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Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

talesoftimesforgotten.com

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Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#121

Post by mr_toad »

narag wrote: post #16
comrh wrote: post #3

One thing I really got out of the History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is if anyone tells you there was ONE cause of the fall of Rome, they're full of crap.

That's very reasonable. But there was a slow collapse of the economy that is an intermediate cause in the chain of events that is central to the fall. You can speculate what caused that collapse, that in turn caused the fall and there are also many causes to consider, but again, there is one intermediate cause that is Christianism. The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending. No…

> The religion altered several aspects of the economy: slavery, commerce and lending.

It does seem that the western half of the empire was more dependent on slavery. But Christianity wasn’t the only factor in that. With fewer conquests there were fewer slaves to take.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#122

Post by hinkley »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #83
Ekaros wrote: post #15

So often any of these single causal theories forget to look at timespan. Which was either decades or centuries... If system survived previously with mostly same things in place there is really no reason why such thing as lead pipes would be the cause of downfall part. By any reasonable conclusion the culprit in such case should be some disruptive innovation. In the end gradual natural degradation of system is much mo…

> So often any of these single causal theories forget to look at timespan. Which was either decades or centuries... I don't think anyone is (was?) suggesting that someone replaced the pipes overnight and they were all dead the next morning, but rather that it was an extremely gradual process that after centuries of extending its implantation managed to reduce cognitive capabilities by a couple points, etc. The simple…

In software we (or at least I) often see situations where careful forethought put systems and checks in place that survive long after the responsible parties are gone, and it can be difficult to identify or accept that the project failed this year because Tom quit last year. There are too many forces arrayed against looking too closely at those situations, and once the wheels come off there's no longer a quorum to even rationally discuss such a thing, except amongst a few veterans having a beer and trying not to draw too much attention to themselves.

If you idiot-proof something well enough, it can take a long time for the Universe to invent an idiot good enough to pull the whole thing down. We tend to look at Rome as one of the oldest well-documented cases of the power of logistics, so it's not outside of the realm of reason to suggest that a good process might survive even a generation or two before Chesterton's Fence wins out. But whether that's due to a loss of cleverness or just human nature is likely going to be hard to prove.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#123

Post by namaria »

swatcoder wrote: post #87
namaria wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of publishing, much like nutritional science, is great for scientists. You can fudge data into flip flopping conclusions every couple of years. Infinite papers = tenure.

If you could earnestly profile even a few scientists who have personally flip-flopped their way to tenure like that, you'd surely have a red carpet welcome across a thousand podcasts and alt-media outlets Heck, maybe you could even get tenure somewhere if you happened to have academic creds of your own. Surely someone's done it? Are you familiar with any such profiles that you could share?

Are you really arguing that attacking the credibility of established scientists would be a viable way to prosper as a scientist?

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#124

Post by MereInterest »

trashtester wrote: post #99
dralley wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you really want to boil it down to a single reason, the best candidate would be "becoming militarily dependent on hired mercenaries and then not paying them" rather than something more interesting

Another, related view is to look at how many was on the dole. During the late empire, around 20% of the population in Rome was effectively on welfare, getting food from the state. Instead of drafting these poeple into the empire, Rome recruited foreigners for the army, while the productivity of the domestic population kept going down. Eventually the state, needing to pay both the welfare receipients and the army, ran…

Wasn't the dole only implemented because land ownership had concentrated to a few extremely wealthy individuals? Only a few generations earlier, during the Second Punic War many landowners had either died or had their farms ruined to deny food to Hannibal, allowing the land to be bought at low prices.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#125

Post by namaria »

swatcoder wrote: post #107
ARandomerDude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to get published: "Other authors are wrong." How not to get published: "The general consensus is right." So although individuals may not flip-flop constantly, fields as a whole do. Pick almost any topic in almost any field (especially humanities) and read papers 10-20 years apart. There's a constant cycle. The cycle becomes self reinforcing too, because now you can interact with previous criticisms ( Dr. A said t…

Yes, earnestly contributing your effort towards a controversial or unsettled issue is a good way to publish and make progress in your career. And yes, some fields aren’t able to perform the kind of reliable science of physics or chemistry, and so end up with a lot of papers that just collectively oscillate around topics. But I have a hard time seeing how that’s what the above commenter was suggesting.

Null hypothesis confirmation is not a good source of papers. Framing of problem is part of the craft. It's not a secret that there is a big reproducibility problem in science today. Why? Because problems and results are hand crafted to go from "let's disprove this... oh look I did it".

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#126

Post by dkarl »

hengri wrote: post #26
dukeofdoom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that happening. Thinking about Canada. The other day I calculated it would take 25 hours of work for the minimum wage worker to afford a weekend camping. And I think that's a pretty good indication we're pretty close collapse. Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.

Do you think that average people throughout history had the means of going on weekend camping trips.

I vaguely remember a magazine biography of an Italian scientist who lived near the mountains. In the summer, he liked to strike out on Friday afternoon with a hunk of bread and a hunk of cheese, think about scientific problems while he hiked around in the mountains, sleep under his jacket, and come home on Saturday or Sunday. In his location he didn't need any more material wealth to "go camping" than he needed to stay at home.

It might be more the opposite, that only in relatively recent times have people been able to get away for a day or two without doing what we would call "camping." If you were a hunter-gatherer you'd grab a buddy (or not), invent some excuse like checking for game in the next valley, and rough it for a night or two. Now if you fuck off for a weekend you can check into a hotel or an AirBNB.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#127

Post by est31 »

debesyla wrote: post #38
dukeofdoom wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that happening. Thinking about Canada. The other day I calculated it would take 25 hours of work for the minimum wage worker to afford a weekend camping. And I think that's a pretty good indication we're pretty close collapse. Workers not being paid enough, and out of control inflation is how the soviet system collapsed.

Isn't 25 work hours a really low amount of work? That's just a tiny bit more than 3 work days for whole weekend camping?

If the minimum wage worker had free housing, food, electricity, etc. your calculation would make sense. Generally if you are a minimum wage worker who is working full time, a large component of your disposable income goes into those things (living paycheck to paycheck).

So having a disposable income at all is a luxury, even if it's 10% of your income. Assuming that 10% figure, you can multiply those 3 days by 1/10% = 10 and you get 30 days of working for one weekend of camping. Not really great.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#128

Post by trashtester »

MereInterest wrote: post #124
trashtester wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another, related view is to look at how many was on the dole. During the late empire, around 20% of the population in Rome was effectively on welfare, getting food from the state. Instead of drafting these poeple into the empire, Rome recruited foreigners for the army, while the productivity of the domestic population kept going down. Eventually the state, needing to pay both the welfare receipients and the army, ran…

Wasn't the dole only implemented because land ownership had concentrated to a few extremely wealthy individuals? Only a few generations earlier, during the Second Punic War many landowners had either died or had their farms ruined to deny food to Hannibal, allowing the land to be bought at low prices.

Combined with massive influx of slaves from Gaul and other places making latin farm laborers too expensive.

Still, the effect is the same. A large proletariat with very little income demanding to be fed by the state. With significant political power, based on making up a large percentage of the population in the capital.

Re: Lead poisoning probably did not cause the downfall of the Roman Empire

#129

Post by namaria »

lisper wrote: post #114
ARandomerDude wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to get published: "Other authors are wrong." How not to get published: "The general consensus is right." So although individuals may not flip-flop constantly, fields as a whole do. Pick almost any topic in almost any field (especially humanities) and read papers 10-20 years apart. There's a constant cycle. The cycle becomes self reinforcing too, because now you can interact with previous criticisms ( Dr. A said t…

As someone who made their living publishing scientific papers for over a decade and amassed a track record that showed that I was pretty good at it, I can tell you from first hand experience that you are absolutely wrong about this. A much better approximation to the truth would be something like this: How not to get published: "Other authors are wrong." How to get published: "These specific other authors are right,…

You don't attack established authors and frameworks. The low hanging fruit I was referencing is choosing something easy to disprove such as "eggs kill" or "roman empire fell because lead poisoning". After these results are published, the process is reversed. You disprove "eggs don't kill" or "lead poisoning had no bearing on the fall of roman empire". Ad infinitum.
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