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Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

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Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#11

Post by leereeves »

wombatmobile wrote: post #3

What is a “violent upheaval”? Without a specific definition, such as “civil war resulting in 620,000 deaths”, they’re fairly easy to predict.

I think what happened in 2020 qualifies. While tame compared to the Civil War, it was comparable to the upheaval that happened about 50 years ago, and certainly not easy to predict.

> between 15 million and 26 million people participated at some point in the demonstrations

> arson, vandalism and looting caused about $1–2 billion in insured damage between May 26 and June 8,

> By early June, at least 200 American cities had imposed curfews, while more than 30 states and Washington, D.C, had activated over 62,000 National Guard personnel in response to unrest.

> By the end of June, at least 14,000 people had been arrested at protests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_United_State...

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#12

Post by yyyk »

watwut wrote: post #10
inglor_cz wrote: post #2

Turchin's two main ideas are intriguing. a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different. b) elite overproduction…

Elite in pollitical sense does not equal "someone with college degree".

Turchin (not in the linked article, but elsewhere[0]) explicitly refers to rise in number of underemployed graduates as a trigger for the creation of a counter-Elite.

[0] http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/the-storming-of-the-u-s...

"Elite overproduction, and especially overproduction of the youth with advanced degrees, continues unabated. Our institutions of higher education have been churning out law, MBA, and PhD degrees, many more than could be absorbed by the economy. In a Bloomberg View article published just a few days ago Noah Smith provides the numbers for the overproduction of PhDs (America Is Pumping Out Too Many Ph.D.s)."

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#13

Post by JPLeRouzic »

wombatmobile wrote: post #3

What is a “violent upheaval”? Without a specific definition, such as “civil war resulting in 620,000 deaths”, they’re fairly easy to predict.

In describing how he built his database Turchin says [0] it is about lethal events:

"Instability events vary in scale from intense and pro- longed civil wars claiming thousands (and sometimes even millions) of human lives to a one-day urban riot in which several people are killed, or even a violent demonstration in which no lives are lost. In constructing the database I chose to include only lethal events."

[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343312442078

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#14

Post by wilsonfiifi »

insert_coin wrote: post #7

As they say, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

That's brilliant! I wholeheartedly agree. In case anyone wonders where this saying comes from, my quick search attributes it to Margaret Atwood, from her book "The Testaments" [0].

  [0] https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/as-they-say-history-does-not-repeat-itself-but-it-rhymes/

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#15

Post by onethought »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #9
inglor_cz wrote: post #2

Turchin's two main ideas are intriguing. a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different. b) elite overproduction…

Taking b) and running with it, education is, in my opinion, the silver bullet for a number of societies ills. It's very interesting to note how higher education in the US has such a high barrier to entry that it actively discourages outsiders. It feels as if the Australian Government wants to move in the same direction, and / or have already been doing so for a few years. Education has its own benefits to society as…

True, if you are on the right (political spectrum) you do not want to encourage higher education, it shifts people to the left, as analytical thinking starts undoing idealism. US is a good example of this, with most universities having more left communities around them.

Perhaps it is an intentional long play by the Right in Australia to pursue this kind of minimisation of education

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#16

Post by satellite2 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #2

Turchin's two main ideas are intriguing. a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different. b) elite overproduction…

I think, it's an interesting model, and would probably work all else being equal. But in that case, I believe he misses one critical variable. We are much less violent than 50 years ago because kid beating largely went out of fashion.

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#17

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #2

Turchin's two main ideas are intriguing. a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different. b) elite overproduction…

> a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different.

That's why education is the most important pillar of democracy. Education is everything.

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#18

Post by inglor_cz »

satellite2 wrote: post #16
inglor_cz wrote: post #2

Turchin's two main ideas are intriguing. a) 50 years is enough for "institutional memory" to go out of the window. This may change with longevity breakthroughs, but 50 years is currently enough for a complete generation exchange, so the new leaders have no memory of the previous upheaval and will make the same mistakes again. Or at least the same kind of mistakes, details are always different. b) elite overproduction…

I think, it's an interesting model, and would probably work all else being equal. But in that case, I believe he misses one critical variable. We are much less violent than 50 years ago because kid beating largely went out of fashion.

"We are much less violent than 50 years ago"

I would say that the population is, on average, much older and has more to lose. Fortysomethings do not regularly engage in street chaos. This is even more visible in Europe, even in formerly violent places like the Balkans or Northern Ireland.

Once the share of the young hotheads in the population drops, you have much smaller probability of really serious riots.

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#19

Post by _y5hn »

onethought wrote: post #15
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking b) and running with it, education is, in my opinion, the silver bullet for a number of societies ills. It's very interesting to note how higher education in the US has such a high barrier to entry that it actively discourages outsiders. It feels as if the Australian Government wants to move in the same direction, and / or have already been doing so for a few years. Education has its own benefits to society as…

True, if you are on the right (political spectrum) you do not want to encourage higher education, it shifts people to the left, as analytical thinking starts undoing idealism. US is a good example of this, with most universities having more left communities around them. Perhaps it is an intentional long play by the Right in Australia to pursue this kind of minimisation of education

You could say that analytical thinking undo gullibility. Idealism and principles though, may better be understood, applied and defended, with well-rounded education.

Re: Will the US experience a violent upheaval in 2020? (2012)

#20

Post by watwut »

inglor_cz wrote: post #18
satellite2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, it's an interesting model, and would probably work all else being equal. But in that case, I believe he misses one critical variable. We are much less violent than 50 years ago because kid beating largely went out of fashion.

"We are much less violent than 50 years ago" I would say that the population is, on average, much older and has more to lose. Fortysomethings do not regularly engage in street chaos. This is even more visible in Europe, even in formerly violent places like the Balkans or Northern Ireland. Once the share of the young hotheads in the population drops, you have much smaller probability of really serious riots.

Young people are less violent then they used to be. It is not just about their share in population, they behave less violently then young people 50 years ago.
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