[ExI] Free will was: Everett worlds

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2020 at 4:19 AM Dylan Distasio via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 8:50 PM Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>> I'm curious why the comparison is always with the Roman _Empire_ and not with the Roman _Republic_. And the Roman Empire lasted quite a long time, especially if you consider the Eastern part survived long after Rome "fell." (It's hard to draw a line too of when exactly the Eastern part ended. Surely, long before Constantinople fell, but still long after the city of Rome fell to outside rulers.)
>
>
> It just so happens I have a healthy obsession with ancient history with a focus on the Romans.  It's all as a layperson, but I've been obsessed with that time period (and the barbarian successors in the West) since I took four years of Latin in high school.
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> Anyways, any comparisons between the US and any part of Rome are very tenuous at best IMO.  I'm not even sure they really rhyme, let alone repeat.   That said I picked the Empire versus the Republic because of the expansive umbrella of the US's influence in the world from WW II forward.
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> As far as the fall of the actual Roman Empire, the Western half arguably fell not with a bang but a whimper in 476 Anno Domini under the inauspicious reign of the boy emperor Romulus Augustulus.  It was already coming apart at the seams long before him though.   Once the Praetorian Guard abandoned their sacred duties and started both assassinating and appointing emperors
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> The Eastern Roman Empire arguably was finished somewhat ironically at the hands of the the West during the 4th Crusade.   Yes, it took the Turks and a very large cannon a few hundred years later to bring down the actual Theodosian walls, but the East never really recovered from the damage done during the 4th Crusade.

The Roman Republic, though, had an expansive influence too. Yes, the
Empire reached further, but the Republic grew explosively going from a
city-state to really an empire that was only a bit more extended under
the actual Empire (Egypt, Britain, a bit more of Western North Africa,
and eventually Dacia). The Republic when it started to intervene in
the Eastern Mediterranean seemed to be doing what the US did during
the late 20th century in Europe (and the world, I guess) or the 19th
and early 20th century in Latin America: playing hegemon and backing
sides in all local conflicts. Of course, the US from its early days
already having imperial ambitions and those played out in North
America first, though they were always rhetorically disguised -- hence
the myth of an immaculate conception of the US. (We can start even
earlier with the Ohio country: British North Americans having designs
on the region while they were still part of the British Empire and
that project instigating the Seven Years War.)

And the US now is more like the Late Roman Republic than like the
Roman Empire in many more respects, don't you think? Yes, it's still a
loose and abused comparison. (I see many alt-right types online trying
to ask what stage of the Roman Empire is the US at now -- as if
they're mapping the course of a disease they can play doctor with. Of
course, it's true, too, that the Roman  Republic and Empire were
loaded with conservatives who saw decadence and decline in anything
that moved away from supposed Roman traditions and virtues. That's
what conservatives do though: see anything new or different as a
threat that will bring on a fatal decline.)

Regards,

Dan
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