Tails82
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Posts: 34,373
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 7, 2011 6:33:53 GMT -5
'we are persecuted and everyone thinks we are dumb but we have...and...so fuck ya'll niggas' Like that? |
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Post by Laharls_Wrath on Oct 7, 2011 6:39:58 GMT -5
on the subject of reading
I can't decide if I like any of Keats' stuff
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 7, 2011 9:43:11 GMT -5
Oh, maybe, but instead of faith I have psychotic rage.
Anyway, I never said there was anything wrong with it, just every religion is like that.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2011 10:57:05 GMT -5
Not Taoism!
We just give you funny looks if you try to pick on us for it. >_>
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Post by Laharls_Wrath on Oct 7, 2011 11:13:32 GMT -5
Anyway, I never said there was anything wrong with it, just every religiongroup everywhere is like that. fix'd |
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 7, 2011 11:33:30 GMT -5
Yeah but Taoism is just... mehhhhhh
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Tails82
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Loyal Vassal
still...sipping?
Posts: 34,373
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 7, 2011 15:09:33 GMT -5
Not Taoism! We just give you funny looks if you try to pick on us for it. >_> Tell me more about Taoism. |
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 7, 2011 15:32:37 GMT -5
Ancient heritage religion for Easterners, trendy alt-buddhism for Western hipsters.
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Tails82
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Posts: 34,373
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 8, 2011 4:20:55 GMT -5
Time magazine in the school library in between observations.
Fatherhood=lower testosterone levels, possibly an evolution thing to settle down and raise a family.
Perry grew up in way-outsville where there wasn't indoor plumbing for much of his childhood.
Also there were lots of malaria cases in a city in Uganda, and an environmentalist wetland preservation project which only added to the standing water and malaria cases >_>
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Tails82
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Posts: 34,373
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 9, 2011 4:28:12 GMT -5
Diocletian's dead and Constantine takes over. Talks about the things he preserved and the things he changed. Then it just skips forward to the fall of Rome in the west and says it was because they didn't accomodate Germanic tribes. Also the taxes got heavy on the tied-down serflike workers while the government upped its budget and tax burdens, exempting government workers from certain taxes.
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 9, 2011 5:29:44 GMT -5
So Rome fell because of class inequality and low taxes on the rich? Iiiinteresting...
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Tails82
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 9, 2011 11:58:42 GMT -5
What happened was in the past, the wealthy were the first who were able to pack up and leave the cities because the empire was doing a poor job at security, despite higher demands for money and supplies that amounted to extortion. Withdrawing to estates meant less chance of being pillaged, and avoidance of government taxation. What Diocletian did was set aside military from civil duties and had a more uniform tax system. But this also meant a greater bureaucracy, and the burden was still heavy and now hit more people.
The system was set up to encourage more tenant farmers to move back onto their land, since it meant more production and a larger tax base. Municipal governments were told that, if land was empty or abandoned, they would still be collectively responsible for the missing taxes. Later on, the state mandated that tenants were tied to their land and their jobs. In the East the empire survived, because the emperor was closer there and could put things down with his central army. There was an established nation on their eastern border, Persia, which they made a stable peace with. Not so for the west, which faced problems on its frontiers. The East could weather the problems and had important trade centers, while in the west there was no such incentive for wealthy merchants to move back to the cities.
So I would say inequality was not a driving factor, seeing as there would be inequality under any other system. People weren't opposing the rich, and in some cases they were running off to estates and seeking protection from the administrative burdens that hit them.
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 9, 2011 12:23:13 GMT -5
Just to pick something out of that, local municipal quotas... Just like in the Soviet Union oft6en lead to tragedy. That's why you can't trust the regional government for anything. >_>
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Tails82
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Post by Tails82 on Oct 9, 2011 12:36:59 GMT -5
It had to become more regional because 1) rule by a single emperor was getting far too difficult to maintain and 2) splitting up/weakening the duties made things more impersonal. People were less likely to support a usurper when he didn't have much power or name recognition. The downside is it required more government workers and became top-heavy.
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Post by Chromeo on Oct 9, 2011 12:41:44 GMT -5
Mmm. Maybe what we should take from it is that an empire based on military conquest is inherently unstable? I don't know though, it did last for a couple hundred years... And the British nation is doing 'okay'.
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Spinning round and round like the deadly hands of a radium clock. 
