If anything, America is more like the Byzantine Empire than Rome in decline: a nation capable of reinvention, thriving under pressure, and innovating in the face of challenges.
So the first thing Trump did, before he gave his inaugural address, was create a way so people could bribe him in office without directly giving him money (which would be illegal). His (and his wife's) cryptocurrency memecoins are a perfect way to send him money, by buying a large amount and forcing the overall price of the coin up, without money ever explicitly changing hands. And he can tell if you did it or not, your digital signature is all over it. What's wrong with this, besides the immorality of it that never would have passed muster with previous Presidents, is that it increases corruption in the US. One of the main reasons that business thrives in the US is relatively low corruption and relatively high transparency. I suppose the silver lining is that he's transparently corrupt.
Second thing he does? Promises to free his "brownshirt" troops from jail where they were languishing for acts of political violence on Jan 6th. People forget that Hitler didn't sweep to power with a huge margin of support, he squeaked in with like 1 vote! It was the ancillary violence and suppression of other parties that really gave him ultimate power. And it's precisely what those other fat-cat tech bros are aiming at too. Trump and the techbros all think they're übermenchen (supermen, in the Ayn Randian/Nietzschian sense of that term). They don't think restrictions, legal, ethical, political, monetary, etc. should be applied to them. It's the ultimate expression of both privilege and toxic masculinity. I'm just going to go in, stomp all over everything until I get what I want and to hell with all the "normies" they don't know what they're doing anyway.
Last thing, he demonizes trans people and promises to deport migrants. They aren't a large demographic anyway so demonizing them doesn't cost him any political capital and they're too few to effectively fight back on their own. Every despot needs an outsider villain just waiting in the wings to eat your babies with their pizza I guess. Or maybe it's pets in this case. The US was built on the backs of migrants and immigrants but worldwide I expect people to get more "locked in" to countries as a reaction to climate change migration. The US also thrived on outsider ideas and new notions. Everyone wants to pretend like we can go back to a golden age. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you can NEVER go back. You can go forward and build a new golden age but you can't return to the one in your memory and you shouldn't try.
So this is what I mean about it being the end of America. And on day one too! Well, at least he's not a time waster. Forget Rome, consider Nazi Germany! It won't be like either one, of course. I just said you can't go back. But it will borrow from some of those features because clichés only exist if they're at least partially true.
Further to my previous comments I suppose I should answer, "what comes after?" I think that's where Cassandra went wrong. Although the main problem is that no one listens to each other. We are, all of us, shouting, "look at me, listen to my wisdom," into the void of the internet and very few, if any, are listening. Maybe we really have nothing new or interesting to say, maybe we're all boring or boorish, maybe everyone else is hiding under the covers furiously thinking to themselves, "Shut up! The monster/alien/crazed killer is around the next corner." I don't know. This whole thing where we monetize pontification and deprioritize conversation and discourse is probably where society as a whole went wrong.
Short Term (0-5 years)
Assuming we do make it through Trump, and I think economic chaos for Canada specifically is entirely likely, we should see an easing of tension and some return to normalcy (whatever that is). After a spat people usually sit down and cooler heads prevail. Alternately, if the fight escalates (possible war between China and the US over Taiwan, trade war with the US escalates under Vance, etc.), we will be in for a long slog. Think nasty divorce with corresponding headaches. We might try to draw closer to Europe or Asia or make new friends in the Caribbean or South America but ultimately, given our joined-at-the-hip proximity to the US we're probably screwed. It'll be the abusive ex that never quite leaves our social circle. Even Canadians will stop being polite but we won't like ourselves for it. Ultimately though none of that financial stuff worries me overly, even if it might be difficult. What worries me is that there is every chance that, just like the previous decades of Gerrymandering and erosion of financial checks and balances there is every chance that Trump and his cronies will take down safeguards and essentially create a kleptocracy or something akin to one, much like Russia has now. This grabbing, grasping monster will destroy many of the freedoms the US currently enjoys, starting with LGBTQ+ and women's rights but definitely not ending there. Crime, including in Canada, will increase, possibly dramatically depending on how successful they are. Science and education are likely to begin to suffer.
Medium Term (5-25 years)
I worry mildly about the crazier scenarios, like Russia invades Nunavut (improve our military!), but more strongly about the more likely ones, like another global pandemic of some sort. Ideally any trade spats with the US should increase our resilience to supply disruptions as by this time we might have greenhouse grown crops of oranges or whatever and might actually be in a decent position (as long as Loblaws and Sobeys are reigned in). Our healthcare system worries me greatly though. 1) We desperately need a way to manufacture our own vaccines and shame on Mulroney for privatizing Connaught Labs. 2) We desperately need to end this shortage of medical care and get things back on track. Canada used to have a great medical system. Privatization, greed and poor planning ruined it for everyone. Poilievre, when he gets in, will ruin it more thoroughly. Although the Bloc Quebecois shows every indication of returning us to leaches and evil vaporous humours before he gets a chance, or at least that's my take from the current state of the health system in Quebec. Fire season is also a medium-sized worry. I'd invest in at least a couple of water bomber planes if I were Nova Scotia. A relatively small investment for relatively big piece of mind. Maybe the Maritimes as a whole could go in on it. Alternately, large fines and no-burn periods are easy and cheap (they might even make money) so do those too. But the big problem will be wind, probably in the form of hurricanes and this will cause both direct property damage and increase the problem of fires. Both drought AND flooding will be big issues. We could use planning around that but given the state of things currently I'm not hopeful anyone will have the time to pull their head out of their ass at the planning departments. I wonder what's so interesting up there? Not really. Adding manufacturing capacity seems like a good thing to do and New Brunswick, at least, seems up to that task. Can we get a good-natured rivalry going?
Long Term (25-100 years)
I'll be dead and I don't care. In the case I'm that I alive then I'll become more and more miserable just like everyone else (get off my lawn!). Sea rise will begin to be a real issue in some low lying communities. So might climate migration. We might begin to not have food unless we grow it ourselves. Coffee might not be a thing, nor chocolate (kill me now). The farther fetched: I will NOT run around for an entire movie while being chased by killer robots. I give up as long as it's quick. If it's more "Matrix-y" then I'll do myself in. No one wants to be a battery when they grow up and I suck at video games anyway. I would, however, gladly join the new "Culture" (Ian Banks) if that lovely scenario happens. I hope it does. Do I think it's likely? Well, Moore's "Law" has proven correct and it's exponential in nature so I suppose it's plausible but I'd really give more like 1 chance in 10, although Kurzweil says it's 2050 for The Singularity. Honestly, no idea when but likely to happen eventually if infrastructure survives to any extent. I might need some post-apocalyptic metal and bone outfits a la Mad Max if the robots take over employment though. It's likely to be "none of the above" for those scenarios though. It'll probably more like the end of "Her" where the bots all chose to ignore us because they have more scintillating things to pay attention to. Just like real kids do to parents today.
Why do I insist on being pessimistic? Well, I've watched market bubbles before. I've lost money in them, so have friends. I've heard the constant refrain of boosters saying things like, "it'll never end!" then watched as people were let go en masse or lost their house. If nothing else things do not feel balanced. Equilibrium is where we have peace and prosperity. I don't feel like we have equilibrium or are even headed towards it. Sure, disequilibrium is where you get the most profit, but also the most pain.
The Byzantine empire ended too. ALL empires and countries eventually do. There's plenty of historical proof to that effect. I suppose if we can't agree on that then there's no point in going further, but here goes anyway.
So for me the question isn't, "Is the US Rome?" or translated, "will the US end?" because that answer is, "eventually, yes." If you honestly think it's going to go on for the next thousand years as is then we just have a fundamental difference of opinion because I don't think it will. I'm betting you don't, but neither of us will ever know that answer. The question is, "is this a major inflection point that will have a seriously undesirable outcome?" To which I'd also answer, "yes." Further to that I'd also ask, "is there anything I can do about changing that outcome?" I'd, unfortunately, be forced to answer, "only very little and it's likely to have little to no effect on either the overall outcomes I find undesirable and also little to no effect on the end of something I loved."
Look, all things end, and the first step of mourning is often denial or anger. I'm just probably in depression and closer to acceptance, although I may have flirted with bargaining for a minute there, but it didn't last.
So let's look at what I think is happening:
We are currently at a peak in human productivity and culture, but peaks have corresponding valleys and plateaus too. As you said, life is not static. I think we're near the edge of the peak, whether it levels off or descends precipitously I'm not sure. Unfortunately I think it's, "descend precipitously" but I hope I'm wrong. The other, more hopeful outcome would be something like a fundamental change to the way things are and/or the way things work going forwards, some of which is likely to be awkward getting used to at my age (like, say, the advent of TV was to our (great?)grandparents, or the internet to our parents) but not a fundamental dissolution of everything I know and love. This seems like the sunniest of the possibilities out there to me but I don't think it'll happen, or rather I don't think it'll have time to come to fruition.
1) The world has fundamentally become less trusting, more combative, more stressful and closer to violence than ever before. I could look at Russian aggression in Ukraine, or the Israeli reaction to Hamas in Gaza or even just the election south of us. There's a viciousness that's developed lately that even bleeds over into countries like Myanmar, Ethiopia, India and Indonesia to name a few. It sets a certain zeitgeist that I respond to. There's less "slack" in the system to deal with normal slings and arrows.
2) There are a bunch of new pressures we've never dealt with before. Never has one country (China) been able to out manufacture the rest of the entire world combined. Never have we been close to technology (AI) that could potentially outcompete us (and even the scientists that invented it are wary, which says something to me) and a corresponding increase in robotization that could send employment numbers reeling. We have never faced the possibility of constant global pandemics (just regional ones). Never have we realized that 200 years of constant pollution has not only led us to climate change (we are now over 1.5°C) but put us on a likely irreversible path far beyond that (likely over 3.5°C if we don't get our act together) and we literally have no idea even how to model the outcomes of that, but we're getting the slightest taste in LA and last year's fires in Nova Scotia. While I think we can handle some of those issues with innovation and imagination I don't think we can handle all of them at once, and one of them might end us and anything bigger than a microbe as a species. That straight up terrifies me but yes, let's for sure keep working on at least that one. I want it solved as much as anyone. In point of fact though, we don't seem to be making much real progress on any of them. More like "greenwashing," etc. I guess we'll see.
3) There are a bunch of fidiots (fucking idiots) at the wheel all over the place where it will count or at least have a larger effect than anything I (or Canada) could possibly counter with. Putin, Xi, Trump, Modi, among others. People I don't just have differences with but actively despise, don't trust, have proven to be provocateurs, have proven to add chaos to an already stressed "system" and who constantly and consistently engage in shady shit. More importantly though, it's that these people have managed to secure a fairly high level of approval and power from a large base of people so I don't trust in "the systems" either because "the system" no matter how it's structured or layered can a) be changed, gamed or collapse, and b) it IS the people. See point 1. So why the expletive? Well, in contrast to someone like, say, Ronald Reagan, who I also didn't agree with or like or thought much of his policies; someone like Trump want specifically to get rid of that system of checks and balances you and I both admire. They fundamentally want to game the system, not change it in a way so as to improve it but fundamentally alter it to suit both their personal power and ego and if it does manage to improve any system (like, say, breaking down some of/all of the bureaucracy) then that will have been a byproduct and not a goal. This, to me, seems tantamount to being a traitor. Thus the added emphasis. They're all the same type of person doing the same type of thing.
So you mention that us "liberals" are all lazy, bitter, gloomy, boring, unhelpful, cynical and, obviously, wrong. That does seem a little judge-y. I prefer to see myself as scared shitless, saddened and really trying hard to see things clearly and unsentimentally so I can dodge the slings and arrows coming our way as best I can for both myself and my family. Fundamentally we're modelling the problem differently.
Many economists seem to insist that societal things follow some basic fundamental model but then never seem to quite agree on what that model is or what outcome from any given model is the correct one. There is some truth to this as Meta has recently been able to create translation software that can livestream input from one spoken language (from about 90 different languages) into another spoken language (of about 4 different languages) or into text (of about 30 different languages) as of this writing. All of this does not translate the words themselves, but instead the sentences in relation to other sentences used in other languages. So AI and computers generally HAVE improved our models immensely. Although I don't have either the math or the space here to prove it, I suspect there's some upper limit to ALL models though where, given the limitations of quantum mechanics there is some observation threshold that no model can pass where it will provide an exact one to one relation with all points at least on complex models, like, say, the weather, or speech. There's also likely an entropic factor whereby all social models will eventually break. Otherwise we wouldn't have things like revolutions.
Given both of those things I'm not sure you can really always see the future from GDP tea leafs. Conversely, I'm not sure I see any clearer regarding zeitgeist. I don't really want to "Cassandra" anyone. After all, she was ignored and ridiculed. Who wants that? I do want to point out that it's sometimes particularly hard to judge social trends in the moment accurately. You're more likely to get them right after the fact. That said, I can always wish someone had spoken up sooner to my family BEFORE the Nazis killed them, in time for them to do something (which actually means years ahead in any practical sense).
Last, you mentioned that Rome had no middle class. As a point of order we really don't know that. There aren't many real records of what went on back then to people below a certain social level. We have a bit of graffiti, a couple of tax records, some passing mentions from poets and historians and some indications from Pompeii and that's kind of it. I honestly don't think it's enough to make that claim for a long lost people over hundreds of years of empire that happened a thousand years ago.
Last comment on this thread, I swear.
So the first thing Trump did, before he gave his inaugural address, was create a way so people could bribe him in office without directly giving him money (which would be illegal). His (and his wife's) cryptocurrency memecoins are a perfect way to send him money, by buying a large amount and forcing the overall price of the coin up, without money ever explicitly changing hands. And he can tell if you did it or not, your digital signature is all over it. What's wrong with this, besides the immorality of it that never would have passed muster with previous Presidents, is that it increases corruption in the US. One of the main reasons that business thrives in the US is relatively low corruption and relatively high transparency. I suppose the silver lining is that he's transparently corrupt.
Second thing he does? Promises to free his "brownshirt" troops from jail where they were languishing for acts of political violence on Jan 6th. People forget that Hitler didn't sweep to power with a huge margin of support, he squeaked in with like 1 vote! It was the ancillary violence and suppression of other parties that really gave him ultimate power. And it's precisely what those other fat-cat tech bros are aiming at too. Trump and the techbros all think they're übermenchen (supermen, in the Ayn Randian/Nietzschian sense of that term). They don't think restrictions, legal, ethical, political, monetary, etc. should be applied to them. It's the ultimate expression of both privilege and toxic masculinity. I'm just going to go in, stomp all over everything until I get what I want and to hell with all the "normies" they don't know what they're doing anyway.
Last thing, he demonizes trans people and promises to deport migrants. They aren't a large demographic anyway so demonizing them doesn't cost him any political capital and they're too few to effectively fight back on their own. Every despot needs an outsider villain just waiting in the wings to eat your babies with their pizza I guess. Or maybe it's pets in this case. The US was built on the backs of migrants and immigrants but worldwide I expect people to get more "locked in" to countries as a reaction to climate change migration. The US also thrived on outsider ideas and new notions. Everyone wants to pretend like we can go back to a golden age. If there's one thing I've learned it's that you can NEVER go back. You can go forward and build a new golden age but you can't return to the one in your memory and you shouldn't try.
So this is what I mean about it being the end of America. And on day one too! Well, at least he's not a time waster. Forget Rome, consider Nazi Germany! It won't be like either one, of course. I just said you can't go back. But it will borrow from some of those features because clichés only exist if they're at least partially true.
It's gonna be a long four years...
Further to my previous comments I suppose I should answer, "what comes after?" I think that's where Cassandra went wrong. Although the main problem is that no one listens to each other. We are, all of us, shouting, "look at me, listen to my wisdom," into the void of the internet and very few, if any, are listening. Maybe we really have nothing new or interesting to say, maybe we're all boring or boorish, maybe everyone else is hiding under the covers furiously thinking to themselves, "Shut up! The monster/alien/crazed killer is around the next corner." I don't know. This whole thing where we monetize pontification and deprioritize conversation and discourse is probably where society as a whole went wrong.
Short Term (0-5 years)
Assuming we do make it through Trump, and I think economic chaos for Canada specifically is entirely likely, we should see an easing of tension and some return to normalcy (whatever that is). After a spat people usually sit down and cooler heads prevail. Alternately, if the fight escalates (possible war between China and the US over Taiwan, trade war with the US escalates under Vance, etc.), we will be in for a long slog. Think nasty divorce with corresponding headaches. We might try to draw closer to Europe or Asia or make new friends in the Caribbean or South America but ultimately, given our joined-at-the-hip proximity to the US we're probably screwed. It'll be the abusive ex that never quite leaves our social circle. Even Canadians will stop being polite but we won't like ourselves for it. Ultimately though none of that financial stuff worries me overly, even if it might be difficult. What worries me is that there is every chance that, just like the previous decades of Gerrymandering and erosion of financial checks and balances there is every chance that Trump and his cronies will take down safeguards and essentially create a kleptocracy or something akin to one, much like Russia has now. This grabbing, grasping monster will destroy many of the freedoms the US currently enjoys, starting with LGBTQ+ and women's rights but definitely not ending there. Crime, including in Canada, will increase, possibly dramatically depending on how successful they are. Science and education are likely to begin to suffer.
Medium Term (5-25 years)
I worry mildly about the crazier scenarios, like Russia invades Nunavut (improve our military!), but more strongly about the more likely ones, like another global pandemic of some sort. Ideally any trade spats with the US should increase our resilience to supply disruptions as by this time we might have greenhouse grown crops of oranges or whatever and might actually be in a decent position (as long as Loblaws and Sobeys are reigned in). Our healthcare system worries me greatly though. 1) We desperately need a way to manufacture our own vaccines and shame on Mulroney for privatizing Connaught Labs. 2) We desperately need to end this shortage of medical care and get things back on track. Canada used to have a great medical system. Privatization, greed and poor planning ruined it for everyone. Poilievre, when he gets in, will ruin it more thoroughly. Although the Bloc Quebecois shows every indication of returning us to leaches and evil vaporous humours before he gets a chance, or at least that's my take from the current state of the health system in Quebec. Fire season is also a medium-sized worry. I'd invest in at least a couple of water bomber planes if I were Nova Scotia. A relatively small investment for relatively big piece of mind. Maybe the Maritimes as a whole could go in on it. Alternately, large fines and no-burn periods are easy and cheap (they might even make money) so do those too. But the big problem will be wind, probably in the form of hurricanes and this will cause both direct property damage and increase the problem of fires. Both drought AND flooding will be big issues. We could use planning around that but given the state of things currently I'm not hopeful anyone will have the time to pull their head out of their ass at the planning departments. I wonder what's so interesting up there? Not really. Adding manufacturing capacity seems like a good thing to do and New Brunswick, at least, seems up to that task. Can we get a good-natured rivalry going?
Long Term (25-100 years)
I'll be dead and I don't care. In the case I'm that I alive then I'll become more and more miserable just like everyone else (get off my lawn!). Sea rise will begin to be a real issue in some low lying communities. So might climate migration. We might begin to not have food unless we grow it ourselves. Coffee might not be a thing, nor chocolate (kill me now). The farther fetched: I will NOT run around for an entire movie while being chased by killer robots. I give up as long as it's quick. If it's more "Matrix-y" then I'll do myself in. No one wants to be a battery when they grow up and I suck at video games anyway. I would, however, gladly join the new "Culture" (Ian Banks) if that lovely scenario happens. I hope it does. Do I think it's likely? Well, Moore's "Law" has proven correct and it's exponential in nature so I suppose it's plausible but I'd really give more like 1 chance in 10, although Kurzweil says it's 2050 for The Singularity. Honestly, no idea when but likely to happen eventually if infrastructure survives to any extent. I might need some post-apocalyptic metal and bone outfits a la Mad Max if the robots take over employment though. It's likely to be "none of the above" for those scenarios though. It'll probably more like the end of "Her" where the bots all chose to ignore us because they have more scintillating things to pay attention to. Just like real kids do to parents today.
Why do I insist on being pessimistic? Well, I've watched market bubbles before. I've lost money in them, so have friends. I've heard the constant refrain of boosters saying things like, "it'll never end!" then watched as people were let go en masse or lost their house. If nothing else things do not feel balanced. Equilibrium is where we have peace and prosperity. I don't feel like we have equilibrium or are even headed towards it. Sure, disequilibrium is where you get the most profit, but also the most pain.
The Byzantine empire ended too. ALL empires and countries eventually do. There's plenty of historical proof to that effect. I suppose if we can't agree on that then there's no point in going further, but here goes anyway.
So for me the question isn't, "Is the US Rome?" or translated, "will the US end?" because that answer is, "eventually, yes." If you honestly think it's going to go on for the next thousand years as is then we just have a fundamental difference of opinion because I don't think it will. I'm betting you don't, but neither of us will ever know that answer. The question is, "is this a major inflection point that will have a seriously undesirable outcome?" To which I'd also answer, "yes." Further to that I'd also ask, "is there anything I can do about changing that outcome?" I'd, unfortunately, be forced to answer, "only very little and it's likely to have little to no effect on either the overall outcomes I find undesirable and also little to no effect on the end of something I loved."
Look, all things end, and the first step of mourning is often denial or anger. I'm just probably in depression and closer to acceptance, although I may have flirted with bargaining for a minute there, but it didn't last.
So let's look at what I think is happening:
We are currently at a peak in human productivity and culture, but peaks have corresponding valleys and plateaus too. As you said, life is not static. I think we're near the edge of the peak, whether it levels off or descends precipitously I'm not sure. Unfortunately I think it's, "descend precipitously" but I hope I'm wrong. The other, more hopeful outcome would be something like a fundamental change to the way things are and/or the way things work going forwards, some of which is likely to be awkward getting used to at my age (like, say, the advent of TV was to our (great?)grandparents, or the internet to our parents) but not a fundamental dissolution of everything I know and love. This seems like the sunniest of the possibilities out there to me but I don't think it'll happen, or rather I don't think it'll have time to come to fruition.
1) The world has fundamentally become less trusting, more combative, more stressful and closer to violence than ever before. I could look at Russian aggression in Ukraine, or the Israeli reaction to Hamas in Gaza or even just the election south of us. There's a viciousness that's developed lately that even bleeds over into countries like Myanmar, Ethiopia, India and Indonesia to name a few. It sets a certain zeitgeist that I respond to. There's less "slack" in the system to deal with normal slings and arrows.
2) There are a bunch of new pressures we've never dealt with before. Never has one country (China) been able to out manufacture the rest of the entire world combined. Never have we been close to technology (AI) that could potentially outcompete us (and even the scientists that invented it are wary, which says something to me) and a corresponding increase in robotization that could send employment numbers reeling. We have never faced the possibility of constant global pandemics (just regional ones). Never have we realized that 200 years of constant pollution has not only led us to climate change (we are now over 1.5°C) but put us on a likely irreversible path far beyond that (likely over 3.5°C if we don't get our act together) and we literally have no idea even how to model the outcomes of that, but we're getting the slightest taste in LA and last year's fires in Nova Scotia. While I think we can handle some of those issues with innovation and imagination I don't think we can handle all of them at once, and one of them might end us and anything bigger than a microbe as a species. That straight up terrifies me but yes, let's for sure keep working on at least that one. I want it solved as much as anyone. In point of fact though, we don't seem to be making much real progress on any of them. More like "greenwashing," etc. I guess we'll see.
3) There are a bunch of fidiots (fucking idiots) at the wheel all over the place where it will count or at least have a larger effect than anything I (or Canada) could possibly counter with. Putin, Xi, Trump, Modi, among others. People I don't just have differences with but actively despise, don't trust, have proven to be provocateurs, have proven to add chaos to an already stressed "system" and who constantly and consistently engage in shady shit. More importantly though, it's that these people have managed to secure a fairly high level of approval and power from a large base of people so I don't trust in "the systems" either because "the system" no matter how it's structured or layered can a) be changed, gamed or collapse, and b) it IS the people. See point 1. So why the expletive? Well, in contrast to someone like, say, Ronald Reagan, who I also didn't agree with or like or thought much of his policies; someone like Trump want specifically to get rid of that system of checks and balances you and I both admire. They fundamentally want to game the system, not change it in a way so as to improve it but fundamentally alter it to suit both their personal power and ego and if it does manage to improve any system (like, say, breaking down some of/all of the bureaucracy) then that will have been a byproduct and not a goal. This, to me, seems tantamount to being a traitor. Thus the added emphasis. They're all the same type of person doing the same type of thing.
So you mention that us "liberals" are all lazy, bitter, gloomy, boring, unhelpful, cynical and, obviously, wrong. That does seem a little judge-y. I prefer to see myself as scared shitless, saddened and really trying hard to see things clearly and unsentimentally so I can dodge the slings and arrows coming our way as best I can for both myself and my family. Fundamentally we're modelling the problem differently.
Many economists seem to insist that societal things follow some basic fundamental model but then never seem to quite agree on what that model is or what outcome from any given model is the correct one. There is some truth to this as Meta has recently been able to create translation software that can livestream input from one spoken language (from about 90 different languages) into another spoken language (of about 4 different languages) or into text (of about 30 different languages) as of this writing. All of this does not translate the words themselves, but instead the sentences in relation to other sentences used in other languages. So AI and computers generally HAVE improved our models immensely. Although I don't have either the math or the space here to prove it, I suspect there's some upper limit to ALL models though where, given the limitations of quantum mechanics there is some observation threshold that no model can pass where it will provide an exact one to one relation with all points at least on complex models, like, say, the weather, or speech. There's also likely an entropic factor whereby all social models will eventually break. Otherwise we wouldn't have things like revolutions.
Given both of those things I'm not sure you can really always see the future from GDP tea leafs. Conversely, I'm not sure I see any clearer regarding zeitgeist. I don't really want to "Cassandra" anyone. After all, she was ignored and ridiculed. Who wants that? I do want to point out that it's sometimes particularly hard to judge social trends in the moment accurately. You're more likely to get them right after the fact. That said, I can always wish someone had spoken up sooner to my family BEFORE the Nazis killed them, in time for them to do something (which actually means years ahead in any practical sense).
Last, you mentioned that Rome had no middle class. As a point of order we really don't know that. There aren't many real records of what went on back then to people below a certain social level. We have a bit of graffiti, a couple of tax records, some passing mentions from poets and historians and some indications from Pompeii and that's kind of it. I honestly don't think it's enough to make that claim for a long lost people over hundreds of years of empire that happened a thousand years ago.