Throughout history, there is a couple of things that always holds true,
- The sun rises on the east and sets on the west
- Hot dogs are way better with ketchup than mustard
- All empires are doomed to fail
Alright, we know that 2 of those are true, one is a matter of opinion. This blarticle is about the last one on the list. All empires are doomed to fail.
Let’s look at some empires and why they failed…
The Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican state of ancient Rome and is generally understood to mean the period and territory ruled by the Romans following Octavian’s assumption of sole rule under the Principate in 31 BC. It included territory in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. The Roman Empire is one of the most iconic empires in history. Its expansion started from the Roman Republic, and it grew to encompass vast territories. The Roman Empire is not considered the largest in history despite how extremely long it was active. The Roman Empire lasted approximately 500 years, mostly due to its administrative capabilities, technological advancements, and a very effective military force. The reason the Roman Empire failed was due to Political unrest, civil unrest and economic factors such as taxation, inflation, disrupted trade routes and decline in agricultural productivity which translated for today would be the equivalent of no jobs or people weren’t willing to do that job anymore, most likely because they all wanted to be on social media, which for that time was the person putting on the plays.
The Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. The empire also controlled a southeastern region of Central Europe from the 16th to the late 17th century. At the height of its power (16th–17th century), the Ottoman Empire spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire, an Islamic superpower, ruled much of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe between the 14th and early 20th centuries. The reason the Ottoman Empire failed was due to Political unrest, civil unrest and economic factors. The buzz was that the Sultan wasn’t interested in running the empire and just wanted to hang out in his harem, according to social media accounts of the time.
The British Empire. The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The British Empire and Mongol Empire were the largest and second-largest empire in history, respectively. At its greatest extent, early in the 20th century, the British Empire comprised nearly a quarter of the planet and an equal percentage of its population. The reasons the British Empire failed, I’ll give you three guesses, Political unrest (nobody really liked the Kings back then), civil unrest and economic factors. According to the social media of the day, these Kings were unjust and down right grumpy old douche bags. To be fair, they weren’t in power when the British Empire was actually a force, they had already established a parliament.
What all these empires have in common, besides wanting to conquer everything in sight, was that their failures were the result of the same circumstances. Political unrest, civil unrest, economic factors and the social media of the day played it’s role. While the younger generation might balk at my assertions, “they didn’t even have iphones back then”, they had other things like books and leaflets and while I understand the younger generations position when you tell me “what’s a book and you can’t even write on leafs” (I know it’s leaves but they don’t) it nevertheless holds true that social media, from gossip to todays high tech innovations, like blogs, always played a role in dismantling these empires. So what do you do?
The latest outcry was of a woman who posted Osama Bin Laden’s (OBL) excerpts to tik tok, (a social media website and how do you write on a clock?) that is seen as an afront to democracy. The woman seems to agree with Bin Laden and his lunacy and everyone older than 32, that would be 10 years before September 11th, 2001, are outraged. How can this woman do that and lets ban Tik Tok because we don’t agree with her. Well, there goes the first amendment and here comes the civil unrest, we already have the political unrest and all we need now is a good old fashion depression where the wealthy get richer and the poorer get poorer (To be completely honest, she might have not known who he was and thought he was some kind of musician “You down with OBL, no! not me”). I’m kidding, sort of, as to this lady’s posting OBL excerpts would lead to a nationwide unrest. And I’m not saying to “not” ban Tik Tok for any other reason other than the first amendment, like you feel that social media website is controlled by a foreign country that is purposely sending out misinformation and trying to create discord in a foreign adversary or they are using it to spy on America and Americans, that’s a legit reason to ban any website or social media if it’s true. The symptoms are there though, right? And I hear complaining about it but I don’t hear any solutions. If you think that technological social media sites are creating harm to a democracy, what are your solutions for the problem. Well, I have a story.
My son was doing good in school but I noticed that on the days that he spent more time on his Switch, a Nintendo game console, he would have more problems in school, so I put a time limit on when he could play and how long. 30 minutes on school days as long as he did his homework and did some extra studying and it would have to be off 1 hour prior to him going to bed and 2 hours on weekends as long as he exercised and went outside to play for at least double that time. Maybe it’s time that we do that to our younger adults, maybe all adults, and have these Social Media companies reduce the allotted time for social media to each person to one hour per day on the weekdays and 2 hours on the weekends. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it. That wouldn’t go for the people that actually make a living on social media and the companies would have to determine who they are by viewership or other means. Who knew that our adults need adult supervision. The government and the social media companies could figure out all the finer points on how to make it work and the adults can try to find ways around these rules but I think that some rules are needed. Or (do you like how I start my sentences with articles) we can keep things the way they are, keep bitching and complaining, not coming up with solutions. Watch as American ingenuity goes the way of the Dodo bird and we let this Empire, the American Empire, disintegrate. My bet, which I’m pretty sure I could find a place in Vegas that would take it, is that this Empire comes to a screeching halt in around 100 years. Some people say I’m pretty good at procastinating, wait, that’s wrong…. prognosticating. I was so close.
Also, talking with that woman that posted OBL’s excerpts to find out why she thinks that, might be a greater help than calling her all kind of numbnuts remarks to her face on social media. Obviously, she has her reasons and as misguided as I think they are, she might not. That’s where a good education comes into play, I think. Some civil discourse instead of civil unrest.
And here’s another crazy idea, to relieve political unrest, how about if we get rid of parties, now calm down…. I’m not talking birthdays, I’m talking political, you can still go to your all nighters and raves. How about if there wasn’t a D or an R in front of some ones name at a ballot and they just ran on their values and principles… Crazy huh… I better watch out for the butterfly net.
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