TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* The Day The Bridge Died feat. Patrick Wyman

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Patrick Wyman, host of the new Past Lives podcast, joins us to talk about the one ancient civilisational collapse we haven’t talked about in depth: the western Roman Empire. What does it mean to live in collapse? How is it hidden by things like the price mechanism in ways it couldn’t hide in an agrarian empire? What would a potter have experienced in Britain in 350 AD? All this and more! Check out Past Lives here! Get the whole episode on Patreon here! TF Merch is still available here! *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s tour dates here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/liveshows Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

The thing we have to remember about the fall of the Roman Empire is that it was filled with dipshits just like Sam Altman. The world was no different. Like if you want to think about the closest parallels for the kinds of figures who were surrounding and advising emperors, especially in the middle of the fifth century, the kinds of guys who surrounded them, it was absolutely people who were fucking delusional like Sam Altman and who were just telling them things that weren't true. And like, really, like, one of the things that gets me about AI is the extent to which it's. just like a filter over reality and that it is an attempt to make things more palatable for us, more palatable and easier. And I don't think that's a bad parallel for the kinds of advisors that were surrounding the decision-making figures in the Roman Empire in the 5th century, where like they were so insulated from the reality around them, the reality of the empires that

they were ruling that like even if they had wanted to fix things, they weren't being given the kind of information that would have allowed them to make. informed decisions. And I mean, maybe if they had known, they would have just done the ancient equivalent of swallowing of 45 anyway. So I'm not sure it would have mattered that much. But like, there is a strong extent to which when you try and think about what is the core problem that's afflicting the decision-making political class of the Roman, of the Western Roman Empire, it's that they are not in touch with reality in any meaningful way. And like, when I see Sam Altman, that's what I think of. I'm like, oh, this guy is not living on planet Earth with the rest of us.

And I think you could say the same thing for the Roman emperors in the West who were kind of ensconced in the palace in Ravenna through most of the fifth century. Like they weren't capable of making good decisions at all. And they certainly weren't being given the tools to do that anyway.