I just want to find mushrooms in a forest

When the roman empire collapsed, do you think someone living in those times could tell where the collapse started and where it ended? It's an interesting thought experiment

Edit: or rather where they were in the collapse timeline - of course the collapse lasted longer than a single persons life.

Oh absolutely not. The collapse of the Roman empire took decades. If you limit it to the western Roman empire it started in roughly 375 and took 100 years. If you look at the full Roman empire, it took from around 375 to 1450, since we sometimes like to pretend that the Byzantine empire isn't just part of the Roman empirecthat spoke Greek more than Latin. (They called themselves Romans, were called Romans by outsiders, and it was created when an emperor split the empire to ease regional management, and both sides viewed it as still being one empire).
Beyond that, the Roman Republic lasted for hundreds of years before the empire.

If we assume the US will follow the same pattern as Rome, we still have centuries of political upheaval, dictators, democracy, splits, unification and odd hats to develop before we're gone. You'll also get weird relics of our government scattered across the world, as places that get pulled into the downfall try to pick pieces up to gain some of the legitimately for using the name of the US. Something like Canada, shattered by a flailing empires attempts to exert control, sees Ontario promise protection to the supreme Court in exchange for ruling that Doug Ford is the new president of the US to legitimize the Ontario-Manitoba alliances seizure of US nuclear weapons in the upper Midwest and taking the seat on the security council. 2000 years from now the supreme Court will still be around issuing legal decrees that staunch believers will strive to live by, even though the government it came from is long gone and DC is just a weird city with insular backwards laws distinct from the surrounding nation(s).

Most of the collapse of the empire was filled with normal lives for the people in it, so that's something to take heart in at least.
- I was specifically talking about the ambiguity, it probably started before they noticed and ended before they officially called it. It's interesting to think about but I get there is the official understanding of where it started and ended.
  
  I didnt necessarily mean a single persons lifetime but a single person within a generation trying to guess where he is in the timeline.
- I'm not an expert at all on this subject, but I'm wondering how much technology is going to accelerate our timeline in the US. Like if we looked at the technological advancement we have achieved since then and tried to quantify it. Like maybe the US is 100x more technologigally advanced than the Romans. Maybe the social consequences of that (social media, mass disinformation in every pocket, billionaire influence, etc) means we spiral downward and out of existence at a similarly more advanced rate.
  
  Just a thought.

Well, let's put a spin on it. You're getting to experience firsthand the birth of probably like eight to twelve new countries.

I just want to find mushrooms in a forest

Well you'll still be wanting to do that when the supply chain breaks down and you don't know where your next meal will come from.

It's a skill I've been building
- There are communities for that across Lemmy that could use some extra activity:
  
  !fungus@slrpnk.net
  
  !mushrooms@lemmy.world
  
  !mycology@mander.xyz
  
  !shrooms@sh.itjust.works
  
  You've reminded me that I should be contributing more too. I want to see these communities more active.

Unless you're over 45-50 years old, it always been collapsing for as long as you've been alive - I'd pin Reagan as the beginning of the collapse, with citizens united accelerating it to the point that we've now got Der Furher leading the country.

Yeah, but when everything is in free-fall around you, nothing appears to be falling at all. The problem is, we're starting to hit the bottom.
- Oh nonsense. You have no idea how far down this hole goes. Things are just going to keep getting worse at an increasingly fast pace.
- Yeah i agree with the other dude, you're about to get so so so much lower. The ideal bottom will be a Libyan like collapse
It's funny it's such an important thing the US. Yet in the grand scheme of history it'll be but a tiny blip.

If there was a way for Civil War people to comment through time on the internet, they would be havin' a giggle at this meme.

Would they though? Back then the US was a pretty amorphous thing having seen a ton of changes and growth. A split of the US wouldn't have meant a collapse. We're talking about the collapse of post-WW2 supremacy the US has enjoyed for nearly a century now.
- I dunno, bro. This is a meme community. I'm going to go find some audiobooks on the Civil War and get back with you.
Sounds like some sort of dead internet

This is all on purpose. Trump is running Hitler’s playbook to seize power. He’s destroying the gov on purpose, to force some kind of crisis. Once the “crisis” comes, Congressional Republicans will give Trump “emergency powers” which he will use to get rid of any opposition.

It’s a generic nationalist, populist, and authoritarian playbook. We like to mention Hitler because he’s the worst of the worst to the Western mind, but there is a long list of awful authoritarians and tyrants who gained control of their country one way or the other by making the same promises, playing to the same fears, and dismantling limits on their behaviors.

I hated the election itself, this bullshit is almost refreshing.

The FA state was stressful for me, the FO is pretty well outlined. The only think left to ponder is do we ride this all the way to eating rats in the street, or is Bernie and AOC gonna clink up on a bear and ride it into battle leading us pitchfork wielding folk into, well what would happen next? New Consitution? New Laws? Obv thing's don't just ratchet back 4 or 20 years and all debt is left stable.

Kinda wish I payed more attention in history, but I don't think we had this kind of detail back then either. kinda like the image on this post :)

As long as you collectively sitting on your bums waiting for some distant politicians to help you, you will be all the way fucked.
- Dude, you want level of fucked, his GOP approval rating poll is still at 60%.
  
  We're probably as close to a civil war as we are pitchforks.
Bernie is like 80 let's be real here. AOC will be the leader if anyone, bernie can play support like the wizened wizard he is
- Ohh fuck yes, but I want the misogynists to listen. I hate them, but we'll need them.
I feel like the current constitution is pretty good, add an amendment that all people deserve housing, food, water, shelter, and medical care and that it's the governments responsibility to provide these.
- And massive election reform.