The content outlines a strategic, multi-stage process for the deliberate decline and destruction of an empire, emphasizing that such a feat is achieved not through external force, but by systematically dismantling its internal cohesion and meaning.
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This is how to destroy an [music] empire.
empire.
You can't just destroy an empire. An
empire in its golden age is a fortress.
It spans large sws of land. It has
economic supremacy, cultural supremacy,
military supremacy. It dictates laws,
standards, rules, norms, moral codes,
belief systems, even trends and
innovations to its constellation of
territories and allies. All of whom are
loyal to or at the very least dependent
[music] on its dominion. The empire has
the perfect combination of internal
cohesion and external projection, which
is the symbiosis that makes it
untouchable. Empires are built to last
generations. They're built to beat down
invasions. They are built [music] to
endure. And yet, empires fall. All of
them. In fact, every empire at one point
thought it would last forever. No empire
ever did. It's very reasonable to assume
that any empire will end at some point.
This process can be invisible for a long
time and [music] it can take centuries.
But what would you do if for whatever
reason [music] you wanted to speed up
that decline? You won't destroy an
empire by shooting arrows at the gate.
The only way to destroy an empire is
from within. Step one, wait.
Yeah, you don't actually need to do
anything. That's because the empire will
execute step one for you. A famous essay
by Sir John Gul posits that every empire
in history follows the same six stages.
The sixth and final stage in this theory
is called the age of decadence. Around
the mid 8th to 9th century, the Abbasid
dynasty oversaw the Islamic golden age
and brought the center of power and the
center of knowledge to Baghdad. Trade,
tribute and tax revenue along the Silk
Roads brought wealth. And in the house
of wisdom, scholars translated [music]
texts and practiced mathematics,
astronomy, medicine, and philosophy. The
empire splurged on luxuries, in part to
uphold a reputation, in part because it
could. Elites competed for influence,
[music] and the court culture inspired
tales from a thousand1 knights. And at
some point, prosperity turned into
luxury, investment turned into spending,
and intellect turned into hubris. This
is a pattern we can find echoed across
millennia. All sorts of empires fell
into the same trap. And the reason why
is both simple and discouraging. [music] Psychology.
Psychology.
A behavior that's wired into the human
condition. We just can't help it. An
early analysis of empires comes from
Iben Khalun in 1377 who argued that
empires grow because of a disciplined
frontier tribe and empires decay because
prosperity creates luxury and luxury
weakens [music] character. The first
generation retains the desert qualities.
desert toughness and desert savagery.
Under a life of ease, the second
generation changes from the desert
attitude to sedentary culture and from
privation to luxury and plenty. The
third generation then has completely
forgotten the period of desert life and
toughness. It is in the fourth
generation that ancestral prestige is
destroyed. We humans have this pesky
tendency to repeat the mistakes of our
ancestors even when we know the outcome.
Worse yet, we usually do it while being
fully convinced that something like that
could never happen to us. The first
thing the empire loses is ambition. At
the [music] top of the world, the
urgency is gradually sucked from the
empire. It transitions from a force for
conquest into a creature of comfort. And
rather than dealing with big existential [music]
[music]
issues, its people now have the time and
privilege to focus on smaller matters,
first world problems, if you will. As it
launches at top the world, thinking
[music] itself untouchable, it becomes
comfortable, content,
complacent. Step two, bloat the empire.
The road to hell is paved with good
intentions. The dangerous thing about
decay is that it sneaks up on you every
step of the way. Destructive measures
might look entirely logical. First world
problems are great. They're great for
the empire because they mean there's no
real problems, but they're great for you
[music] because they give you an opening
to make your first move. It's hard to
oversee massive territories. [music]
You're going to help the empire install
some processes to maintain order, put in
place systems to handle recurring
matters, regulations to keep things in
check, licenses to moderate [music] new
things, committees to review those new
things, institutions to monitor all the
things. In short, you're going to create
a massive bureaucracy. All that means a
greater administrative burden and things
are going to run a little more slowly
than they used to. But such is the price
of stability. You can't run an empire
like a startup. Keep the empire focused
on its small problems. After all, first
world problems are problems, too. It'll
become great at regulating daily life
and slowly it will lose the ability to
deal with a real crisis. There's no
reason to worry though because the
empire has no real crisis to deal with.
But if you say wanted to sufficiently
handicap the empire to ensure it would
become too sluggish to react to internal
threats that might arise [music] in the
future, well that's how you do it. Step
three, eradicate meaning. What makes an
empire great? A great empire is the sum
of the greatness of its people. Now
greatness necessitates the pursuit of
purpose. A great leader makes his people
feel invested in the success of the
empire because they find personal
meaning in its dominion. [music] While
many elements make up the whole, we can
pinpoint a few that hold the population
together [music] like none other. And
that's faith, family, and a common
identity. Faith provides us answers to
the unanswerable, a shared moral code, a
recipe for the virtuous life, and a
window into the infinite. [music]
Family provides us a safety net. Love, a
promise of continuity and the longevity
of our values. A common identity, be it
national or transnational, shields and
preserves these values and gives us
something worth protecting together. The
Roman Empire first cultivated polytheism
and later Christianity. Marriage,
inheritance, and ancestor veneration
were held in high regard. Men were to
safeguard the [music] family just as
citizens were to safeguard the state. Civismanosum,
Civismanosum,
I am a Roman citizen, was the ultimate
sense of [music] belonging. The Islamic
dynasties practiced Islam, obviously
considered the family the foundation of
moral and social order and spread their
language, culture, and teachings across
the empire. The Western Empire most
strongly upheld its values in the
decades following World War II, which
elevated the West into the dominant
superpower and the epitome of individual
liberty. Christianity permeated the
empire. The nuclear family was
idealized. The west and its allies
became the first world, English the
world language. And for all of us alive
today, throughout most of our memory,
the west sat at the top of the world.
Meaning gives structure. To destroy the
empire, destroy meaning. [music] But how
do you subvert such fundamental values
of a population? You're going to gain
access to the empire's communication and
information channels, state
institutions, its schools, mainstream
media. At this point, you don't shape
public opinion by putting a politician
on stage. You shape it subconsciously.
You're going to channel your messaging
into the [music] empire without anyone
noticing over the span of decades. Of
course, it's basically impossible to
gain control of the media, communication
channels, and school curricula across
several countries.
>> And this is extremely dangerous to our democracy.
democracy.
>> Basically undoable, right?
Weaken faith. Faith is stronger where
needs are greater. The wealthy empire
where all needs are met and the desire
for divine intervention naturally
decreases gives you an opening. Turn
faith from a fundamental principle into
a private pastime. Lower it from its
pedestal. Make it optional, a preference
of the older generation and offer
alternatives to the younger ones.
Juxtapose the teachings of religions
with the findings [music] of science.
present science as the enlightened
choice source of provable answers [music]
[music]
and natural scientists become the most
respected intellectuals. Just be careful
not to mention that some of the world's
greatest scientists were stern believers
in God. Question the inhibiting [music]
teachings of religion, make it something
regressive, the antithesis to freedom.
As public opinion [music] shifts away
from faith, it also shifts from the
moral code anchored within faith and our
morality is basically pulled from under
our feet. Once that happens, you'd be
surprised how quickly morality becomes
malleable. Fragment the family. The
concept of family was never meant to be
political, but today it is. Where's
that? The family is definitionally
crucial to the continuation of the
empire. No babies, no people, no empire.
Because of that, and [music] for
evolutionary reasons, the empire
celebrates the family unit and shields
it. But what if Disney princesses
suddenly become girl bosses? See, the
empire should support any path [music]
its people, including its women, might
choose. But what if it supports one path
more than the other? Is that still
support? Or is that conditioning? Heroes
in movies [music] become heroins rather
than pregnant Disney princesses tell
stories of rebellious warrior [music]
women. Schools teach girls not to
celebrate their feminine strength, but
that [music] strength is inherently
masculine and that to be strong, they
need to be like boys. Motherhood then
becomes something mundane. [music]
Anyone can make babies, but who can run
a startup? You'll direct loyalty from
the family [music] to the workplace.
Girls grow up learning. Strong women
don't need a man. Erase identity.
Growing nations and empires always steer
their people towards the things that
[music] unite them. For a nation, there
would be things like language,
tradition, culture. Just like we're
proud when our sports team wins [music]
the World Cup, we're proud when our
nation does well. For an empire, the
unifying factors would be deeper things
[music] like a shared moral code,
philosophy, or governance system. So,
how could identity become such a touchy
subject? Maybe because someone like you
showed up and questioned the very
morality of national identity. Someone
who asks, "Why are you proud of your
culture? Where you born is no
achievement." Someone who casts doubt
over the very history of the empire,
[music] removes its heroes from the
curriculum, tells not the stories of its
success, but cautionary tales of
ruthlessness in its past. How can you be
proud of your culture when your
ancestors did bad things? Few [music]
things accelerate the decline of the
empire, like convincing its people that
they don't deserve their spot at the top
of the world, that they in fact ought to
apologize for their identity, better
yet, find a new one. When you take away
the people's sense of belonging, you
have [music] to replace it with
something else. And that's exactly what
you're going to do. Enter hyperindividualism.
hyperindividualism.
One of our many human traits is our
gravitation towards community. Which is
to say, if you don't act quickly, the
people of the empire will regroup, but
you want to keep them fragmented. You
want to divide and conquer. economic
differences, cultural differences,
biological differences, religious
differences, normal differences that can
actually complement each other unless
someone like you makes them
irreconcilable. Weaponize differences as
symptoms of inequality. [music]
Everyone is special. Being normal is no
good. Elevate niche subcultures over the
mainstream. Make identity something
fluid, something political. People will
begin to measure their differences by
degree of privilege. The empire now
faces a dilemma. People demand fair
[music] treatment. But that means
different things to different people and
in its impossible pursuit of equality,
the empire necessarily sacrifices
excellence. Step four, open the gates. A
large empire naturally harbors many
different peoples and cultures. Much
like the Abbasid dynasty during the
Islamic Golden Age, heart of global
trade and home to all kinds of people.
[music] This works so long as order is
maintained. It stops working when one
fragments the population from within.
Sort of like you've been doing for a few
decades now. Remember what we said at
the beginning? You can't destroy an
empire by charging at the front gates. [music]
[music]
But what if the gates are opened from
the inside? What if out of manufactured
guilt, [music] the empire simply drops
its defenses? From the 9th century
onwards, the Abbasids increasingly
brought in specially [music] trained
Turic soldiers as elite guards for
several reasons, but one of them was
that the local guards were considered
politically unreliable and
factionalized. Meanwhile, the Taric
soldiers didn't concern themselves with
the local politics and so they were
deemed immune to court conspiracies. But
that also meant they held no real
loyalty to the court or its culture. The
Abbasids underestimated both the number
of Turk [music] soldiers they needed and
their cohesion as a group. And at one
point, the Turk guys realized they could
simply kill Khalifas they didn't like
and install new [music] ones. They could
seize power from the empire which was
already too internally fragmented to
defend itself. While the Turkish
soldiers were not directly responsible
for the eventual downfall of the Abbasid
Empire and that was the Mongols, they
further weakened an already fragmented
Rome. Basically, they made things worse.
If the integrity of the empire is
intact, then a controlled mingling of
peoples and cultures poses no threat.
[music] But it takes no genius to
understand what happens if you first
fragment the empire on the inside and
then open the gates for anyone to come
in and wreak havoc. Step five, install
puppet leaders. So far, you have bloated
the empire. You've slowed its reaction
times. You've loosened the strings that
hold it together through subversive
messaging. Those methods are effective,
[music] but take time. But there comes a
point in the decay of an empire where
trust in leadership necessarily falters.
This is the point where you [music] step
up to actually rule. Which is to say,
you won't put your face on display.
That's not your job. You'll forever be
in the shadows pulling the strings from
behind the scenes. What you need is
someone to do your bidding. Someone
malleable, a puppet leader. An exhausted
society becomes governable by whoever
promises [music] stability. And that's
you. Never mind that you actually helped
create the instability in the first
place. is they don't know that. They
don't know you. You'll give the people
what they think they want. A perfect
[music] candidate, good enough to
collect votes, but not good enough to
rule. A demigorg who says things people
want to hear, regardless of whether it's
actually conducive to anything, he's
going [music] to force his opponents to
make similar outrageous promises or risk
almost certain defeat in the next
election. Politics now becomes a
popularity contest. If done well, you
don't need to force your puppet leader
onto the people. You can simply fake his
legitimacy. Front pages, [music]
scripted interviews, cameos, staged
rallies, PR, left, right, and center.
It's [music] not too hard to install a
puppet leader if you control the media.
You should, of course, pick your puppet
leader well. It should be someone
predictable, [music] someone who depends
on you, someone who becomes utterly
powerless if you cut funding [music]
from NOS's, foundations, and donors. So
long as you get your puppet leader
elected, [music] you're good. Then you
just handpick his advisers who make the
actual decisions behind the scenes.
Rinse and repeat. Congratulations. You
now influence governance. Step six,
shatter the economy. A couple
generations have passed in the empire.
The younger citizens simply don't
remember the olden days, and they're
certainly not learning about it at
school. They had no share in the days of
prosperity. All they've inherited is
economic hardship and political
polarization. By now, the empire feels
the consequences of your actions, like
low birth rates, or leaders who spend
the treasury like there's no tomorrow.
These things put an economic strain on
the empire. The empire's currency
gradually devalues and becomes less
desirable for foreign trade. Life
becomes less and less affordable. Mind
you, the empire has an incredibly strong
[music] economy that can certainly
handle some setbacks. Empires,
especially long-lasting ones, will
always go through ups and downs. What's
important is that they retain their spot
at the top of the world. Where it gets
dangerous is if a competitor for the
throne arises precisely when the empire
stumbles. Now, that would be very
unfortunate. What damage could such a
competitor do? Well, he could start
chipping away at the edges of the
Imperial territory by luring factions
into his own structures. [music] Build
trade routes, offer investment, expand
his indirect influence in the Empire's
realm, fracture economic loyalty to the
empire. Step seven, move the red line.
We've talked about the erosion of
meaning, but how about eroding
definitions altogether? Most of us don't
realize the destructive power of
vagueness. Order is built on
predictability. Let's look at the red
line. Red lines frame the society of the
empire and define the thresholds of
acceptable conduct. A red line can be a
law or it can be a cultural or societal
code. Different [music] societies lay
their red lines in different places.
That's why in some countries there's
capital punishment while in others there
isn't. It's why Singapore will punish
you very harshly for drug offenses that
the Netherlands might [music] not even
prosecute. How the red lines are defined
is less important than that they are
defined as it is [music] by their virtue
that a society maintains order. But what
if you move the red lines? What if in
fact you keep moving them until they
disappear entirely? [music]
Let's look at an example. One of the
empire's red lines is do [music] not
steal. Theft is incompatible with a high
trust society. That's a clearly defined
red line. Take something that isn't
yours, you'll face punishment. [music]
Now, you can't just barge in and say,
"You may know Steel. The empire may be
divided, but it's not an empire of
savages." Though, you will be surprised
how far you can move this red line.
Actually, maybe you won't be surprised
at all. Put the absolute into
perspective. [music]
Ask a reasonable question. Stealing is
bad, but what if you steal because
you're starving? [music]
Can we really treat a father who stole
to feed his hungry family the same as a
greedy robber? Appeal to empathy. Make
morality conditional. Remember, you
removed the basis of people's moral
code. So, this won't be too hard.
Compassion creates a crack in the
absolute. And you can now move the red
line, even if just an inch, from do not
steal to do not steal, unless you're
starving and it's bread. Shift [music]
blame. Once the red line becomes
circumstantial, you can argue that
thieves don't steal for the fun of it.
They steal because they have no other
choice. The father who stole to feed his
family is no longer just a perpetrator. [music]
[music]
He's a victim of a broken system.
Consequently, simply going after thieves
does little more than treat the symptoms
of an underlying disease. And it's
better to focus on the cause instead,
which is inequality. By moralizing the
motivations of thieves, you imply that
their very prosecution might be immoral.
Rationalize the undefined. You've
declared some theft as acceptable, and
so crime inevitably rises. But hunting
down all [music] those thieves costs
money, taxpayer money, and resources
which are needed to go after actual
criminals. [music] Is it really worth
jailing a thief who stole $1,000 worth?
If doing so costs tens of thousands of
dollars a year, shouldn't you prioritize
those who pose a real danger to society?
Not to mention the risk of prison
overcrowding. More often than not, one
who walks into jail a pigpocket comes
out a hardened criminal. And who wants
that? The red line moves again from do
not steal unless you're hungry and it's
bread [music] to there are bigger
problems than theft. This gives you
enough room to cash in your gains. Say
with a law that lowers the penalties for
low-v value theft. Maybe a law that
allows you to steal up to $950 worth of
goods without serious repercussions.
After all, that makes the justice system
more [music] efficient, right? The
empire builds a tolerance for theft. The
people of [music] the empire don't gaslight.
gaslight.
You've made thieves into victims, theft
judicially irrelevant, and the [music]
prosecution of small-time offenses
morally reprehensible. Police will stop
pursuing [music] low threshold theft,
and prosecutors will reject low-v value
cases. The cityscape [music] changes.
Stores look up products behind glass.
Some board up the windows, others can't
absorb the losses and close down. Trust
in each other, and trust [music] in law
enforcement is largely eroded. The
Empire cultivates mercy to the guilty at
the expense [music] of the innocent. Red
lines serve a purpose. Once you take
away the ability to define rules and
morals, [music] you take away the
ability to enforce order. And without
order, it's only a matter of time until
your society collapses. Step eight,
beware the great man. Checking in on the
empire. It's a fragmented mess. And the
world has begun to notice. Since you
began your quest, decades have passed
and technology has evolved. It could be,
for example, that your monopoly on truth
has been dissolved by, I don't know, the
rise of social media. It's no longer as
easy to plant narratives. Anybody can
now share information with the world,
and you've lost one of your main tools
for mass control. But not to worry,
while you might no longer be able to
dictate opinion, you can still distort
it by flooding the court of public
opinion and further radicalizing the
fronts. And actually, social media
algorithms will help you with this.
People will know what you're doing, but
by now they'll be too divided to attack
you, too busy attacking each other. That
doesn't mean you're out of the woods,
though. In fact, it's at this point that
you might just fail if you're not
careful. Because if the people are
lucky, then the decay of the empire will
birth your ultimate antagonist. An
empire on the verge of collapse is by
[music] no means doomed to fail. It's at
this point where decades of paralysis
and division might become secondary,
where the people might recognize their
existential [music] threat, and they
might agree to set aside their
differences, provided someone
successfully reminds them of the one
thing they have in common, the desire
for rescue. And this is great man
theory. A great man is truly the last
thing you want right [music] now. A
capable leader with the ability to
channel decades of frustrations against
[music] your system. Yeah, if you're not
careful, someone's going to actually fix
the empire. This has happened before.
The Roman Empire nearly collapsed during
the crisis of the 3rd [music] century.
50 years of invasions, plagues, economic
freefall, fracturing borders, unstable
leadership, and undisiplined army,
assassinations of emperors left and
right. [music]
In 270, Aurelion became emperor, and he
actually managed to do the unthinkable.
He defeated several enemy forces at the
borders and [music] reasserted Rome's
territorial control. He purged corrupt
military factions and restored
discipline introduced new coinage and
addressed inflation. [music]
His work paved the way for another
emperor, the occlesian, which is another
lucky coincidence because having so many
capable leaders so close together
chronologically and geographically,
well, that's really something. Anyway,
the occlesian's reforms built on
Aurelian's [music] rescue mission, which
some argue extended the lifespan of the
empire by years. Some even say
centuries, [music]
and some even say over a millennium.
Now, this sort of comes down to your
philosophy. All of which is to say it is
possible to bring an empire back from
[music] the abyss. What it takes is a
capable leader, and those are really
rare, but they will come about every
other century or so. We also call this
the great man [music] theory of history,
but that's a topic for another day. All
you need to know at this point is that
you should pray you don't run into an
actual great man cuz it'll really ruin
your day. [music] That said, great men
are very rare. And if none emerges from
the chaos, if in fact the opposite
happens and the empire faces competitors
for the throne amidst insurmountable
internal division, then you've reached
the final stage of your operation. Step nine.
nine.
Wait again. The first and last step of
your plan are [music] identical. Let
things run their course. The empire, the
impenetrable fortress, first lost its
ambition, then its meaning, then its
unity, and finally its spot at the top
of the world. An empire doesn't just
collapse. See, even you had to wait for
the empire to give you an opening. And
even you had to spend decades [music]
trying to accelerate the demise. Would
this have happened without your input?
Maybe, maybe not. But certainly not like
this, and certainly not this quickly.
And at any point in time, it's quite
likely that the Empire could have turned
things around with proper leadership
that unites its people. Empires fall for
a long time, and it will take years more
for the empire's territory to fragment
and the last of its influence [music] to
decay. How long you need to wait, that
I know what you're thinking. Sounds like
quite the conspiracy theory. And who
would play such a long game for the
destruction of an empire? And why? To
install another form of power?
Yeah, probably. And just to be clear,
don't try and [music] destroy any
empires. Doing so will cause
unimaginable harm. You'll divide
peoples, destroy lives and livelihoods
over generations.
It would take an order of unspeakable
evil to pursue such a path.
Luckily, that stuff only exists in
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