In The Republic, Plato criticized democracy as deeply flawed and unstable system of government. He argued that democracy arises from oligarchy through revolt by the poor against the rich, which leads to excessive freedom. This “freedom” allows people to pursue unchecked desires without wisdom or restraint. It also allows self-serving demagogues — manipulative leaders skilled in rhetoric — to rise by flattering the masses, ultimately paving the way for tyranny, the worst form of government.
Plato’s key criticisms of democracy:
• Excessive Liberty: Democracy treats all pleasures as equal, eroding discipline and fostering chaos; relationships (e.g., parent-child, ruler-subject) become blurred.
• Rule by the Unqualified: Ordinary people lack knowledge of the good, so entrusting them with power is irrational—like letting the untrained pilot a ship.
• Path to Tyranny: Plato’s “ship of state” analogy and regime cycle show democracy devolving into mob rule, enabling tyrants who exploit divisions.
Plato’s ideal alternative is rule by virtuous leaders. However, he had no idea on how to create such a government. His proposal — his best idea — is to create “Philosopher Kings”: wise elites educated in virtue and reason from childhood, to prepare them to govern for the common good, not personal gain. However, Plato’s idea is still deeply flawed because it would create a class of aristocrats and elites from birth, structural inequality. Also, there was no guarantee that a child who was taught virtues would grow up to become virtuous: he could be a bad student.
Unbeknown to Plato, on the other side of the world, China was gradually creating a system of institutionalized meritocracy that would solve his problems.
While Plato was theorizing about “Philosopher-Kings” in Athens, China was developing a practical system that addressed many of the same problems he worried about. The keju — the Chinese imperial examination system — shaped by Confucian ideals and institutionalized through centuries of civil service exams, was essentially a real-world solution to the flaws Plato identified in democracy.
The keju system was a merit-based method China used for over 1,300 years in formalized form, with its intellectual roots stretching back more than two millennia, to select government officials. Instead of inheriting political power, candidates from across the country competed in standardized exams that tested history, governance, law, literacy, mathematics, and — most importantly — virtue. Keju prioritized the knowledge and practical application of Confucian philosophy and virtue, though the exact content and emphasis varied across dynasties.
In principle, anyone could sit for the exams, regardless of family background:
• The system had four main tiers:
1. Local / Prefectural exams (Tóngshì) — held in county seats or prefectural cities.
2. Provincial exams (Xiāngshì) — held in provincial capitals.
3. Metropolitan exams (Huìshì) — held in the national capital.
4. Palace exams (Diànshì) — held in the imperial palace and presided over by the emperor.
• The tiered system formed a strictly sequential meritocratic staircase. Success at each level conferred specific official titles, public offices, and the sole eligibility to attempt the next higher tier of exam.
• Application and registration fees were either free or nominal — the “paper cost” or, traditionally, “no more than a day’s meal.”
• During the Tang and Song dynasties, travel and living expenses for poor scholars were subsidized.
• In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the government established publicly-funded scholarship programs called Binxing, which could cover:
1. Juanzi Yin — exam paper fees
2. Lüfei — travel costs
3. Jiu Xi Yin — banquet or ceremonial fees
4. Occasionally, stipends for living expenses
• Funding came from local taxes on gentry, government resources, income from communal estates (Yizhuang), and other community contributions.
• These measures promoted fairness and social mobility, helping talented but less wealthy scholars overcome the main financial barrier: the cost of long-distance travel, lodging, and exam-related expenses.
Even today, the Chinese Communist Party’s system of governance is a continuation and variation of keju:
1. Guókǎo, the National Civil Service Examination, (not to be confused with the Gaokao, China’s university entrance exam,) screens candidates for administrative and technical competence, often favoring those with strong backgrounds in science and engineering.
2. A second, ideological exam, focused on Marxism-Leninism and Party doctrine, must be passed for advancement. In this role, Marxism-Leninism has replaced Confucianism as the “virtue” exam, serving as a bulwark against the corrosive influence of capitalism in the modern era.
Xi Jinping, famously, failed this ideological exam several times before eventually passing, illustrating how the CPC, like the imperial bureaucracy before it, combines meritocratic filtering with political gatekeeping.
The first exam ensures competence; the second ensures loyalty and reliability. Together, they form a modern, dual-tier version of keju.
So why couldn’t Plato imagine a system like keju?
He lacked three critical things that China had:
• Paper and printing – China invented paper and movable-block printing, making large-scale exams logistically possible.
• Mass literacy – Books spread knowledge widely, and printed exam papers allowed the state to test thousands of candidates systematically. In Ancient Greece—even in a city-state like Athens—exams on this scale were simply impossible. Without paper, printing, and the administrative infrastructure to record and track results, large-scale, merit-based selection could not be implemented.
• A bureaucratic worldview – Greeks thought in terms of citizens and rulers, with political power as a civic privilege. China thought in terms of administrators and bureaucrats, separating governance from personal status.
• A moral philosophy compatible with governance – Confucianism is explicitly political and practical, designed to train virtuous administrators. Platonism, by contrast, is abstract and speculative; it imagines the ideal, but doesn’t provide a workable method to implement it.
Plato had brilliant ideas about who should rule, but he had no way to create a system to reliably select, train, and sustain those rulers. China had the tools, the philosophy, and the institutional mindset to actually do it.
The debate between Western and Chinese models of governance should not be framed as democracy vs. authoritarianism. The real contrast is democracy vs. meritocracy. Western systems prioritize popular choice, elevating charisma over competence, while the Chinese tradition prioritizes ability, competence, and ideology — which functions as the contemporary value of “virtue,” though calling Marxist doctrine a form of virtue might upset a lot of people. It is not about freedom versus control. It is about selection by popularity vs. selection for skill.
I wondered if whomever runs Trump would be stupid enough for a major attack on Iran soon, it’d lead to major damage to the Empire according to most of the sources I see/hear, Col. Daniel Davis, Mearsheimer and Diesen, etc. I asked the Oracle if attack would come in the next 48 hours, and got the response:
Initial hexagram #7, “The Army”. Wilhelm translation says, “THE ARMY. The army needs perseverance/ & a strong man./ Good fortune without blame.” Well, “strong man” lacking. It also notes “strict discipline” cannot be achieved “by force,” must be organic.
The Hexagram Image states “Thus the superior man increases his masses/ By generosity toward the people”. Well, unless the “People”= the billionaires or the Zionist entity, we know this isn’t a Trump trait. 4th and 5th line move (though ruling line is 2nd of 6): 4th line states, “The army retreats, no blame.”6 in the 5th place means: there is game in the field./ It furthers one to catch it./ Without blame./ Let the eldest lead the army./ The younger transports corpses; then perseverance brings misfortune.” A side attack “in the field” (low-hanging fruit) may signify “an enemy invasion”, risk of a melee and chaos to the aggressor follows. So an early screw-up? 4th and 5th lines somewhat contradictory.
Progress backward to Hexagram 6, “Conflict.”
“CONFLICT. You are sincere
And are being obstructed.
A cautious halt halfway brings good fortune.
Going through to the end brings misfortune.
It furthers one to see the great man.
It does not further one to cross the great water.”
Critics have noted that the US has only sea/air power, and SEAL Team raids to e.g. kidnap leaders (a la Maduro, we still don’t know where the treachery was in Venezuela) won’t work. The “great water” is likely the Strait of Hormuz; full-on closure blocks 70% of world’s oil and crashes economies worldwide. Then ReThug prospects in mid-terms even worse. Trump needs a distraction from new Epstein Files releases today. A negotiated phony initial, short “war”?
Full scale attack result= Mideast carnage, Israel hit hard, possibly its regional allies also; Saudis, Emiratis and Qatar have said no US passage thru their air space. Does this hobble US full-on attack?
The Empire can’t win long-term, will it fuck it up short-term? Let’s watch. Rare in my experience for the Oracle to be 100% wrong. We’ll see.
KT Chong, thanks for those comments. I like: “The real contrast is democracy vs. meritocracy. Western systems prioritize popular choice, elevating charisma over competence.” But I don’t consider what the West has to be real democracy – it’s plutocracy/oligarchy (ex. the pigs of Orwell’s “Animal Farm”) with the rhetorical lipstick of “democracy”, and all the sheep that are our Western media are busy constantly bleating it to us over and over – and, unfortunately, the vast majority of the brainwashed 99.9% working animals foolishly fall for it.
So the real “real contrast” is plutocracy/oligarchy vs. a meritocracy that places the people (the working animals) first. Western systems prioritize the 0.1% over the 99.9%, and to enable that, they prioritize the illusion of popular choice and the illusion of success and superiority, elevating supporting narratives and manufactured illusions over competence.
cc: “I don’t consider what the West has to be real democracy – it’s plutocracy/oligarchy…”
Here is the inherent inevitability of democracy — including any democratic republic. Democracy backslides into “radical democracy” aka late-stage democracy, then oligarchy, then demagogy, and finally reaches its final form, dictatorship and tyranny.
It happened to Athens and Rome. It is happening to America now. America was modeled after Rome, which was in turn modeled after Athens — and America is now undergoing the same trajectory as Rome and Athens, except in a compressed timeline.
“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” — Lao Tzu
If you read a bunch of classical and important works on “democratic backsliding”, and you get a fairly consistent multi‑stage arc from democracy to tyranny that looks roughly something like this:
1. Late-stage democracy and republic: radicalized egalitarian, equality and freedom
2. Oligarchic capture inside democracy
3. Polarization, faction, and norm erosion
4. Rise of the demagogue = “people’s champion”
5. Emergency powers and hollowed‑out democracy
6. Personalist dictatorship: loyalty over competence in governance
7. Consolidated / totalitarian tyranny
America is currently speed-running through all those stages. It is now at stage 4, about to enter stage 5.
All these classics are available in videos on YouTube:
• Politics by Aristotle: Directly responds to Plato, distinguishes many sub‑types of democracy and oligarchy, and analyzes how faction, inequality, and demagogy cause democracies to slide toward “extreme” forms and then to monarchy/tyranny.
• Anacyclosis or “Cycle of Civilizations” by Polybius: Monarchy → tyranny → aristocracy → oligarchy → democracy → ochlocracy (mob rule) → back to monarchy. He explicitly refines Plato and shows how democracy decays into mob rule and then one‑man rule.
• Discourses on Livy by Machiavelli: Uses Rome to show how class conflict, corruption, and the loss of civic virtue drive republics toward tyrannies, describing very concrete steps: elite capture, popular backlash, emergency powers, then permanent one‑man rule.
Just wanted to thank Ian for recommending Fearless Writing a few weeks ago; I picked up a copy and got a lot out of it. Both tone and content reminds me a lot of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.
Just riffing, reminiscing, don’t know what happens to a life, it’s here now and gone then. We all die
Che Pasa passed on somewhere, Oakchair apparently rocked on. Blizzard of Oz got 86’d along with a couple of others in recent times who had something to say but jumped the traces.
Admonishment faces all us wiseacres. There’s a word for ya, wiseacres.
KTC reaches an ultimate conclusion about the rise and fall of empires, which is death and destruction.
Ok. So. The two most important events in one’s life are birth and death. There’s no one to provide therapy or counsel in either event, so you’ll somehow manage the in between on your own.
mago: “KTC reaches an ultimate conclusion about the rise and fall of empires, which is death and destruction.”
In the graveyard of empires…
Athens rose, fell, and never rose again.
Assyrian rose, fell, and never again.
Achaemenid (Persia) rose and fell, and stays dead.
Macedonian.
Roman.
Abbasid (Islamic).
Mongol.
Ottoman.
Spanish.
French.
British — still dying the slow death.
Only China rose, fell, and then rose again, and again, and again.
China has maintained a continuous core civilizational identity throughout all ages — an identity that was never erased or replaced by an external faith or culture such as Christianity or Islam.
If America falls, history suggests it will not rise again.
This is not true and it is not assurance of forever. Egypt rose and fell and rose again, for example, but eventually fell and it had a longer run than China has, by at least a couple thousand years. Persia has, in fact, risen and fallen multiple times. India has been unified before. Everything human falls eventually and China will be no exception.
None of that matters to us alive today, though. Any more than the inevitable fall of America mattered in 1890.
And America, being a continental power, may well rise again, though I hope not.
1. “Egypt rose and fell and rose again, for example, but eventually fell and it had a longer run than China has, by at least a couple thousand years.”
• Reality: Egypt’s Old → Middle → New Kingdoms spanned ~2,000 years, whereas China as a continuous civilization-state since the Shang/Zhou dynasties has lasted ~3,500–3,600 years — and it’s still going strong.
• Ancient Egyptian religion, writing, and worldview died.
• Hieroglyphs vanished; the last priests read them in the 4th century CE.
• Egypt never reasserted itself as a civilization-state on its own terms.
• Its cultural identity was erased, replaced, and supplanted repeatedly, most recently by Islam.
• Egypt has not risen as a world or regional power for over 2,000 years, after the final conquest by Rome in 30 BCE.
2. “Persia has, in fact, risen and fallen multiple times.”
• True — but NOT as a continuous civilization. Its identity was repeatedly supplanted.
• Achaemenid Empire (Zoroastrian / Persian) → Seleucid Empire (Hellenization / Greek) → Parthian / Sassanian Empires (revival of Zoroastrian / Persian identity) → Arab / Islamic Conquest (culture and religion wiped out)
• Once Islamization was complete, the native Persian-Zoroastrian civilization would never recover — that civilizational identity is gone, done, *poof!* never coming back.
3. “India has been unified before.”
• Reality: the last two major unifications were by Islamic empires, (Delhi and Mughal,) not Hindus.
• Historically, India as a native regional power — whether under the Maurya Empire (Buddhism) or the Gupta Empire (Hinduism and not pan-Indian) — lasted less than 500 years combined.
• Hinduism and Islam never assimilated each other. They never merged into a cohesive, integrated civilizational identity. This creates permanent structural instability.
• India and Pakistan already split once over religion. India is likely to split again due to Modi’s divisive, toxic Hindu nationalism while the country still has a large Muslim population — it’s just asking for trouble, further fragmentation, and serious internal conflict.
Over the past 4 years the word panic has appeared more times on youtube in describing political leaders than it has appeared in written form over the past 4000 years.
KT Chong
In The Republic, Plato criticized democracy as deeply flawed and unstable system of government. He argued that democracy arises from oligarchy through revolt by the poor against the rich, which leads to excessive freedom. This “freedom” allows people to pursue unchecked desires without wisdom or restraint. It also allows self-serving demagogues — manipulative leaders skilled in rhetoric — to rise by flattering the masses, ultimately paving the way for tyranny, the worst form of government.
Plato’s key criticisms of democracy:
• Excessive Liberty: Democracy treats all pleasures as equal, eroding discipline and fostering chaos; relationships (e.g., parent-child, ruler-subject) become blurred.
• Rule by the Unqualified: Ordinary people lack knowledge of the good, so entrusting them with power is irrational—like letting the untrained pilot a ship.
• Path to Tyranny: Plato’s “ship of state” analogy and regime cycle show democracy devolving into mob rule, enabling tyrants who exploit divisions.
Plato’s ideal alternative is rule by virtuous leaders. However, he had no idea on how to create such a government. His proposal — his best idea — is to create “Philosopher Kings”: wise elites educated in virtue and reason from childhood, to prepare them to govern for the common good, not personal gain. However, Plato’s idea is still deeply flawed because it would create a class of aristocrats and elites from birth, structural inequality. Also, there was no guarantee that a child who was taught virtues would grow up to become virtuous: he could be a bad student.
Unbeknown to Plato, on the other side of the world, China was gradually creating a system of institutionalized meritocracy that would solve his problems.
[Part 1 of 2]
KT Chong
While Plato was theorizing about “Philosopher-Kings” in Athens, China was developing a practical system that addressed many of the same problems he worried about. The keju — the Chinese imperial examination system — shaped by Confucian ideals and institutionalized through centuries of civil service exams, was essentially a real-world solution to the flaws Plato identified in democracy.
The keju system was a merit-based method China used for over 1,300 years in formalized form, with its intellectual roots stretching back more than two millennia, to select government officials. Instead of inheriting political power, candidates from across the country competed in standardized exams that tested history, governance, law, literacy, mathematics, and — most importantly — virtue. Keju prioritized the knowledge and practical application of Confucian philosophy and virtue, though the exact content and emphasis varied across dynasties.
In principle, anyone could sit for the exams, regardless of family background:
• The system had four main tiers:
1. Local / Prefectural exams (Tóngshì) — held in county seats or prefectural cities.
2. Provincial exams (Xiāngshì) — held in provincial capitals.
3. Metropolitan exams (Huìshì) — held in the national capital.
4. Palace exams (Diànshì) — held in the imperial palace and presided over by the emperor.
• The tiered system formed a strictly sequential meritocratic staircase. Success at each level conferred specific official titles, public offices, and the sole eligibility to attempt the next higher tier of exam.
• Application and registration fees were either free or nominal — the “paper cost” or, traditionally, “no more than a day’s meal.”
• During the Tang and Song dynasties, travel and living expenses for poor scholars were subsidized.
• In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the government established publicly-funded scholarship programs called Binxing, which could cover:
1. Juanzi Yin — exam paper fees
2. Lüfei — travel costs
3. Jiu Xi Yin — banquet or ceremonial fees
4. Occasionally, stipends for living expenses
• Funding came from local taxes on gentry, government resources, income from communal estates (Yizhuang), and other community contributions.
• These measures promoted fairness and social mobility, helping talented but less wealthy scholars overcome the main financial barrier: the cost of long-distance travel, lodging, and exam-related expenses.
Even today, the Chinese Communist Party’s system of governance is a continuation and variation of keju:
1. Guókǎo, the National Civil Service Examination, (not to be confused with the Gaokao, China’s university entrance exam,) screens candidates for administrative and technical competence, often favoring those with strong backgrounds in science and engineering.
2. A second, ideological exam, focused on Marxism-Leninism and Party doctrine, must be passed for advancement. In this role, Marxism-Leninism has replaced Confucianism as the “virtue” exam, serving as a bulwark against the corrosive influence of capitalism in the modern era.
Xi Jinping, famously, failed this ideological exam several times before eventually passing, illustrating how the CPC, like the imperial bureaucracy before it, combines meritocratic filtering with political gatekeeping.
The first exam ensures competence; the second ensures loyalty and reliability. Together, they form a modern, dual-tier version of keju.
So why couldn’t Plato imagine a system like keju?
He lacked three critical things that China had:
• Paper and printing – China invented paper and movable-block printing, making large-scale exams logistically possible.
• Mass literacy – Books spread knowledge widely, and printed exam papers allowed the state to test thousands of candidates systematically. In Ancient Greece—even in a city-state like Athens—exams on this scale were simply impossible. Without paper, printing, and the administrative infrastructure to record and track results, large-scale, merit-based selection could not be implemented.
• A bureaucratic worldview – Greeks thought in terms of citizens and rulers, with political power as a civic privilege. China thought in terms of administrators and bureaucrats, separating governance from personal status.
• A moral philosophy compatible with governance – Confucianism is explicitly political and practical, designed to train virtuous administrators. Platonism, by contrast, is abstract and speculative; it imagines the ideal, but doesn’t provide a workable method to implement it.
Plato had brilliant ideas about who should rule, but he had no way to create a system to reliably select, train, and sustain those rulers. China had the tools, the philosophy, and the institutional mindset to actually do it.
The debate between Western and Chinese models of governance should not be framed as democracy vs. authoritarianism. The real contrast is democracy vs. meritocracy. Western systems prioritize popular choice, elevating charisma over competence, while the Chinese tradition prioritizes ability, competence, and ideology — which functions as the contemporary value of “virtue,” though calling Marxist doctrine a form of virtue might upset a lot of people. It is not about freedom versus control. It is about selection by popularity vs. selection for skill.
[Part 2 of 2]
Mark Level
I wondered if whomever runs Trump would be stupid enough for a major attack on Iran soon, it’d lead to major damage to the Empire according to most of the sources I see/hear, Col. Daniel Davis, Mearsheimer and Diesen, etc. I asked the Oracle if attack would come in the next 48 hours, and got the response:
Initial hexagram #7, “The Army”. Wilhelm translation says, “THE ARMY. The army needs perseverance/ & a strong man./ Good fortune without blame.” Well, “strong man” lacking. It also notes “strict discipline” cannot be achieved “by force,” must be organic.
The Hexagram Image states “Thus the superior man increases his masses/ By generosity toward the people”. Well, unless the “People”= the billionaires or the Zionist entity, we know this isn’t a Trump trait. 4th and 5th line move (though ruling line is 2nd of 6): 4th line states, “The army retreats, no blame.”6 in the 5th place means: there is game in the field./ It furthers one to catch it./ Without blame./ Let the eldest lead the army./ The younger transports corpses; then perseverance brings misfortune.” A side attack “in the field” (low-hanging fruit) may signify “an enemy invasion”, risk of a melee and chaos to the aggressor follows. So an early screw-up? 4th and 5th lines somewhat contradictory.
Progress backward to Hexagram 6, “Conflict.”
“CONFLICT. You are sincere
And are being obstructed.
A cautious halt halfway brings good fortune.
Going through to the end brings misfortune.
It furthers one to see the great man.
It does not further one to cross the great water.”
Critics have noted that the US has only sea/air power, and SEAL Team raids to e.g. kidnap leaders (a la Maduro, we still don’t know where the treachery was in Venezuela) won’t work. The “great water” is likely the Strait of Hormuz; full-on closure blocks 70% of world’s oil and crashes economies worldwide. Then ReThug prospects in mid-terms even worse. Trump needs a distraction from new Epstein Files releases today. A negotiated phony initial, short “war”?
Full scale attack result= Mideast carnage, Israel hit hard, possibly its regional allies also; Saudis, Emiratis and Qatar have said no US passage thru their air space. Does this hobble US full-on attack?
The Empire can’t win long-term, will it fuck it up short-term? Let’s watch. Rare in my experience for the Oracle to be 100% wrong. We’ll see.
cc
KT Chong, thanks for those comments. I like: “The real contrast is democracy vs. meritocracy. Western systems prioritize popular choice, elevating charisma over competence.” But I don’t consider what the West has to be real democracy – it’s plutocracy/oligarchy (ex. the pigs of Orwell’s “Animal Farm”) with the rhetorical lipstick of “democracy”, and all the sheep that are our Western media are busy constantly bleating it to us over and over – and, unfortunately, the vast majority of the brainwashed 99.9% working animals foolishly fall for it.
So the real “real contrast” is plutocracy/oligarchy vs. a meritocracy that places the people (the working animals) first. Western systems prioritize the 0.1% over the 99.9%, and to enable that, they prioritize the illusion of popular choice and the illusion of success and superiority, elevating supporting narratives and manufactured illusions over competence.
KT Chong
cc: “I don’t consider what the West has to be real democracy – it’s plutocracy/oligarchy…”
Here is the inherent inevitability of democracy — including any democratic republic. Democracy backslides into “radical democracy” aka late-stage democracy, then oligarchy, then demagogy, and finally reaches its final form, dictatorship and tyranny.
It happened to Athens and Rome. It is happening to America now. America was modeled after Rome, which was in turn modeled after Athens — and America is now undergoing the same trajectory as Rome and Athens, except in a compressed timeline.
“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” — Lao Tzu
And America has burned so very brightly.
KT Chong
If you read a bunch of classical and important works on “democratic backsliding”, and you get a fairly consistent multi‑stage arc from democracy to tyranny that looks roughly something like this:
1. Late-stage democracy and republic: radicalized egalitarian, equality and freedom
2. Oligarchic capture inside democracy
3. Polarization, faction, and norm erosion
4. Rise of the demagogue = “people’s champion”
5. Emergency powers and hollowed‑out democracy
6. Personalist dictatorship: loyalty over competence in governance
7. Consolidated / totalitarian tyranny
America is currently speed-running through all those stages. It is now at stage 4, about to enter stage 5.
KT Chong
All these classics are available in videos on YouTube:
• Politics by Aristotle: Directly responds to Plato, distinguishes many sub‑types of democracy and oligarchy, and analyzes how faction, inequality, and demagogy cause democracies to slide toward “extreme” forms and then to monarchy/tyranny.
• Anacyclosis or “Cycle of Civilizations” by Polybius: Monarchy → tyranny → aristocracy → oligarchy → democracy → ochlocracy (mob rule) → back to monarchy. He explicitly refines Plato and shows how democracy decays into mob rule and then one‑man rule.
• Discourses on Livy by Machiavelli: Uses Rome to show how class conflict, corruption, and the loss of civic virtue drive republics toward tyrannies, describing very concrete steps: elite capture, popular backlash, emergency powers, then permanent one‑man rule.
Zombieburgers
Just wanted to thank Ian for recommending Fearless Writing a few weeks ago; I picked up a copy and got a lot out of it. Both tone and content reminds me a lot of Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.
Anyway, thank you. That is all.
mago
Just riffing, reminiscing, don’t know what happens to a life, it’s here now and gone then. We all die
Che Pasa passed on somewhere, Oakchair apparently rocked on. Blizzard of Oz got 86’d along with a couple of others in recent times who had something to say but jumped the traces.
Admonishment faces all us wiseacres. There’s a word for ya, wiseacres.
KTC reaches an ultimate conclusion about the rise and fall of empires, which is death and destruction.
Ok. So. The two most important events in one’s life are birth and death. There’s no one to provide therapy or counsel in either event, so you’ll somehow manage the in between on your own.
Good luck to one and all and bless Tiny Tim.
different clue
Here’s an interesting photo from the “interesting” subreddit.
” Amish selling their homegrown weed at a cannabis festival.😂 ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/interesting/comments/1qtzw9z/amish_selling_their_homegrown_weed_at_a_cannabis/
KT Chong
mago: “KTC reaches an ultimate conclusion about the rise and fall of empires, which is death and destruction.”
In the graveyard of empires…
Athens rose, fell, and never rose again.
Assyrian rose, fell, and never again.
Achaemenid (Persia) rose and fell, and stays dead.
Macedonian.
Roman.
Abbasid (Islamic).
Mongol.
Ottoman.
Spanish.
French.
British — still dying the slow death.
Only China rose, fell, and then rose again, and again, and again.
China has maintained a continuous core civilizational identity throughout all ages — an identity that was never erased or replaced by an external faith or culture such as Christianity or Islam.
If America falls, history suggests it will not rise again.
Ian Welsh
This is not true and it is not assurance of forever. Egypt rose and fell and rose again, for example, but eventually fell and it had a longer run than China has, by at least a couple thousand years. Persia has, in fact, risen and fallen multiple times. India has been unified before. Everything human falls eventually and China will be no exception.
None of that matters to us alive today, though. Any more than the inevitable fall of America mattered in 1890.
And America, being a continental power, may well rise again, though I hope not.
KT Chong
I’ve actually debated these exact topics before:
1. “Egypt rose and fell and rose again, for example, but eventually fell and it had a longer run than China has, by at least a couple thousand years.”
• Reality: Egypt’s Old → Middle → New Kingdoms spanned ~2,000 years, whereas China as a continuous civilization-state since the Shang/Zhou dynasties has lasted ~3,500–3,600 years — and it’s still going strong.
• Ancient Egyptian religion, writing, and worldview died.
• Hieroglyphs vanished; the last priests read them in the 4th century CE.
• Egypt never reasserted itself as a civilization-state on its own terms.
• Its cultural identity was erased, replaced, and supplanted repeatedly, most recently by Islam.
• Egypt has not risen as a world or regional power for over 2,000 years, after the final conquest by Rome in 30 BCE.
2. “Persia has, in fact, risen and fallen multiple times.”
• True — but NOT as a continuous civilization. Its identity was repeatedly supplanted.
• Achaemenid Empire (Zoroastrian / Persian) → Seleucid Empire (Hellenization / Greek) → Parthian / Sassanian Empires (revival of Zoroastrian / Persian identity) → Arab / Islamic Conquest (culture and religion wiped out)
• Once Islamization was complete, the native Persian-Zoroastrian civilization would never recover — that civilizational identity is gone, done, *poof!* never coming back.
3. “India has been unified before.”
• Reality: the last two major unifications were by Islamic empires, (Delhi and Mughal,) not Hindus.
• Historically, India as a native regional power — whether under the Maurya Empire (Buddhism) or the Gupta Empire (Hinduism and not pan-Indian) — lasted less than 500 years combined.
• Hinduism and Islam never assimilated each other. They never merged into a cohesive, integrated civilizational identity. This creates permanent structural instability.
• India and Pakistan already split once over religion. India is likely to split again due to Modi’s divisive, toxic Hindu nationalism while the country still has a large Muslim population — it’s just asking for trouble, further fragmentation, and serious internal conflict.
Curt Kastens
52-59
Curt Kastens
Over the past 4 years the word panic has appeared more times on youtube in describing political leaders than it has appeared in written form over the past 4000 years.