Dwarkesh

speaker

1,722 appearances 5 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2025 last heard 25 Nov

Dwarkesh’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 1.

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Dwarkesh Podcast · Why Rome actually fell: plagues, slavery, & ice age — Kyle Harper · 24 Apr 2025 podcast

And so this is not like some small little nudge you can see.

Like the overwhelming, I mean, other than the hyper-exponential growth in human population, the overwhelming, not just one, but the overwhelming two major features in human population going back the last 10,000 years is this one bacteria, right?

One of the things you discuss in the book is that the collapse of the Roman Empire was a result of this one particular event, right?

Yeah.

I think you discuss in the book the possibility that the death rate might have been close to or even over 60% wherever the black death – so this is not just like – this is like literally the most significant thing.

Yeah, it's mind-blowing.

Right.

And do you think that we're not for –

this 60% mortality event, plus the fact that I think we haven't even discussed yet this super severe cold snap.

Do you think that the Roman Empire might have otherwise just kept going?

Because you discussed there were these two previous other big pandemics.

The empire still survives.

I think Will Durant had this quote that the Roman Empire fell for longer than most empires have lasted.

Right.

So do you think like, you know, be similar to China, maybe there were maybe a dynasty collapses, but fundamentally the same sort of cohesive nation reemerges?

Yeah.

Okay, so one of the things I found really interesting was you were discussing the firsthand accounts of

As this big – and by the way, feel free to explain the cold snap as well as it's happening.

But the first 10 accounts of people who are experiencing this, some of whom come from this burgeoning Christian faith, which already lends itself to millenarianism and apocalyptic thinking.

I'm curious basically how did different people try to make sense of –

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