Roman History

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One characteristic (a very successful one) in Roman empire/republic - that they were "culture-assimilating conquerors" , in other term, they didn't really destroy the local cultures/religions of the culture they conquered (like Egypt, Greece and Canaan) but instead they 'romanized' them while even adopting things from these cultures - hence increasing their citizenship body and hence their military manpower. This lessened rebellions and increased loyalty to the empire.

Their main rival, Carthage, had a different way of expansion, which was basically expansion through trading treaties with local tribes, founding phoenician settlements here and there, and hiring more mercenaries for wars. It was also a successful expansion way, but it was way more costly than the Roman one to maintain it.

While Romans weren't really nice guys (they enslaved people and threw slaves to lions for fun...etc )but their conquest ways was pretty opposite to Fascism, Islamic, and Mongol which are basically 'Destroy everything and rebuild'.
In the fictive Dune universe, Romans are Atreides, Carthaginians are Ordos, and Huns are the Harkonnens.

I think it's irrelevant to compare modern fascism (which is an ideological political movement) with Rome which was an empire built on economic and military expansion

The Romans were an elitist warrior society that gave special privileges to it's citizens and treated slaves worse than animals. One rather disturbing thing was that a wealthy Roman senator wrote was after watching a magic trick where a magician took his slave and cut his hand off, he uttered some magic words and the hand (apparently) walked back to it's owner then a sheet was thrown and miraculously the hand was re-attached.

The wealthy Roman wanted to learn the trick so took all his house slaves to the magician and asked him to do it again. Of course the magician couldn't replicate the trick and every slave painfully lost their hands. After putting his poor slaves through this torture the furious Roman had the magician executed.

I think it illustrates that even though Romans were taking the first infant steps of civilisation the aristocracy were psychopaths, a characteristic probably nurtured over thousand years of warrior tribalism

That's something I've noticed all throughout history, and in even parts of the modern world. People behaving in ways that we would attribute to violent psychopaths, or severely mentally ill individuals. I have to wonder if the development of a conscience is in large part a product of the modern world.

Are the modern elite aristocrats less psychopaths though? look at Bachar el Assad and Kim jong example.

Let's say that common, everyday people behave better for the most part.

That’s probably more cause they can’t afford to get away with it rather then moral. If society collapsed tomorrow and there were no police most people will loot, rob, and kill others to get whatever they want, it’s only police that keep most everyday people behaving.

Isn't it more a matter of the inherent human psychological element:
"Power corrupts...
Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely..."
Even Frodo, in the Lord of the Rings, ultimately couldn't let go of the ring of power...

There are more checks and balances these days creating a moderating effect combating one's inherent lust/will to power...

If there were no consequences for one's actions, I dare say most would degenerate into hyper egocentricity...
Humanity, as a species, is a very unpleasant evolutionary creation...

... and yet the people of the Amazon Rainforest manage to survive peacefully without any earthly leader or supreme being.



What do you mean by "society collapsed"?

Society can never fully collapse because society is a product of human instinct. People always create cooperative communities.

Human history shows us that humanity is almost never chaotic. Most human behavior that appears chaotic just has a different type of order that you do not recognize. When one form of society dies, another one replaces it. All human beings want to live in a world where some things are a surprise, but most things are predictable.

The Yanomami (Amazon people) might not have A Supreme Being---but they have MANY Supreme Beings.

Ok, replace "If society collapsed" with "If some random person found the ring of Gyges". If that ring made him not only invisible but undetectable by any means, would he commit crimes? Would he become rich from stealing? Would he surreptitiously murder his enemies?

If yes then people behave morally only because they want to avoid punishment. If no then people behave morally for some other reason.

Anyway, aside from their power and wealth, are aristocrats really so different from ordinary people?

Probably not.

Most people don't have "natural bloodlust" ... at least not for human blood. When ordinary civilians commit mass murder, it is usually a product of mental illness or political propaganda.

Wanton murder isn't addictive, but political power is. That's the real challenge that we humans must overcome.



Power often leads to power addiction. That's what makes them different from us.

Would he peek in locker rooms?...

Some people are born with an inherent moral compass...
But power changes people usually to their advantage and at the cost of others...
Axiomatic...

You telling me they don’t have any kind of organization system that punishes crime or bad actions? Doubt it.

You wake up tomorrow, the us government is gone, the military is gone, the police are gone any form of government and it’s services are gone. People are free to do whatever they want without any punishment. There’s lots of people waiting for this. One group train and plan to raid their neighbors for supplies and rape the women for fun. Think old west towns that were far from government but worse, even those towns had some form of law and order. There a lot of people who’d do bad stuff if they didn’t have any punishment to worry about, example every natural disaster while police are busy rescuing people thousands start looting and this is just region that’s effected. Imagine say if tomorrow we suffer solar flare that mocks out power in the us for two years. The government doesn’t have the forces to control 320 million starving people. Do your not think people will kill for food? Or to steal wealth. Sorry only thing holding us from turning into the purge is the police and criminal justice system, most people don’t want to go to prison, so they don’t do bad stuff, they do as much as they can get away with and some go to far and get caught, take away that system and there’s nothing holding them back anymore.

And while that one is collapsing and before th new one can form thousands or millions die in the chaos. Will the chaos last forever will the bad people prevail forever no. But that doesn’t change what I said thst people will do bad things if the punishment is gone. If we made murder legal tomorrow, murder rates would go up. I have no faith in humans to be good without law and order. I’ve meet and seen too many people who’d do whatever it takes to make sure them and their family do ok, if that means killing strangers they’ll do it. I can only pray I’m not alive when such an event happens. Imagine Katrina but all over the nation and there no government to come to th rescue. Eventually cities and communities will form and they fight other communities, some will conquer and form new nations, but there will be lots of death in the mean time.

While the collapse of society, and law enforcement with it, doubtlessly would bring out the worst in some people, I think it's also true that it would cause other citizens to step up and attempt to bring about order again.

I think that should be obvious. The European colonial powers and Arab/Turkish empires expanded through military violence.

They live in small societies in which everyone knows everyone else and the natural resources are available to everyone who knows where to look, so it's entirely possible.



Nope.

In such a scenario, the mega-corporations would likely hire mercenaries to do their bidding and create a different sort of law. This would happen almost immediately.

In a technological society, the people who own the earth's natural resources almost always emerge as authority figures. This does not happen in pre-technological societies because controlling the natural resources is impossible without modern technology. In a civilized society, democracy is the only thing that can prevent absolute authoritarianism.



The community would immediately be horrified by this and they would try to prevent it.

Then, the new mega-corporate overlords would make rape illegal in order to gain the trust of the community.

You seem to think that rape is a natural form of sexual intercourse. In The Descent of Man Charles Darwin proved that sexual consent exists in the natural world and that many aspects of male anatomy only make sense in light of this fact. His arguments, to this day, still hold true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection_in_humans



They actually had far more law and order than most people think.

In the old west, many saloons owners did not allow firearms in their saloons and most of the cowboys respected this rule.

It usually takes more than a disorganized mob to conquer an entire continent.



Most people are naturally disgusted by rape and murder. Thus, punishments can and do emerge in societies without solid legal codes.

People do often steal during natural disasters, but not because the law has broken down. In natural disasters, food is often scarce. Oftentimes, good people will resort to theft in order to avoid starvation.

Addionally, heroic acts occur during nearly all natural disasters.





First, you imply that people just naturally kill one another for the lulz. Now, you acknowledge that people who kill are often driven by starvation. Big difference.

Yeah, some people would kill for food, but we would also see some stories of food being shared in areas where it is abundant.



... and yet the human species managed to survive for thousands of years before solid legal codes existed. How did children survive in such a world? How did pregnant women survive? Altruism must be natural.

Addionally, there are plenty of things that people do not do even though they are technically legal. It's legal to annoy people intentionally, but most people just don't do that.



New order would establish itself almost immediately because the government isn't the only organisation that seeks order. As I already demonstrated, our society already has order which goes beyond the order which is written in the legal texts.



Murder is generally a product of mental illness, scarce resources, political propaganda, or a combination of those three.

What if the education system was perfected and people had access to both free food and free healthcare? We could make murder legal and the murder rate wouldn't go up.



Once again, you are reinforcing my point.

When people don't need to kill humans in order to protect their families, they usually don't kill humans.



This wouldn't happen. Instead, the mega-corps would create the new order.

Would they wage war? Well ... yes. They have a long and ugly history of waging war in order to feed their power addiction.

Another Thing: I can't afford to have no faith in humanity. I'm a working man. I have to deal with real people on a daily basis. I can't spend my whole life thinking that all other humans are scum.

In the past, you admitted that you are on welfare. That explains a lot. I've noticed that welfare autistics often become misanthropic grouches.