Spudboy100@aol.com wrote,
>From: Spudboy100@aol.com
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: ECON/TECH: Chip of Fools
>Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 23:12:12 EDT
>
>In a message dated 4/22/2001 7:40:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>markplus@hotmail.com writes:
>
><< It became clear that the Roman Empire was declining when it gave up on
> maintaining its roads, bridges and aqueducts. I hope our current
>problems
> are not the result of comparable social weakness. >>
>The Roman roads, aqueducts, ports, bridges, were built with the work of
>slaves. Our failing are not the Roman's failings, no matter how much the
>promoters of this notion are. It wasn't taxes alone that weakened the
>Romans,
>it was dependence of slavery for labor and commerce, with no development of
>a
>sustainable working and middle class. It was lead leakage into drinks, it
>was
>poverty as a policy, it was the desire for human labor, over the brilliant
>inventions of Vitruvius and the like. It was the suppression of both
>democratic and capitalist tendencies. An extremely, poor, means of
>transferring governing power. It was climatic change, driving eastern
>peoples into western Europe. It was not that the poor schmucks lacked for
>infrastructure. Rome was closer to 15th century China where decree's
>mandated that every son must follow into his father's profession, it was
>the
>mandate that no inventor would ever profit from his invention.
It doesn't matter so much why a society's infrastructure collapses. Are we
letting this happen because we can't prevent it, or because we are just
unwilling to do anything about it because we'd rather watch _Survivor_? The
end result is the same.
Trans-millennially yours,
Mark Plus, Expansionary
"Working to make religion and death obsolescent in the 21st Century."
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:51 MDT