Agree with sentiment but want to nitpick a bit. It’s unclear that the Roman Empire collapsed at all. Many Roman institutions lived on well past the 5th century and were assimilated into gothic Frankish Visigoth etc societies.
Rome collapsed. Population crashed in the V century from 1M to under 100k. Roman institutions survived in Constantinopole for another thousand years, until XV century when that city population collapsed under Ottoman pressure
I assume that various Chinese capitals went through similar population crashes. It's true though that Roman civilization had a particular emphasis on the name of The City, but that didn't prevent the Greek speaking citizens of the estern Roman empire to call themselves Ῥωμαῖοι.
The etymology of Zhongguo IIRC is "central city". Was this the actual name of an actual city that then became the name for the concept of a central city/state as dynasties and rules changed? Is it analogous as if the word Roma had become a generic term for state in european languages and now you'd just call the United Romas of America?
> The etymology of Zhongguo IIRC is "central city". Was this the actual name of an actual city that then became the name for the concept of a central city/state as dynasties and rules changed?
中国 (Zhōngguó) is middle country/state/nation, not city.
Here I was expecting deep truths: spend time with those you love, don’t squander your time on meaningless drivel that neither enhances the mind nor expands the heart. But all I got were software engineering life hacks!
Yes, Apple is really good at creating usable, beautiful user interfaces and vertically integrated solutions. Yes, it's very difficult to quantify this, and yes consumers get it. However, Apple isn't the only company focused on getting the experience right.
Once the UX of a competing platform/product is on par (modulo product/company loyalty), Christensen's low end disruption model kicks in. The way Apple can continue winning is to be ahead of the curve, creating new features and product categories that can dominate, until the low end disruption model catches up to them.
