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.
