Why do All Empires Start and End

The Cycle of Empires: The Four Types in Collapse

1. Origins: Collective Farmers + Individual Shepherds

Empires begin where settled farmers (Collective types) meet nomadic Individual types.

Farmers bring stability, food, repetition.

Shepherds bring vision, symbolism, fire, and movement.

The first synthesis births law, memory, and story.

2. Rise of the Objective Types

As societies grow, Objective types emerge.

They organize the symbolic vision into systems: cities, hierarchies, rituals, empires.

They conquer slowly, rationally, building structure and rule.

Emotion is minimized, but coherence remains.

This stage is powerful—but cold.

3. Takeover by Subjective Types

Eventually, Subjective types rise—often from the priestly class or oppressed margins.

They experience the system as lifeless, oppressive, emotionally abusive.

They revolt with moral passion, not logic.

They don’t just reform the system—they demonize its creators.

They expand the empire through fervor, zeal, forced belief.

4. Fracture and Rebellion

Objective types rebel—either as internal reformers or external invaders.

Conquered peoples rise under new warlords or prophets (often Individual types).

The system collapses under emotional overload, bureaucratic overreach, or civil war.

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5. Collapse and Reset

Collapse can be sudden (Bronze Age, Rome) or slow (Spain, USSR).

Collective types survive as workers.

Individual types wander, replant the spark.

The cycle begins again.

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Examples in History

Bronze Age Collapse: Mycenae, Hittites, Egypt, Assyria—burned by internal moral rot and external rebellion.

Rome: Started Collective–Objective, taken over by Subjective Christianity, collapsed in spiritual disunity.

Spain: Conquered the world with Objective precision, lost it to Catholic fervor and tribal infighting.

Russia: Objective-intellectual revolution, overtaken by emotional Subjective ideology (Soviets), collapsed under weight.

Germany: Technocratic brilliance (Objective), hijacked by mythic passion (Subjective), exploded.

America: Founded by Individual visionaries, built by Objective engineers, now ruled by Subjective moralists and collapsing into technocratic control.

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Why It Repeats

Because no type can see the whole picture alone.
Each thinks it’s the solution—until it becomes the problem.
Only the Individual type can see the full cycle—
but they are always cast out before the climax.