07 April 2026

Decline and Fall

Once upon a time, Croesus — the yuuuuuugely rich king of Lydia — asked ChatGPT the Oracle of Delphi whether he should attack Persia. The Oracle replied that should he do so, a great empire would fall. Upon hearing this, Croesus decided that he would attack Persia and inevitably cause the fall of the Persian empire. But the empire that fell was Lydia, not Persia. So long as it's not his personal empire that falls, though, today's avatar of Croesus won't care.

Perhaps more than one empire will fall. We can only hope that Mordor is among them; the real problem is that the fall of empires inevitably has an excessive body count, long after the first casualty has been buried.

Meanwhile, just across the river, nothing newsworthy is happening. But at least the architecture is neoclassical and, thus, suitable for American grandeur instead of being excessively modern — not to mention dedicated to ensuring that the names of real people do not remain unknown.