Also another thought. The gladiator games were the Roman equivalent of pornography today. They figured out that in order for the state to grow big and powerful you have to subvert the masses. They tell you about "bread and circuses" in school but they never tell you about subversion. I've been planning to read The Prince by Machiavelli for a long time, it apparently talks about such things. It's possible that the fact that Western Europe/America got richer than Eastern Europe coincides with a) secularism, b) Prussian education system (dumbing down of the masses), c) simplification of languages, etc, for a reason.

>>509693141
Now where have I seen this before.