I hate to be nitpicky about a meme but I love to be nitpicky. This claims is based on bullshit statistics that the author made up or bent to his will. The Ottoman empire alone shows this to be incorrect but Rome too stands out. Besides, what would an arbitrary amount of time have to do with the collapse of complex economic systems. Its bullshit idealism and I hate seeing it.
I am begging the US to collapse though
Also worth pointing out that, while America may be 249 years old, no one would consider it an empire for the majority of that time. Its debatable, but I would argue we didn’t really reach an empirical level of power until the late 40s, when we started taking over what was left of the British Empire’s influence over the middle-eas5.
The US has always been a settler-colony, but it became more Imperialist after World War I with the inter-ally debts. It became world hegemon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however.
Average. It’s just an average. I haven’t verified whether the number is accurate (and often it’s probably debatable what qualifies as an empire and at what point it fell) but some empires lasting way longer does nothing to disprove 250 years being the average lifespan.
The second part of what you said is still entirely correct of course, that number has no real predictive capabilities for the collapse of the USA.
It isn’t though, I have seen the original source of this claim and its bs. The author just picks and chooses when empires begin and end so that it fits their claim. I would concede the point if it were ever actually an average.
I mean yea that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest honestly, even outside of the number itself being pretty meaningless in the first place it’s very fuzzy what the actual dates are.
It’s not just Glubb. The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio also arrives at the 250 year number.
Cliodynamics and Structural-Demographic Theory suggests cycles of 200-300 years as well.
Of course this is incorrect, go look up an empire and see.
… Roman empire got over 1000 years, Ottoman’s got 623 years, Mongol empire only got 162.
…and Italy, Turkey, and Mongolia are still around, they’re just not empires anymore. They’re Nations.
“Average”
Mean, median, or mode?
Yes.
I take preference to the “Russian method” cut off the high and low score and mean them.
it isn’t an average, it’s a literal bs made up number
Sure, but that doesn’t change there will be outliers at both ends. And the lower end would likely have far more. So no matter the average, it would be on lower end of the max.
So if an empire and only one lasted to 1000, but others 5 years, or even days. It makes sense that an average around 250 is entirely possible.
if you want to go into statistics, normal average are useless for these things, as many empires last a few years, while others can last thousands. they don’t fall in a normal distribution, you might need a geometric mean.
but also, empire is such a vague term. did the Roman empire fall around the 5 century? or do you count Byzantium as the Roman empire?
Did England start with the Norman invasion? or was it from before and the Normans were just a new dynasty?
it’s something that’s practically impossible to count, what’s an empire? when it started/ended? and on top of that no normal distribution.
I don’t disagree, there isn’t a great way to quantify the data, I’m just making a discussion out of the main comment seemingly missing what an average is by talking about edge cases on the high end. Also their 3 examples, which I assume are the only 3 high end cases. Already have a massive discrepancy.
1000 and the next closest being ~600, it infers that long empires are few and far between.
there’s no average, that number was literally made up for some bs theory of empires.
it isn’t because it’s an “average” it’s literally made it, and it’s impossible to get, as whatever definition of empire will miss so many “empires”.
it’s multiple layers of bs.
No one’s arguing that dude, but that doesn’t mean people can’t point out and talk about someone who missed what an average is as well.
these where the first versions of empire that existed on this world and full of equal parts flaws and dumb luck as a result
the modern hybrid euro-colonial versions also have flaws and luck on their side, but, more importantly, they learn and adapt from each other and, as a result, have a pattern that we can now identify.
You do know what average means in this context, right? You divide the sum of the empires’ years by the number of empires.
Then it wouldn’t be reasonable to assume the US would collapse right at the average (mean) though. If the majority of empires collapsed at the same age (the mode) it would be different, but the mean tells you very little about when any particular empire will collapse.
The mean number of children per household is a decimal, that doesn’t mean any households have partial children.
Uh, yeah, not like this.
If you’re sitting around waiting for the empire to fall, then it’s never going to fall. Empires fall because people make them fall.
And it’s going to be achieved with blood…
Also, ask when Rome fell, historians wont agree on any specific date. They were never the top of the town afterwards, but the fall was more of a gradual multi-century tumble punctuated by hitting every rock on the way down.
A watched empire never falls.
it’s all fun and games until the emperor picks up a fiddle
Not exactly true. USSR, felt without a single drop o blood, most because it’s economic opening movement started too late. US government is taking actions that are isolating US commercially, increasing its debt and losing relevance in the world’s diplomacy.
Haha USSR no single drop of blood that’s a good one my friend
Along of it history, yes. During its dissolution, unless I am missing something, there was no fight.
The USSR wasn’t an Empire, which played into that. Further, the reforms it introduced weren’t because it opened up too late, but because they played against the socialist system of planning. The PRC’s approach to economic reform retained full state control and is focused on unity, rather than disunity, which is why it’s working.
Neither is US. The empire reference is related to the imperialist state policies. Not the same but similar to that was the policies of USSR with other countries of the Soviet block and what Kzar Putin is trying to do with th Baltic’s today.
Your point of view about the Glasnost, Perestroika and consequently the dissolution seems more from the structuralist point of view (which is valid and revelvant for the dissolution), while my argument is more from the economic point of view.
In a very pragmatic way, the closed economy model of USSR imposed many of the issues that deepened the structural problems (like you mentioned) and accelerated the dissolution. Based on Gorbachev own opinion, the Chernobyl disaster was the start of the dissolution: combination of a repressive internal policy creating a fertile environment for corruption, burocracy and inneficiency, together with an outdated industry caused by isolationism.
US seems to be doing the same: closing its economy, negationism, losing diplomatic relevance, …
Although a completely imbecile, Elon is right in one point: there is only one party in US right now, and it is not even remotely aligned with what the Americans need/desire. Same type of structural corrosion that brought the Soviet block to dissolution.
The US is absolutely an Empire, it practices imperialism, by which it extracts vast wealth from the global south. The USSR didn’t do that.
Further, I’m absolutely focused on economics. The Soviet economy slowed, but was still growing. The dissolution of the USSR was multifaceted, complex, and not boiled down to one failure. Further, its conditions are entirely different from the US, which is a decaying Empire, the fruits of imperialism are diminishing and disparity is rising.
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, economics are core to my analysis.
Saying that USSR didn’t extract wealth from other countries in the block, treating them as colonies is a huge stretch. All the political control was crntralized in Moskow, Russia promoted a vast resource extraction, specially from Ukraine, imposed language suppression, cultural assimilation and demographic engineering e.g. Holodomor.
No, this is wrong.
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The Soviet economic system was federated and planned. The political control in Moscow wasn’t absolute by any stretch.
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The various Soviet Republics were not colonies, not by any stretch. Resources and goods were shipped around the whole system as needed, not just imported into Moscow.
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There was no forcible cultural assimilation. There was a huge effort to cultivate a soviet identity, but there wasn’t an attempt to erase cultural identity. The famine in the 1930s was caused by natural causes, not “demographic engineering,” grain was re-allocated to Ukraine once it was known that there were famine conditions. There was forcible re-allocation of various ethnic groups like Koreans, which did exist, but this isn’t the same claim you made either in scope or character.
So no. The USSR was not imperialist, not by the correct concept of imperialism as a form of international extraction, nor the vague “Soviet Bad” thing you tried to make it out to be.
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Comrade, this is number 1 bullshit.
Rome lasted 1,480 years.
in b4 someone says that it is an “average”.
that number is made up BS anyways
Forget about averages, his post isn’t even factually correct. Rome did not last 1,480 years.
depends how you define Rome, from 753bc and the Byzantine empire lasted all the way to 1453CE. so Rome lasted longer if you count it as the Roman empire.
The Roman Empire began in 27 BC with Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. It eventually split in half in 395 AD. The Western Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself, fell in 476 AD. The Eastern Roman Empire, or the Byzantine Empire was centered on Constantinople, not Rome.
yhea, but they still considered themselves Roman.
the point is that it is impossible to determine when exactly an empire begun or ended.
we could argue for weeks and the Roman empire, and that’s just one of countless empires.
The point is Rome did not last 1,480+ years as you and the other poster claimed, not even close. Odoacer conquered Rome and became the first barbarian king of Italy in 476 AD.
tell that to the byzantines who claimed to be the successors of the Roman empire. don’t think they got the memo
The Roman Empire split in 395 AD. The Western Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself, fell in 476 AD.
No it didnt lmaooo
It’s not correct, but would be nice.
Mean, mode, or median?
What’s the standard deviation look like?
i’m more concerned with what the standard deviant looks like i got to keep up with my fashion
From post-apocalyptic raiders to antihero Casey Jones, weaponized and armored sports gear is always stylish and fashionable.
i feel like we’re less post-apocalyptic and more apocalyptic and maybe i should get more eyes
Empires don’t end, they fizzle out.
Does this picture originate from a comic?
I think it’s from a cute meme made for r/teens on Reddit … Or “teenredditors”… I dunno what the sub is called anymore…
Do you have a link for the comic? If it’s an Online comic.
It’s not. The meme (minus the text) is the whole thing.
Okie dokie.
Could have been an interesting full-story 😅
Real empires go for much longer.
The US will not be more than a shitstain in the pages of history.
