCHUMER rounded out the Shapiro coefficient. Anyway both OpEd a were about the Ukrainian issue. Cohen wants a war with Putin and so does Grunberg. Schumer wants the US to imitate California’s primary system to avoid extreme Rightwing candidates.
    Cheeky fucking Jews eh? A double tap shot in the NYT that destroys demographically the USA and the remnant of the Russian Empire. And as a bonus provokes war between blonds. How do empires end? Cohencidences.

    1. The US is already destroyed demographically. Obama is about to put the final nail in the coffin by one of his “executive orders” that will essentially give amnesty to a gazillion illegals.

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