re: Question about Ancient Rome

Rome fell because Italians are trashy

Some of the Roman inventions are on par with things that were invented in the 20th century. There was a special on the history channel about it. The most impressive were the inventions using water and thermodynamics to accomplish things they wanted done.

According to him England crashed hard, basically abandoning most city centers en masse, and no longer using Latin within 100 years of the Romans leaving.

It was death by a thousand cuts.

No one thing brought Rome down but you pile own poor leadership, a rogue army, failing birthrates, immigration without integration, loss of control of the expanses, loss of control of trade and it spirals. The Eastern Empire limped on simply because it cut so much fat off.

Globalism.

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Europe didn't really know much about asia until the Mongol invasions and Marco Polo

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That's not true. There is a lot of evidence that there was a lot of trade and interaction in the West Asian Corridor from a fairly early period. There were also multiple waves of migrations from central Asia. In fact, the source of Indo-European languages is thought to be central Asia, and that migration has given us a language family that stretches from Europe all the way to India.

That's not actually TOO far off, I know you were going for sarcastic facetiousness. As the years progressed many Romans had a taste for the good life and became reluctant to "work" whatever that meant then.

They got soft, entitled, expecting to live off of the largesse of the empire. They needed slaves and non-citizens to do the "work" as well as serve in the military. Then they were, as mentioned earlier, stretched thin, and unable to contain the forces that came south to invade and plunder.

It's poorly articulated and supported, but I've read these reasons from time-to-time, online.

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I think a better question is why were the middle ages so shitty and devoid of advancement?

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It's hard to say what was "shitty" and not, because it was plenty shitty before and after the Middle Ages, which is 476 to 1453AD.

It was shitty because life was hard, and quick. The 14th century alone... yikes.

But it's not to say that the Middle Ages was devoid of innovation or advancement. There was lots of progress. This time period kind of gets a bad rap, because (in my opinion), it's not really studied very intensely anymore in elementary through undergrad, and that leads to misunderstanding.

Think of all the innovations of the Medieval Era: the compass, mechanical mills (windmills, too!), three-field crop rotation, gunpowder, ribbed vault architecture, clocks, movable type, blast furnaces, eyeglasses, looms, glass mirrors, all kinds of stuff. Far from the dead period everyone thinks it is.

True, Rome and California weren't built in a day.

Like my Grandmother would have said.."Them Degos always stabbing people/each other in the back." She also thought the Asians were sneaky MF's. I would give her a present that was made in Japan and she would throw it away.