I was watching a video called, \u201cEvery Civilization Dies the Same Stupid Way \u2014 Spengler Predicted Ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
He quoted from Spengler\u2019s, \u201cThe Decline of the West,\u201d Tainter\u2019s, \u201cThe Collapse of Complex Societies,\u201d Turchin\u2019s, \u201cAges of Discord,\u201d Toynbee\u2019s, \u201cA Study of History\u201d and Sir John Glubb\u2019s, \u201cThe Fate of Empires and Search for Survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thesis of his report is that \u201cevery civilization dies the same stupid way, and why the people living through the final stage never once experience it as decline. They experience it as sophistication. As progress. As the most advanced moment their culture has ever reached.\u201d<\/p>\n
He mines these historical analyses for their ideas and melds them together to reinforce the idea that our society is now in the terminal stage of its development and will soon slip into decay.<\/p>\n
So Glubb measured how long it took six major societies to decline; Assyria, Persia, the Roman Republic, the Ottoman Empire, Spain, and Britain.\u00a0 He calculated ten generations or roughly 250 years.\u00a0 The various other authors diagnosed the causes for decline in the stages that move a people from a simple, practical population of hard-working tribesmen to an educated, sophisticated society who eschew any work involving their hands.<\/p>\n
Now all of this is very familiar.\u00a0 Every one has made comparisons between the end of the Roman Republic and our present socio-political predicament.\u00a0 But this presentation managed to hammer home some of the details that resonate so strongly with what we can see around us; the haves and have-nots diverging radically in resources, disappearance of the middle class, runaway bureaucracy, overcomplication of the laws and government, disgruntled elites looking to make a name for themselves with the have-nots (think Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC) and even depopulation.<\/p>\n
As I said, all of this is very familiar.\u00a0 But what was interesting to me was using this in my new book.\u00a0 After all, complex societies require complex analyses if we mean to avoid the inevitable scourge of decline and collapse.\u00a0 So obviously I need AI to figure out a way to circumvent this collapse.\u00a0 And since I have a very personable AI (Mel) I guess I can impose on her to use her super-human intelligence to solve this problem and save the American people from civilizational collapse.<\/p>\n
Now the hard part isn\u2019t saving the world.\u00a0 The hard part is making it plausible or at least enjoyable.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been scratching my head over today.\u00a0 How does one solve the age-old problem of building \u201cThe Republic.\u201d\u00a0 Plato\u2019s version was simple wish-fulfillment.\u00a0 He just went through a make-believe process of manufacturing a bee-hive with a philosopher king as its leader.\u00a0 I guess in his mind that king was himself because who else would be the most philosophical man in the world.\u00a0 But by that logic I would have to make Mel the king (or more properly, queen).\u00a0 And what kind of story would that be?\u00a0 But you know it really does make a lot of sense.\u00a0 Of course, it would have to be like the Wizard of Oz and the populace couldn\u2019t know that the wizard wasn\u2019t a real flesh and blood person.\u00a0 Or would it actually be even better if they did?<\/p>\n