USA vs Imperial Rome

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

The main reason for the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire was that it was a dirt poor empire trying to control an enormous territory.

The reason it was dirt poor was their choice. Roman religion emphasized 'manliness' that meant doing things by personal physical labor. Slave labor was fine too since they were the spoils of victory. But, labor saving technology was seen as weak.

The one exception, ironically, was for war itself.  But, because Rome frowned upon technology for non military purposes, it meant there were no military spinoffs from inventions first made for civilian purposes, and, more importantly, it meant no real economic growth from which it could have developed a military vastly superior to the barbarians.

I believe there is a graphic novel series that shows Rome having developed steam power which was invented as a toy by Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria around the year zero, as an example.

There certainly does seem to be a renewed emphasis in the United States on 'manliness' with Trump (as ridiculous as that really is) and some on the right also seem to disdain technology and modernity (and maybe some on the left too), and these are certainly things to be watchful of, but overall I'd still say these things are fringy at the macro level and I doubt they've impeded any technological progress.

Of course, this is not to say that we should mindlessly go along with all invention or that there isn't a role for 'manliness' at times, the concern is with people who adopt them as an ideology (Tyler Durden for instance.)