[p2p-research] Fwd: a very interesting essay on the collapse of the roman empire

[Paul D. Fernhout]

Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> I'd suggest the Roman Empire looked the same from inside the city of 
> Rome. You look at all the armor being produced, all roads, all the great 
> speeches given in Rome, and you say, wow, isn't Rome productive, when 
> all the time, the production is just like a tick growing so it can suck 
> more blood out of its host (the Roman supply regions).

I've been thinking on this analogy or Rome to a parasite, and it can be 
extended.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitism
"Although parasites are often omitted in depictions of food webs, they 
usually occupy the top position. Parasites can function like keystone 
species, reducing the dominance of superior competitors and allowing 
competing species to co-exist."

One might imagine that over the centuries, one could suggest the supply 
region to the city of Rome developed some sort of immune response by the 
European host to the Roman parasite. So, the "fall of Rome" could just be 
seen as a parasite-host co-evolutionary process. For example, the Geramic 
tribes and other "barbarians" can be seen as people who, over centuries, 
developed strategies to thwart Roman parasitism.

In nature ofter parasite-host relationships can lead to collapse of the host 
population (over-exploitation), to resistance by the host to the parasite 
(perhaps leading to the extinction of the parasite), or to symbiosis of host 
and parasite (where both get some mutual benefit). So, collapse is not 
always the result of parasitism.

There are many examples of successful mutual relationships in nature -- 
lichens are a classic example.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichen
"Lichens ... are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic association 
of a fungus (the mycobiont) with a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont or 
phycobiont), usually either a green alga (commonly Trebouxia) or 
cyanobacterium (commonly Nostoc). The morphology, physiology and 
biochemistry of lichens are very different to that of the isolated fungus 
and alga in culture."

More on symbiosis:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis
"The definition of symbiosis is in flux, and the term has been applied to a 
wide range of biological interactions. The symbiotic relationship may be 
categorized as being mutualistic, parasitic, or commensal in nature.[3][4] 
Others define it more narrowly, as only those relationships from which both 
organisms benefit, in which case it would be synonymous with mutualism. 
Symbiotic relationships include those associations in which one organism 
lives on another (ectosymbiosis, such as mistletoe), or where one partner 
lives inside the other (endosymbiosis, such as lactobacilli and other 
bacteria in humans or zooxanthelles in corals). Symbiotic relationships may 
be either obligate, i.e., necessary for the survival of at least one of the 
organisms involved, or facultative, where the relationship is beneficial but 
not essential for survival of the organisms."

After Rome fell, the secret of making concrete was lost for a thousand years 
or so, which I take as an example of Roman culture and engineering not being 
widely dispersed past Rome, an so I'd suggest this indicates Rome (as a 
city) was more extractive than productive, retaining key knowledge to itself 
for its own benefit. The structures Rome needed to be a parasite (roads, 
outposts) to suck materials back to Rome were put in place, but not the 
culture of advanced engineering. There was some benefit to other countries 
it stability in some ways, the Pax Romana, but not enough compared to the 
costs to move to true symbiosis.

In the case of any parasitism by the US empire on the rest of the world, 
clearly there are some big differences. If the USA were to sink beneath the 
waves in some huge earthquake, people around the world still would know how 
to make computer chips and search engines and fiber optics. So, in that 
sense, the technology that often was refined in the USA has spread widely. 
US American culture has also spread widely in some ways (including by the 
internet, but it has also been a two-way process where the USA has changed, 
whether from importing African rhythms or Indian Yoga). So, there is more 
possibility for global symbiosis around some of the better aspects of US 
American culture rather than outright rejection of all of US America. In the 
Princeton University example, one can suggest as Princeton moves from a 
motto of "In the Nation's Service" to "In the World's Service" that there is 
a potential for symbiosis as opposed to host destruction or immune 
rejection. Still, one could see radical Islam as essentially an immune 
system reaction, for one example, to fiat-dollar debt-based Western banking 
(controlled partially by many Princetonians) as opposed to Islamic banking, 
etc. Exactly how that all plays out remains to be seen.

Anyway, working through parallels to ecology and evolution for the Romans or 
the US Americans is an interesting thought experiment, as would be 
generalizing these themes to any set of peer relationships. Obviously there 
are many differences too, given the complexities of overlapping social 
systems, and also given the changing historical context. In any case, the 
different possible outcomes of parasitism (collapse, rejection, symbiosis) 
suggests one can't draw a direct parallel between the collapse of Rome and 
what might happen to the USA.

--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/