Lessons from Roman Empire about dangers of luxury (opens in new tab)

This is the problem with these writers is that they lack precision in their arguments and conflate partial facts with delusions to come to a desired outcome.

From the article:

“Faced with a trade deficit with China, the British Empire flooded their country with cheap opium they had shipped over from India. A luxury drug became an addiction, and the British traded their opium for porcelain, tea, and silk.”

Britain started a series of wars on China to accept the drug Opium which was banned in China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

Modern Germany and the technological advancements was not enslaved, weakened or slowed down by the universal social security and healthcare system enacted by Bismarck in 1883:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Social_legis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Germany

Bullshit. The Ptolemies went to pot in Alexandria, but even so Cleopatra went down fighting. The (down-home) Macedonians had a lot of money, but they went down fighting. The Gauls lost a series of pitched battles before they were conquered, as did the Britons.

Tacitus was a remarkable writer, but he had an axe to grind. The degeneration through luxury he had in mind was back in Rome.

The Big Think? Here I want to quote G.K. Chesterton's friend, who heard what someone prefaced with a "A thought:", and said, "Good God, man, you call that a thought?"

well.. I gotta say, being enslaved by good health care wouldn't be the worst problem to have