Is it true that after a civilization's the peak of its power they go into a technological decline?

Is it true that after a civilization's the peak of its power they go into a technological decline?

Whenever I study a civilization at the height of its power, its decline and aftermath technology seemed to regress and eventually experienced a dark age. Like during the a decline infastructure is neglected and there is no improvement on existing technology.

I mean look at the Roman Empire for example

The Roman Empire had the most advanced set of technologies of its time, some of which was lost during the turbulent eras of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

source:

en.wikipedia.org...

When the Roman Empire fell some of their technological advancements is lost.

Is the American Empire gonna experience the same thing because I notice while there is some innovations on military technology there is no improvements on infastructure

reply to post by starwarsisreal


I think it's down to how much knowledge they can access at the time, I guess that doesn't really make sense though because we've made our way up to where we are from nothing. Creating or discovering a new technology can open a whole new world of things to explore, if they're able to invent something, like a microscope for example, then so much more is possible. If they fail to invent/discover these doorways then they may hit a dead end. I'm not sure what you mean by the America empire, because we share technology and knowledge worldwide. We can't really go backwards now unless there's mass devastation and it's all destroyed, we're too advanced to go back, there's so many doorways to discover new things.

reply to post by SpearMint


Well I notice some civilizations seemed to be in steady state in terms of technology before their fall

reply to post by starwarsisreal


Probably due to destruction or some event that caused them to lose what they have.

reply to post by starwarsisreal


Would that be a bad thing? With all your gadgets are you happy?

reply to post by VforVendettea


Depends on your viewpoint because right now I notice too many people are slaves of technology with technology when shtf people wouldn't last long

How much is lost really depends on the severity of what happens. If nuclear war happens, then Fallout looks like a pretty good possibility due to how much stuff and how many people would be annihilated. If a period of global famine or disease kills billions, there will still be disk drives and books filled with knowledge and people who can read and use them and potentially even people like engineers and scientists who lived through it.

Technological loss or gain is not depended upon a civilisation's peak, its initiation or at its fall. As long as there are civilised humans, there will always be innovation as invention is the mother of all necessity.

Regardless if the economics or politics of a nation rise or fall, that barrow will alway need to be improved upon - perhaps with rust free paint, with ergonomically designed handles to ease backaches, tractor wheels for better traction on wet soil, etc, etc, so as to improve productivity and bring more or better food onto the table.

Rome fell simply because they had no systemic political doctrine on hand to sustain,protect or enhance its mandate. It is a monarchy, rule of one, a tyranny, and a divided one, with both east and west roman civilisations existing at the same time, guaranted with petty squabbles, strife, jealousies and intrigue for domination.

The King alone made decisions and many of them were dubious if not outright insane, such as paying off invaders using roman war tech, with vast sums of gold it could ill afford, instead of a better more transparent and revolving and improved tech national army, such as what we have today in military organisations to prevent familiarity and loyalty to commander only. There was no trust in monarchial rome by roman citizens. Every citizen for themselves.

It was only a matter of time before it got invaded. The writing had long been on the wall, similar as with every single monarchial rule on Earth.

Should USA fall, unlikely as it is, technology will still advance, for no matter whom ruled the continent of the american plate, invention will always be the mother of neccesity, and innovation a second cousin to be upgraded and improved upon. It just that major leaps will be far slower than it could have been, should a repressive regime takes over.

However, if China's CCP tyranny regime FALLS and democracy is installed, current technology which had solely been copied or stolen from the west by its overseas students/workers and given away from the west to china by stupid greedy western corps, tech WILL grow by leaps and bounds.

Major cutting edge techonology need that creative space that a responsible free society can nurture, to experiment, to fail, then to correct them freely without losing their heads. Under repressive regimes bound by corruption and lust of power, tall poppies are often cut down.

Similarly with theocratic or authoritarian govs such as those in the middle east.

Hope this rather simplified analysis for easier comprehension had help you for your term paper or school project. ;-)

reply to post by starwarsisreal


What would be your idea on "improvements on infrastructure".? What does that mean to you?

reply to post by starwarsisreal


You are being overly simplistic and also ignoring actual history, instead you're trying to shoehorn a comparison between Ancient Rome and the US which isn't there.

Rome was in decline long before it's actual collapse as a result of a wide variety of reasons, far to lengthy to get into here, but suffice to say that Rome's peak was around the first century with a steady decline thereafter as a result of wars, plague, climatic events and a huge gulf between the have's and have nots over a period of several centuries.

It is also a misnomer that with the collapse of Rome, so did technology. In fact, the Romans themselves "forgot" some of their own tech long before Rome itself fell. On the flip side, one could argue that Roman culture also survived long after the fall of Rome, so much so that it could be said the last part of the Roman Empire to fall was Gwynedd in 1284. It varied widely across the old Empire.

To come onto your worries about the American "Empire", well, there is no such thing so I shouldn't worry about it's "collapse". The French, British, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian and Russian Empires (the list is not exhaustive) all ended and technology didn't regress.

So, in short, the comparison is a bad place to start from so the entire premise is moot. It instead smacks quite a bit of American arrogance in thinking that the world will cease to be should the US "collapse".

reply to post by stumason

You're trying to shoehorn a comparison between Ancient Rome and the US which isn't there.

I think the comparison is valid. But before we come to that...

Rome was in decline long before it's actual collapse as a result of a wide variety of reasons... (its) peak was around the first century with a steady decline thereafter.

Events move faster in a technologized world. The British Empire was, arguably, at its peak when Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Fifty years later, the jewel in the crown was lost; another fifty years and Chris Patton was stepping aboard that ship in Hong Kong harbour, waving goodbye to it all. It took exactly a hundred years for Britain to lose her empire.

I think we can expect to see a fairly rapid collapse of global, technological civilization, say within the next hundred years or so. As soon as we lose the ability to generate electricity on a mass scale, it will happen.

It is also a misnomer that with the collapse of Rome, so did technology.

Are you sure? Could the post-Roman Britons build viaducts, or even maintain the ones they already had? The history of Britain in the aftermath of the Roman withdrawal shows a steady regress of technology: no more centrally-heated homes, no paved roads, no Greek medicine or surgery. As the Empire shrank, the civil and military technology on which it was founded decayed and Europe relapsed into barbarism. It was largely in the Middle East, where the heart of the Roman Empire had lain in post-Constantinian times, that anything was preserved; that is why Renaissance Europe had to rediscover much of the lost knowledge of Rome from Islamic sources.

On the flip side, one could argue that Roman culture also survived long after the fall of Rome, so much so that it could be said the last part of the Roman Empire to fall was Gwynedd in 1284. It varied widely across the old Empire.

The Roman Empire ended with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

To come onto your worries about the American "Empire", well, there is no such thing so I shouldn't worry about it's "collapse".

This is the statement that provoked me to respond to your post. Of course there is an American Empire! You live in it – as a 'proud Englishman', you are one of its most favoured subjects.

America in the twentieth century discovered a new way to dominate the world. Rather than subduing other nations by force of arms, it has done so through economic and cultural dominance, with the threat of overwhelming military force always in the background should the conquered prove unruly. Within the American sphere of influence, which is truly global just as the British Empire was, no nation dares to do as it pleases if America pleases otherwise. Who stopped the British and French, together with their Israeli allies, from marching into Egypt and seizing the Suez Canal? The Suez Crisis was the true finis of the British Empire; since then, Britain has been nothing but an American puppet in international affairs. If that touches a nerve in you as an Englishman, comfort yourself by reflecting that the same goes for the

French, Germans, Japanese, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgians...

and yes, even the

Russians

...until wealth derived from that country's vast energy resources, plus a crumbling but terrifying nuclear arsenal, enabled it to shake off the American yoke it briefly wore after the collapse of Communism in the 1980s.

America rules the world today, as it has since the end of the Second World War. Its empire will not be long-lived, unfortunately; empires held by democracies never are, because of the glaring contradictions inherent in liberal self-government at home combined with coercive rule in the colonies. Imperial Athens had much the same problems in the fourth century BCE; read Thucydides and you will discover a wealth of similarities between the Athenian decline then and that of America now.

It instead smacks quite a bit of American arrogance in thinking that the world will cease to be should the US "collapse".

Agreed. But shall we prognosticate a little? The American empire exists, and will soon collapse; the writing is quite clearly on the wall. See the woes of Europe for what they really are; troubles similar to those experienced 1,600 years ago in Britain and Gaul when the Pax Romana began to crumble. Since the 1970s, America has lost all the wars it has fought apart from Iraq and Grenada, and in the former it has clearly lost the peace. It is over. China is not a contender for world empire; it is too insular and has too many other powerful opponents. We are on the threshold of a new Dark Age, in which much of the world will relapse into barbarism or anarchy.

reply to post by starwarsisreal


It has to do with the civilization reaching technological advancement, but when their spiritual advancement is not on par, due to the influence of religion, etc, they experience decline and destruction. You can not imbalance the two and expect harmony. Such are the ways of the Universe.

It all depends, rome may have fell that away a long with many other countries, but to show the other side of that story look at japans technology before and after world war 2, went from nothing (mostly military spending) to the tech powerhouse (hardly military spending)

When you consider the US was once a leader in education worldwide and now is average I can and do see a relation between a declining civilization tied to declining education levels combined to have a decline in Technology innovation.

However with globalization we can depend on the rest of the world for technology.

i believe that most of what happen to ancient Rome the fall and the loss of technology was due to the fact that the difference between the haves and have nots were so great that when the fall came only the haves had the knowledge an did not pass it on so as a result things like concrete, pluming,were lost until they were rediscover.
Can this happen in the U.S. No i do not think it can because although there is a large difference between the haves and have nots we have a much more literate populace than the Romans did unlike the Romans we educate even our lowest economic groups and they have a better chance to be a have.