"the story of Roman stupidity is the story of material success undermined by intellectual failure...

[marmar]

...... The Romans' material success was built on their canny knack for acting in their immediate best interest, but their intellectual limitations rendered them unable to perceive the long-term negative effects imperialism had on their society. Thus, Roman stupidity was fundamentally a failure of self-perception for as they busily reshaped the world, the Romans failed to see what they were doing to themselves. This was particularly true of the governing aristocrats, who insisted on viewing themselves as Rome incarnate and their own interests as those of Rome in general, especially in the latter days of the Empire."


Sound familiar? :scared:


http://stupidity.com/story1final/tsos3.htm

[Double T]

1. Too familiar. Humans NEVER learn from their mistakes and ultimately cause their own demise.

Greed ain't a beautiful thing!

[villager]

2. "The Mightiest Nation" -- the late Art Hoppe's seminal comparison between Rome and the US:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/22/ED78905.DTL

[ljm2002]

4. Truly one of the best columns ever published...

...in a major newspaper.

Thanks so much for posting that here.

RIP, Mr. Hoppe

[cliffordu]

3. Smells like........

THAT PRECIOUS MIDDLE CLASS THAT IS GOING TO GO PSYCHOTIC WHEN THEY CAN'T GET A STARBUCKS WHEN THEY WANT IT.

[morgan2]

5. People are fundamentally self interested

very few will give up personal gain for the good of a nation, let alone the long term good of a society generations down the line.

[DCKit]

6. They didn't much like intellectuals or great thinkers either.

The parallels couldn't be any more obvious unless * were to begin wearing a toga with matching headgear, sandals and imperial sash. I wonder if he's taken up an instrument.

[marmar]

7. He's not good at very much, but I hear he's an excellent fiddler......

:nopity: