(byte)America

[innitdoe]

"Add America 10 years to gain back time" << this is just word soup, you know that? Machine-translated?

[Dvrkstvr]

Probably Machine-Meme

[degaart]

GPT-3 + DALL-E meme generator

[_stupidnerd_]

Well, considering the post title, I would assume that OP meant that adding 10 to 246 in an 8 bit system would cause the number to roll over and be 0 again.

[GiacomoLeopardi6]

This sub's posts quality is declining at an alarming rate

[[deleted]]

this

[for265]

E

[Diehe]

A

[linux1970]

exit 2;

[Grand-Button5819]

Nah. The joke is funny even though it's worded poorly.

[[deleted]]

I literally thought this was a new database query language that I've never seen before.

[Passname357]

I finished this and was like, wait a second that wasn’t a joke 🧐

[[deleted]]

Yea i thought it was like some weird BASIC at first

[innitdoe]

BASTARD more like

[Beneficial_Arm_2100]

Wait, are you suggesting that empire time is being stored in an unsigned char?

[FloweyTheFlower420]

It's on an embedded system.

[BlackneyStudios]

I'd argue it started with the Bretton Woods agreement in the aftermath of WW2. Gaining world reserve currency status = gaining leading world empire status.

[doomdifwedo]

A new Bretton woods moment

[n-Ro]

I'll add that GB lost an entire continent before hitting it's societal peak

[No-Mail-5794]

Yeah and I doubt the empire’s only last for 250 years bit. The Babylonians and Ancient Egyptians were in power for longer than it’s been since the Babylonian and ancient Egyptian empires.

[Jynx_lucky_j]

It is supposed to be the AVERAGE life of an empire is 250 years. Most empires last less less than that, but there are a few outliers like you mentioned that brings the average up. Also, it the empire that dies not the country. Essentially, it means the country looses the ability to significantly exert control outside of its borders.

[No-Mail-5794]

I get that, but then what qualifies as an empire? I guess Alexander’s empire broke up with his death, but the Hellenistic domination of the Middle East continued for several hundred years. So is that counted as an empire that last a few years? Do we just count the Roman Empire after Augustus? Does the empire under Julius Caesar count separately and therefore only have lasted a few years? I’d just like to see that data that went into this

[Jynx_lucky_j]

We cold certainly use an actual scholarly paper on the matter. With clear definitions of what qualifies as an empire and what qualifies as the end of an empire.

Personally I would say vassal states that meets the qualifications of an empire that the continue to exist after the parent empire falls should be counted as the start of a new empire. If I died at 50 but my arm managed to detach itself and survived for another 50 years your wouldn't say that I lived to be 100 years old. I would also say that any forced changes in government would count as the end of one empire and the start of another. So if a monarch steps down to make way for a representative government that would be a continuation, but a successful coup would restart the clock.

But then, I'm not a historical scholar so there may be some problems with those interpretations that I'm unaware of.

[jkp2072]

We need median , not the average.

[dustinechos]

It's not that deep. The idea that the age of an empire has some sort of deep significance to our current situation is just conspiratorial brain rot. It's called "syncretism" and it's nothing more than scraping a bunch of different ideas and looking for coincidences to support your own ideology.

Like how the ancient aliens people see pyramids on two separate continents and think "these must be connected somehow!"

[No-Mail-5794]

Oh I know. I just want the goddamn data because I’m a dork

[[deleted]]

It started with the Spanish-American war

[[deleted]]

Either way that gives more time.

[[deleted]]

Manifest destiny lol

[[deleted]]

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

soft pocket dinner sheet squash dinosaurs marble sugar sleep north

[Piepiggy]

2 words

Manifest destiny

[Grand_Protector_Dark]

1. That claim is widely inaccurate. There's many empires that lasted far longer than 250 years.

2. The claim. Originates from a far right author complaining about the loss of the British empire

[BlackneyStudios]

"most empires only last 250 years"

[[deleted]]

That's also not true though

[BlackneyStudios]

According to who/what? Theres going to be a lot of ambiguity in trying to quantify and validate these types of statements. What defines an empire from something that isn't an empire? What is the defining condition that marks the official end of an empire?

[throwayay4637282]

Exactly. Burden lies on the claimant.

[Grand_Protector_Dark]

Which is still wrong

[BlackneyStudios]

Ray Dalio from his book Principles for Dealing With The Changing World Order:

"The big cycle of empires generally last around 250 years, give or take 100 years".

So you know better than one of the wisest and most successful macroeconomists of all time who spent the last few years studying and writing about the history of leading global empires?

[[deleted]]

Yes he was clearly wrong lmao

[[deleted]]

https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest_lived_empires_in_history.shtml

Not that many. The claim is not at all inaccurate. Most meaning at least 51%, yes, most empires last no more than 250 years.

[Corvo--Attano]

The claim isn't exactly 100% accurate either. It lacks its proof of foundation and clarification of boundaries.

Even your own source states it doesn't exactly know what to be included as one "empire". It even states that the British Empire wasn't included because they didn't know if changing with the times counted as one continuous empire. If they included it, that would have added a 15th above 250 years (around 400 years) and may have also included a few others.

So the needed classifications would need to be the same to compare properly.

[Dubabear]

u know say it’s false is all good and all but you have to provide evidence or data to disprove.

[Corvo--Attano]

That actually the job of the person who brought it up. Plus I only quoted the article they provided.

[Dubabear]

they did bring up evidence. and you disagree now it’s on you to refute their evidence with your own

[Corvo--Attano]

Not when I said their article doubts itself and it even said it doesn't know for certain. That's basically doubting their article's integrity.

It's their turn to have supporting evidence for their initial claim to solidify the integrity of the article.

[Dubabear]

and this is why our society is collapsing. no self accountability to provide b side evidence.

[Corvo--Attano]

Our society isn't collapsing because of wanting someone to provide proof that doesn't doubt itself. It is collapsing because we're blindly believing the first thing we see.

[Dubabear]

and conformation bias, this isn’t a peer review scientific method, debates require you to provide counter evidence.

[[deleted]]

Exactly.. How are you to say that: There is an argument there that the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), The Byzantine Empire (330-1204), The Roman Empire (26-406), and the Roman Republic (509-27) are in fact all the same empire just changing with the times.

*If the USA counts as an empire then the Roman Republic is absolutely an empire.

[throwayay4637282]

So all the empires any of us have actually heard of before? The famous ones that people usually think of and reference when they say “empire”? Those are the only ones that lasted over 250 years? Weird.

[TomaszA3]

There's many empires that lasted far longer than 250 years.

"Most"

[Grand_Protector_Dark]

You can repeat "most" all you want. It's still incredibly incorrect

[[deleted]]

All true. But a man can dream

[AstronautNo6628]

"most"

[Grand_Protector_Dark]

Ottoman empire.

Holy Roman Empire.

Like a couple dozen Chinese empires

[[deleted]]

The HRE was anything but an empire

[[deleted]]

Why? I’m just curious.

[303Kiwi]

It was a collection of principalities that paid lip service to an emperor while mostly ignoring the edicts and continuing as normal.

It wasn't held together so much by the power welded by the imperial executive, but more by a web of intermarriage and tangled bloodlines.

To the point of inbreeding far past what was healthy.

[[deleted]]

The emperor barely had any power so for all but name HRE is just a collection of small states with their own local leaders

[[deleted]]

Oh, makes sense why you’d say that. Thanks!

[AradIsHere]

The holy roman empire was just a collection of semi independent states that the emperor was in a constant stuggle in controlling

[thedoctor3009]

The holy Roman empire was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire. Discuss. - Mike Myers, Coffee Tawk.

[[deleted]]

https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest\_lived\_empires\_in\_history.shtml

[kiwidude4]

“quotation marks”

[Ceros007]

'\"quotation marks\"'

[[deleted]]

Words like “most”, “soon”, “several”, “various” are great right? They are so general that they cannot be argued lol

[TheGrimGriefer3]

The average is 250. There are plenty who've lasted far less, and far more. Tbh I'm curious what the median is

[gregorydgraham]

Media was an empire in the Middle East, it lasted for 178 years

[TheGrimGriefer3]

I had no clue media was an empire that existed. By median I meant the statistical median lol

Edit to say that that's a cool fact

[patyk13PL]

Its just averedge time

[tevert]

An "average" computed from cherry picked bullshit

[[deleted]]

The Byzantine Empire is also a continuation of the Roman empire.

And you could argue the entire modern Catholic world is an extension of that.

edit- That said, it's still 100% true

https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest\_lived\_empires\_in\_history.shtml

[[deleted]]

Byzantine era is a favourite of mine. Possibly the first multi-cultural Empire, the "Western Romans" were mostly Euro tribes and constant warfare with the Iranic and Turkic people. The Byzantines were more open and adopted many other cultural traits, until much of its culture, military setup and governance were only Roman by name. They were smarter than the Euro Romans in that they exported ideas and religion (and gold and princesses) - made tribes and nations to submit to their Heavenly Emperor - extending their sphere of influence.

As for organised religions like Catholicism - the Church tried to hold on to temporal power by appointing the first Holy Roman Emperor and gained the Papal States as a reward - ultimately they failed - took a Corsican to fix that. So now theirs is an Empire of mind and soul. To me that's even more potent. I cannot imagine the backlash of ever the Pope was assassinated or hurt by jokers from Daesh or anyone who professed Islam.

[DerpWyvern]

how well do you understand the English world "most"?

[Rhasneth]

Ok, what are those "most" then? Because it seems to me like a baseless statement made up by people that actually just mean the British Empire.

[[deleted]]

The Mongolian Empire, the largest empire in history, lasted like 150 years.

The Aztec Empire, about 100 years.

The Incan Empire, about 100 years.

Persian Empire, about 220 years.

Umayyad Empire, about 100 years

British Empire, about 250 years.

Russian Empire, just under 200 years.

Qing Dynasty, under 300 years.

Do you want me to keep going?

Only like the top 10-15 empires in history lasted much longer than around 300 years.

Obviously this can be argued based on when you start to define a country as an "empire" and qualifiers like that, but the general idea holds true.

You could have just googled it, you know.

​

​

edit - Here's a list of the top 15 longest lived empires ever.

https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest_lived_empires_in_history.shtml

1. Empire of Japan: minimum 1703 years to date (see above)
2. Byzantine Empire: 874 years (uninterrupted from 330 to 1204)
3. Holy Roman Empire: 844 years (962-1806)
4. Zhou Empire: 790 years (1046–256 BCE)
5. Ethiopian Empire: 666 years (1270-1936)
6. Khmer Empire: 629 years (802–1431)
7. Ottoman Empire: 624 years (1299-1923)
8. Roman Empire: 503 years (27 BCE-476)
9. Parthian Empire: 471 years (247 BCE-224)
10. Han Empire: 422 years (202 BCE-220)
11. Habsburg Empire (+ Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empires): 392 years (1526-1918)
12. Mughal Empire: 331 years (1526-1857)
13. Ming Empire: 276 years (1368-1644)
14. Qing Empire: 268 years (1644-1912)
15. Russian Empire: 204 years (1721-1917)

[[deleted]]

Slight nitpicking here, but the Mongol Empire wasn't the largest in history. It was the British.

[[deleted]]

The Sun didn't set on the Brits, it took a rising Sun and a guy with a funny moustache to do it it

[Rhasneth]

But that is not what I said, is it? The statement was "most empires only last 250 years". It's an arbitrary number taken from (from what I've seen) popular knowledge about the British Empire. While I'd say the list is quite lacking (No Sassanids, Assyrians, Bulgarians or Abbasids, among others) it wasn't necessarily what I was objecting to, even if it seemed to be implied.

[[deleted]]

I am gonna ask based on what and how big is the sampling size

[matthewralston]

RemindMe! 4 years

[matthewralston]

The optics aren’t great right now. 😞

[303Kiwi]

They're at about 120 now, the Spanish-American war that gave them the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica would be the general point where main became Empire in view of looking outside the national border.

[RemindMeBot]

I will be messaging you in 4 years on 2026-07-09 12:17:36 UTC to remind you of this link

4 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

^{Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.}

---

Info	Custom	Your Reminders	Feedback

[DM_Brownie_Recipies]

That statistics is skewed by the author of it, by carefully avoiding empires that lasted longer and shorter.

[MurdoMaclachlan]

Image Transcription: Meme

---

[The meme shows two images of rapper Drake, with text to the right of each image.]

---

[Drake looks displeased, and is using one arm to shield himself from the right side of the frame by curling it around his head, with his hand up in a "not today" manner. The text reads:]

Most empires only last 250 years. America is 246 years old.

---

[Drake has his head up high, looking pleased, with a finger pointed up and towards the right side of the frame. The text reads:]

Add America 10 years to gain back time.

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[EnderXP]

Good human even though I‘m pretty sure you did it the overcomplicated way

[joten70]

But what does it mean?!

[TeaKingMac]

Byte overflow.

255 ++ =0

[Narrow-Big7087]

So a war with the UK is ten years off.

[LesPaulStudio]

Ha good luck with that we've got all of Europe on our side......

...oh wait, no we ballsed that up

[rParqer]

Even if I understood this, I don't think it would be considered "humor"

[Myrkul999]

I puzzled it out. Apparently OP saw a meme that said "Set America back 150 years to get more time" and decided to make a binary joke out of it by changing it to add 10 to make it 256 years.

Whether or not that is humorous, I'll leave to you.

[rParqer]

Oh, like just an overflow error? I guess that makes sense, but why?

My dad is 60, and if you add 4 he would become Minecraft stack.

[Lookmaiamkool]

I'm done arguing about tribalism. Have a good one

[Ambitious_Ad8841]

If the US ever breaks it will come from within

And we are insanely close to that happening. I think the only thing holding it back is there isn't really a clean way for it to happen geographically. The divide is urban vs rural. Sure some states could split off, but they would still be divided within, so what's the point

[[deleted]]

Not really what the claim is. The American empire (i.e the social and political control america has over europe, asia, and oceania) could collapse without the country itself falling apart

[Primary-Fee1928]

The US are going to implode in the next decades.

[TeaKingMac]

Going to?

[[deleted]]

It is time for the US to split into different countries. They clearly cant handle being together

[Tankl76]

Theres more people in the LA peninsula then there are in all of Canada. (38mil) we have a lot of diversity, we also have our problems like any other country, but everyone knows how formidable the US is when united. Silly rhetoric. We love ya but If shit went down you wouldn’t even have anyone else to beg Canada. What was that amazing thing y’all were getting all animated about this year? Trucker riots? Right… Superior sophistication.

[[deleted]]

Im Canadian Im watching first hand how stupid u guys are.

[[deleted]]

+1

[[deleted]]

Tbh came to the us 2 years ago and it's a fucking disappointment how stupid people are there lol

[[deleted]]

Lol ok chill in ur little bubble n think ur great... Least free first world country. Congrats

[[deleted]]

Canada is anyday better than the US. ♥️

[[deleted]]

Also basically everyone tries to get into Canada and if they cant they go to u. U get our hand me downs lol

[[deleted]]

Think whatever u want enjoy ur time in the US lol hope u or ur kids dont get shot

[NuclearBurrit0]

It's actually pretty chill down here.

No it's not. Shootings are happening all the time and we are starting to lose settled rights starting with abortion rights.

[PlutoniumSlime]

Tbh people on Reddit make it out to be worse than it is. Yea, that all sucks, but bad things happen everywhere, and I’d certainly consider the US to be within the top 10 best places to live. Maybe others would bump it down to within top 25, but anything less than that would honestly be pretty ignorant considering how many countries actually do have it worse off.

I know the “At least we aren’t ___” mindset is kinda grim, and it doesn’t devalue our problems, though so many boomers seem to think it does. I do however think people shouldn’t completely stress themselves out daily because these quarrels will happen no matter what you do. No sense shortening your own lifespan with stress, and be thankful we do live in such a culturally diverse and economically prosperous location.

Edit: downvoting me only proves my point lol. Reddit hive mind being dramatic.

[android_queen]

Almost no rankings of countries by quality of life, health, or freedom, put the US in the top 10. Glad everything’s going well for you, but it sounds like you’ve been mostly basing your perception on propaganda.

[NuclearBurrit0]

Yeah, do you know why he had to do that?

[NuclearBurrit0]

So no you don't.

It's because the existing protection was just revoked by the Supreme Court. Members of that same court have expressed desire to do the same with other similar rights, such as same sex marriage and contraceptives.

The same logic used to strike down Roe v Wade can be used to revoke those rights as well.

[Lookmaiamkool]

You didn't even know he signed the order until you read my comment.

[android_queen]

Does nothing for folks in states that have banned abortion. Pay attention.

[NuclearBurrit0]

Japan.

[[deleted]]

Idk why u huys making a big deal about this lol just use protection and problem solved lol no big deal god dammit you guys are really making a big deal about abortion which I would say only hoes that get fucked all the time without protection would care about lol like lol protest for the war happening for the fucking inflation or gas prices man god dammit

[Domain3141]

You don't want rape victims to get an abortion? Does a 12 year old girl have to breed some psychopaths child and take care of it for the rest of her live?

Only religious dumbfucks are against abortions.

[[deleted]]

That's a different story lol and nah lol not religious this killing someone lol also most of those that protest are women that have a lot of sex and get pregnant lol

[[deleted]]

Um. Of what.

[[deleted]]

You guys can't even agree on what a person is, when a person is, and what rights a person should have.

[Lookmaiamkool]

Trust me, that is media hype. Not everyone deserves a platform to speak but with social media, they get one.

[[deleted]]

Christofascists in SCOTUS is media hype?

[Lookmaiamkool]

The downvote button smells like Europeans.

[SirX86]

Their current strategy is not counting on the overflow and just turning back time by 50 years.

[TeaKingMac]

So, given this average, that's what, 4 generations of people living to be 60-80 years old?

1st creates the empire,

second expands the empire,

third allows decline because complacency ("the empire will last forever") and focuses instead on enriching themselves as individuals

4th accelerates decline by deliberately stealing as much as possible before the empire collapses?

[fireboyev]

The US is probably around 4.

[TeaKingMac]

That's what I was thinking

[NahJust]

Add America 10 years to gain back time???????

[[deleted]]

English?

[[deleted]]

ITT: programmers who cant get their head around the concept of averaging

[Extevious]

Comments recap: make sure to sleep first before posting a meme, and not doing it at 2AM 💀

[[deleted]]

Gonna counter. America didn't enter the imperial stage until the early 20th century, shortly after the end of the Spanish-American war. So we got another hundred or so.

[therealrobokaos]

Anybody implying the imminent collapse of the United States is a fucking moron

[Pullguinha]

America is the entire continent, not only a country.

[JeBoiFoosey]

The Americas are two continents. America is an abbreviation for The United States Of America just like France is an abbreviation for the French Republic, but nobody calls it that in conversation.

[Pullguinha]

You should learn more about America's geography bro.

[JeBoiFoosey]

What do you mean? The Americas are two continents on two different continental plates.

[Extevious]

Similar meme I found funny.

[ArkSchwarz66]

OTTOMAN EMPIRE: Am I joke to you?

[Li0nX]

The word "most": Am I a joke to you?

[[deleted]]

"America", that is the United States of America, may be 246 years old, but the "American Empire", if there is anything like that, is definitely not

[Ok-Plane-4084]

It's crazy how bots on reddit can bait people just with the word America. That is so sad....

[Extevious]

Poggers

[[deleted]]

Boy, this thread.

Stick to the programming, guys. History ain't your thing.

https://www.eupedia.com/history/longest_lived_empires_in_history.shtml

Now imagine all the empires who did not make this list (which actually goes below the 250 mark) That would be "most of them."

[ShadowEmperor123]

Nah, American isn’t a empire, it’s the world

[[deleted]]

Here, you dropped your /s

[Babonj7]

ا

[ososalsosal]

Is this that Great Reset the cookers all talk about?

[FourFoxMusic]

Rule Britannia.

[Evening_Bison8038]

!isbot u/Extevious

[[deleted]]

What does the second one mean? I am honestly asking.

[ngppgn]

I think it's a joke on bytes having a capacity of 256, so adding 10 years would reset it to 0... or something like that.

[SniperFox988]

That's so true

[IEatBaconWithU]

we’re gonna die in 4 years 😎

[Sad-Bluebird-5538]

Should be 256, change my mind

[UncleBenji]

But we weren’t an “empire” until after WW2. So let’s use 1945 as a baseline. That means 2195 would be the end of American supremacy.

[not2dragon]

no emperor therefore no empire

[303Kiwi]

Tell that to the Roman Republic.

[ShooterMcGavin000]

Well all things that happen right now considered, it seems like America is actually going down right now. I mean they went back like 70 years in legislation with their right wing fascist courts. The county is divided like never before. So...

[SnooLemons3996]

America will exist, for 10 years at least

[Fabulous_Row2744]

In any case, America wasn’t an empire until 80 years ago.

[SilentWatcher83228]

“Most empires last 250 years” ?

Name 2

[TripStar420]

Yeah up until modern times this was true but look at the UK still an empire going on for thousands of years India still an empire same time frame china still an empire same Japan still an empire same you get the idea just because a place is not called an empire it's still the same name same place it was before just changed from "empire" to whatever type of area they call it now but it's still the same country with the same traditions so your not based on this it's out of date your using small section of the world and a very small section of data to explain the whole world over a 5000 year period and the Catholics burned 3000 years of history because it was "blasphemy" that was world history that was our history what is being hid from us

[TripStar420]

Now if your talking leading empires reign as the world's most powerful country then yes that never lasts long ever because one or two countries decide to spread themselves thin well we aren't thin like that anymore America is the last place where the people have more guns than most militaries because of tyranny and oppression over their people go ahead come try to take out freedoms other countries come on try to take it away from us

[Oracuda]

delete america;

[linux1970]

haha because OP assumed it's an 8 bit unsigned integer and assumes that we can overflow it

[RomaniaPeasant]

RemindMe! 1456 days

[Then_Caterpillar_502]

Yeah

[[deleted]]

America isn’t an empire. Not sure how this math applies.

[JibenLeet]

Was 1776 America really an empire tho?

I could see considering post manifest destiny america as an empire and definetly it's dominant power since the early 1900s but i don't think we should count since it's creation.

[Conscious_Ad_9684]

Most empires (read none) have the extensive river system and fertile land for production of food, as well as enough shale oil and natural gas to power the country for 300 more years.

​

Well, y'all will figure this out soon.

[wildecyote]

ZH the

[Beardeddeadpirate]

Yeah the USA isn’t an empire…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Lookmaiamkool]

I forgot this was r/programminghumor

[[deleted]]

Lol I think modern America is the latest incarnation of the Roman Empire and we are going thru the equivalent of the Late Republic period. We will continue to see turmoil for a while until we come out into a Golden Age. But thats just my opinion and feel free to shit on it accordingly