[keiferski]

But these don’t just have local impact. They often entirely change the trajectory of history.

For example: what if Caesar has a son earlier in life and by the time he is killed, this son becomes his heir instead of Octavian? The son isn’t as clever as Octavian, he loses the civil war to Antony, who is far less capable of setting up the infrastructure of the empire. Rome collapses centuries earlier - or the Senate regains power.

None of this seems like it would lead to the same historical outcome.

[dmn322]

Then the roman empire would have been led by someone slightly different and perhaps had slightly different borders.

> who is far less capable of setting up the infrastructure of the empire

This is where we diverge.. I consider setting up empire-wide infrastructure to be something that largely happens due to socioeconomic forces and the environmental conditions of the empire, not something that 1 guy decides to do alone. If Antony won the civil war, he would still be in command of an economic juggernaut, and other politicians and advisors would start suggesting projects to help out their constituents and sponsors. If he kept suggesting stupid ideas, people close to him would tell him they're stupid and he would have resistance to them.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of variance. Obviously there's a place like North Korea. But if you average out the political situation across that whole region over about 50 years... add a bit of blur to the whole thing, both to the borders, the times, the ideologies... it starts to look more like ideas reverberating through a network. Sometimes all the random noise will come together and interfere constructively to make a region of large amplitude.

Basically, instead of thinking of history so much through the lens of names of rulers, etc, think of it through the lens of a random guy in the "ohio" of the empire you're considering. You think the life of some random guy in modern day Slovenia was affected much by things that were purely Octavian's whims? Even further, strip out all the names and people, and just think of it in terms of physical materials moving across the mediterranean... you think the total flow of grain from egypt to the surrounding areas was much affected by these political situations? Do you think if you looked at a video that showed the change of historic economic activity of the various regions of Rome with no dates or political boundaries shown, that you would be able to distinguish the transition of rome from republic to empire?

[keiferski]

Sorry, but I'm not super interested in arguing about this, because you seem pretty convinced that the modern "systems and trends" approach is the only correct answer.

> I consider setting up empire-wide infrastructure to be something that largely happens due to socioeconomic forces and the environmental conditions of the empire, not something that 1 guy decides to do alone

Yes, well, that's not how history actually happened. I suggest reading more about Augustus the individual and the decisions he made. A different person would have made different decisions – which yes, would have reverberated down to the common man in "Ohio", especially if his formerly peaceful locale is now a warzone or if his children are drafted into the military.

Augustus laid the bureaucratic and financial foundation for the Empire and without him, there's no guarantee that the Roman Empire actually exists. So again, no, the empire would not "have been led by someone slightly different and perhaps had slightly different borders." It may have splintered into eastern and western divisions sooner, been overrun by barbarians more quickly, or fractured into the pieces held by the various factions.

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/905/reforms-of-augustus...

This exact same scenario has happened many times WRT Muhammad, Napoleon, Constantine, George Washington, et cetera et cetera. The idea that individuals are just interchangeable cogs is just a 20th century cultural trope, not an accurate reading of history.

[dmn322]

You're stating something that's obviously your opinion as if it's fact, so I'm not particularly interested in discussing with you either.

None of what you just said directly addresses what I intended to communicate. Nobody is suggesting that people don't make any decisions. Nobody is suggesting that literally everything would have happened exactly the same if different people were involved.

What I am suggesting: there are a number of characteristics which are required to become a US president right now. Those characteristics drastically skew the probability of certain decisions being made versus if a person were picked at random. Furthermore, if by statistical anomaly someone did make drastically different decisions, there are several correction mechanisms that would prevent the effects from reaching too far... see Julius Caesar for example. But he's even an exception that proves the rule, as his ascent to power was only possible once the republic was in a certain state of decay.

So yes, Augustus made many decision that changed the course of history. However so did many other people, and just like the binomial distribution of catching stoplights green or red causes trip times to be normally distributed as the number of stoplights goes to infinity, decisions which bolster or hinder macroeconomic factors cause them to be normally distributed as the number of decisions and decisionmakers goes to infinity.