By Sol 太阳 쏠

Before we can talk about the current state and trajectory of the existing empire, we need to ask basic questions about what empires are and why they exist…

SOCIETY STRUCTURE

Human society has its original basis in small Paleolithic hunter-gatherer tribes. Then, with the Neolithic, tribes settled down and formed towns, which grew into countries. So if you think about it, empires are just the next level of organization — coordination of countries by centralized control.

But there’s a significant difference with relationships in an empire — while a town’s and country’s government is made up of their own genetic peoples and culture, an empire is managed by foreigners. No other human organizational unit works this way. There are obvious problems associated with that.

There’s also a conflict with our core nature. An empire provides a semi-global level of organization, but homogenization into one tribe goes against the nature of human tribalism. There must always be separate tribes working on different ideas; that’s the risk management our species evolved — it’s called hedging.

So empires are natural temporal things that come about to coordinate the nation tribes thru various developmental phases, but it’s unnatural for them to ever maintain long-term, or hold complete hegemony. ‘Merika didn’t get this memo.

PAST & CURRENT EMPIRES

Past: With Roman, British, Nazi (failed attempt), and now American — there’s no denying the evangelical/imperialist nature to the West (though the West will of course deny). The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree — America broke free from the British Empire, only to neocolonize the planet under the name of “freedom.” There is a thought-lineage here, imbedded in philosophy (exceptionalism) and religion (evangelism) which wants to convert people to their way.

Current: as far as understanding the new form we just have to understand that times change, but human nature and deeply imbedded philosophies/religions not so much. America is perhaps the world’s first “financial empire.” It uses the tools of its age — law, finance, corporations including media — to infiltrate societies, indoctrinate them, and extract profits back to the mainland. This is backed by the largest military that has ever existed, which occupies 150 countries. Where we are now in history, I estimate, is peak corporate/military expansionism of this American Empire.

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