Will They Ask Where We Went Wrong?

The Roman Empire, at its height, was the unchallenged master of the known Western world. Its roads stretched thousands of miles, connecting provinces from Britannia to Egypt. Its aqueducts brought clean water to millions. It boasted centralized administration, a complex legal system, public sanitation, coinage, trade routes, and a standing army. And then, over centuries—not days or weeks—it declined. Slowly. Quietly. Sometimes invisibly. The citizens of Rome did not wake up one morning and declare the empire fallen. Most didn’t even realize it was happening. And by the time they did, they were no longer Romans in the way their ancestors once were.

At its peak in the 2nd century CE, Rome was a city of over a million people, a metropolis of marble, fountains, and libraries. By the year 800 CE, its population had fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000. Great structures became quarries: the Colosseum was stripped for stone and iron clamps to build homes, palaces, and even churches. The Roman Forum, once a hive of political life, was slowly buried and became known as the "Campo Vaccino"—the cow field. Civilization didn’t disappear—it just forgot what it once was.

We, the citizens of the 21st-century West, often speak with reverence about the fall of Rome, sometimes with smug detachment, sometimes with apocalyptic flair.

But even Rome's glory held within it the seeds of decay. The philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, admired for his stoicism, humility, and sense of duty, was followed by his son Commodus—a ruler infamous for vanity, cruelty, and incompetence. This transition, from one of Rome's greatest to one of its worst, wasn’t just a dynastic accident—it was a warning. There’s an old idea that “good times produce weak men,” and while simplistic, there’s a grain of truth. The stability and prosperity built by the Five Good Emperors ended not in triumph, but in apathy, extravagance, and moral drift. Commodus didn't destroy the empire alone—but he began a decline in seriousness that others continued. And like now, at first, the world didn’t seem to change. Not right away. But we rarely ask a more uncomfortable question: What if someone a hundred years from now asks the same about us?

The Height of Our Empire

We live in an age that would have looked divine to Marcus Aurelius. We can speak instantly across oceans. We can buy fruits from Peru in December in Stockholm. We send machines to Mars. We digitize thought. Our average citizen lives longer, eats better, and has access to more information than the emperors of old. We fly. We manipulate DNA. We turn light into computation.

The Western world—its technology, ideas, and economic systems—has shaped a truly global civilization. Globalization has made it possible for a company in Germany to depend on a microchip fabricated in Taiwan, for a t-shirt in Ohio to be stitched in Bangladesh, for medical breakthroughs in Boston to be deployed in Nairobi. We have built a networked world that in many ways dwarfs the connectivity of Rome.

But like Rome, we are not immortal.

The Cracks

Today, the cracks are small, but growing:

• Fragile global trade. A single ship stuck in the Suez Canal disrupted global shipping, revealing how even the most advanced economies depend on incredibly delicate logistics. War in Ukraine destabilized grain markets and reminded us that food security still hinges on distant, often unstable regions. A global pandemic showed how quickly international systems break down when borders close, supply chains freeze, and governments hoard resources. What we once thought was unshakable—just-in-time manufacturing, cross-border availability of medicine, electronics, food—now looks more like a house of cards. And as nations turn inward, the prospect of a world where you can no longer expect to buy what you need from across the world feels less like dystopia and more like tomorrow.. War in Ukraine destabilized grain markets and exposed our food supply chains. A pandemic showed how quickly international systems break down when borders harden.

• Political instability and polarization. From Washington to London to Rome, democracies are fragmenting. Institutions meant to unify citizens now struggle to withstand endless ideological assault. Citizens no longer just disagree; they exist in entirely different realities. One group sees liberty, another sees threat. One sees justice, another sees betrayal. This fragmentation makes long-term planning nearly impossible. Governments spend more time surviving news cycles than crafting visions. And increasingly, politicians trade principles for popularity, or worse—openly court authoritarian tactics. This isn’t just polarization—it’s a slow corrosion of the very idea of shared responsibility, democracies are struggling to keep citizens engaged, unified, and trusting of their institutions. The collapse of shared reality, fueled by algorithmic media, makes consensus harder than ever.

• Declining education and civic knowledge. Fewer people can name their country's leaders or describe how their democracy works. Civic education has been sidelined by standardized testing, budget cuts, and short attention spans. Students leave school with little understanding of history, law, or political philosophy. Into that void flows conspiracy, propaganda, and celebrity culture. Where Cicero once argued about virtue and liberty, now influencers speak in catchphrases and dopamine hooks. A society that cannot articulate its ideals cannot defend them. And when it forgets how they were earned, it risks letting them slip away. or describe how their systems work. Misinformation fills the vacuum once held by books, teachers, and discussion.

• Technological overdependence. We rely on systems of breathtaking complexity—cloud infrastructure, satellite networks, AI-generated services. But few truly understand them. When they fail, whether through cyberattacks, solar flares, or cascading bugs, the consequences ripple far and fast. A single platform outage can paralyze healthcare, transportation, banking. Like the Romans losing the recipe for concrete, we may one day find ourselves surrounded by broken tools we can't repair. The risk isn't just outage—it's forgetting how to think without automation: cloud infrastructure, AI-generated data, global logistics. If these falter, few know how to rebuild.

• Cultural fragmentation. Where once we had common stories and shared narratives—religions, epics, national myths—we now drift in fragmented, curated realities. The algorithm is our new priest, customizing truth to suit our tastes. This endless personalization creates comfort but not cohesion. It’s increasingly rare to find a piece of culture—book, speech, event—that crosses boundaries. Without a common language of values, even basic coordination becomes strained. We scroll, comment, signal, but rarely listen. Fragmentation isn't just aesthetic—it's political entropy. and identities, now we have infinite niches, endlessly customized bubbles of meaning. Unity is rare, exhaustion is common.

• Economic precarity. While a few accumulate extraordinary wealth—more than emperors could imagine—millions live in quiet fear. One illness, one rent hike, one market crash away from ruin. The middle class is shrinking; wages stagnate; debt soars. Wealth buys insulation from collapse, but the rest are left to compete for shrinking scraps. This isn't just inequality—it’s systemic disillusionment. When people no longer believe that effort leads to security, democracy withers. Why vote, build, or sacrifice when the game seems rigged?, many live paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford homes, healthcare, or security in systems built to reward scale.

• Environmental fragility. Climate change is no longer theoretical. We live with wildfires, floods, disappearing glaciers, and creeping droughts. Agriculture is already changing. Coastal cities prepare for rising tides while politicians debate terminology. As ecosystems degrade, so too does trust—between nations, between generations. Yet we move slowly, trapped between economic inertia and political cowardice. The challenge isn’t lack of knowledge; it’s lack of courage. And that may be the most frightening parallel to Rome—not ignorance, but paralysis.. It disrupts agriculture, causes migration, fuels political tension. And yet solutions remain gridlocked.

The Medieval Mirror

What we now call the "Middle Ages" were not experienced by their inhabitants as the fall of something glorious. For many, life went on. People farmed, married, prayed. But roads fell into disrepair. Trade routes disappeared. Aqueducts stopped flowing. Cities shrank. Literacy collapsed. Local strongmen replaced imperial law. The change was slow and diffuse, but unmistakable in hindsight.

And when scholars like Petrarch or Erasmus rediscovered Cicero and Virgil, they asked: What happened to us? How could we forget all this?

What if a century from now, a teacher reads about satellites, antibiotics, and democratic ideals to a classroom where none of those are accessible anymore—not because of apocalypse, but because the threads that held it together quietly frayed?

A Future That Just Sucks a Bit More

This is not about nuclear war, or AI turning evil, or a sudden collapse of civilization. This is about a future where things simply decline:

• Your internet is slower and less reliable.

• Imported goods become rare luxuries.

• Energy is more expensive, less green.

• Air travel is unreliable and unaffordable.

• Medical innovation slows to a crawl.

• Universities shrink, libraries close, and fewer people study the humanities.

• Governments become reactive, not visionary.

People adapt. They survive. They even find joy. In places like Hungary and Slovakia, people still laugh, go hiking, drink wine, fall in love. Cafés are full. Highways busy. Yet beneath the surface, there is a slow trade occurring: short-term economic gain in exchange for long-term freedom. A contract here, a public subsidy there—each signed not just with ink, but with shrinking civic courage.

In the United States, similar symptoms appear. If a second Trump administration deepens polarization and distrust, if the rule of law becomes more performative than real, if truth becomes purely tribal, the institutions may still stand, but hollowed out. The republic becomes an empire of gestures, not principles. Everything still functions—poorly. Life goes on. It just feels... smaller.

Puppet Emperors and Invisible Wars

In late Rome, emperors were often chosen, controlled, or replaced by powerful military generals—figures like Ricimer, who ruled through puppets. Today, we see external autocracies propping up sympathetic leaders, financing disinformation, and using division as a weapon. The warfare isn’t always tanks—it’s alliances, elections, media influence. In Ukraine, it’s visible. Elsewhere, it’s in the algorithms, the messaging apps, the funding trails.

As in the late empire, the lines between internal decline and external pressure blur. You don’t need to burn the temple if the people forget why it mattered.

It’s Not Inevitable

The purpose of this essay is not despair. It is awareness. The Romans didn’t know what they were losing. The medieval scholars who mourned their past could only guess at the reasons.

We don’t have to guess.

As Cicero once warned, ”In the face of imminent destruction, no one should abandon the common cause.” Civic virtue, to him, was not abstract—it was action. The republic was only ever as strong as its citizens were willing to rise for it. The call is timeless: do your part. Not tomorrow—today.

We have access to history, data, foresight, and communication tools that those before us could only dream of. But only if we care to look. Only if we resist the temptation to assume that decline is someone else’s problem, or that it must come with fire and ash to be real.

There is still time to turn the wheel. To honor the institutions—not because they are perfect, but because they are ours to protect. To defend freedom—not as an abstraction, but as a way of thinking. To step forward, even when inconvenient, even when unrecognized. We do not need mythical heroes—we need people willing to stand up like Cincinnatus did, not for glory, but because it was their turn. As Albert Camus once wrote: “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Maybe the question isn’t whether we are Rome. Maybe the question is whether we can be better.

So that when future scholars look back at our time, they don’t ask, "Where did they go wrong?" but say,

"They almost lost it. But somehow, they turned the wheel."