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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)

#31

Post by leereeves »

flybrand wrote: post #27
leereeves wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 citie…

Technically he would have counted deaths, if I recall correctly. I agree w your idea though.

I think 2020 might also qualify on that count.

Massive 1-Year Rise In Homicide Rates...in 2020

> New Orleans-based data consultant Jeff Asher studied crime rates in more than 50 cities and says the crime spikes aren't just happening in big cities. With the numbers of homicides spiking in many places, Asher expects the final statistics for 2020 to tell a startlingly grim story.

> "We're going to see, historically, the largest one-year rise in murder that we've ever seen," he says.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953254623/massive-1-year-rise...

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

#32

Post by simonh »

orange_tee wrote: post #8
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…

The way I understood it, elite overproduction is about successful wealthy people, not enjoying the political influence that they believed they would enjoy after attaining their wealth.

It’s not really about wealth or political power specifically. It’s about status and power generally. Some of the pseudo-elite may pursue wealth, others social status, others political influence, etc. These are largely fungible though, so the problem is when you overproduce the elite class generally, all of these go into deficit.

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

#33

Post by mellosouls »

Cycles in history are an ancient and intriguing idea; modern - disputed - forms include Strauss-Howe generation theory.

This "cliodynamics" seems to be an effort to put these sorts of ideas on a more academically respectable footing.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generati...

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

#34

Post by roenxi »

74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #17
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…

I dunno, there are a lot of countries famous for their education which are nevertheless not ideal places to go.

Culture might be a more important aspect than education. Education is relatively easy to transplant (c.f. China & the rest of Asia, or the US stealing many of Germany's good scientists after WWII, or the Brits leaching French expertise after the revolution). Culture is really hard to transplant because nobody knows which are the good bits and which are the bad bits.

I'll throw these two in because I they are an interesting and relevant example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Isambard_Brunel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel

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

#35

Post by neartheplain »

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…

Perhaps unfortunately, 50 years might not be long enough for generational turnover in US government. Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell are both 78 years old. Nancy Pelosi is 80. Senators Diane Feinstein and Chuck Grassley are 87.

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

#36

Post by wombatmobile »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #13
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…

Does the model predict or account for the Oklahoma Federal building bombing (1996, 168 people killed)?

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

#37

Post by iguy »

roenxi wrote: post #34
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I dunno, there are a lot of countries famous for their education which are nevertheless not ideal places to go. Culture might be a more important aspect than education. Education is relatively easy to transplant (c.f. China & the rest of Asia, or the US stealing many of Germany's good scientists after WWII, or the Brits leaching French expertise after the revolution). Culture is really hard to transplant because nobo…

These examples are of technical education. German rocket scientists, and British blast-furnace wizards (to France). These things are important of course but seem orthogonal to political institutional memory.

Scholars deeply steeped in Bismark's thoughts & mistakes, or in English constitutional law, didn't make these jumps.

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

#38

Post by WatchDog »

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

I don't think analytical thinking has anything to do with political leaning, I'd argue that the US higher education system particularly the humanities is a breeding ground of idealogues. I would say the tendency of education to lean left is largely due to left leaning people being more attracted to working in academia.

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

#39

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 »

roenxi wrote: post #34
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I dunno, there are a lot of countries famous for their education which are nevertheless not ideal places to go. Culture might be a more important aspect than education. Education is relatively easy to transplant (c.f. China & the rest of Asia, or the US stealing many of Germany's good scientists after WWII, or the Brits leaching French expertise after the revolution). Culture is really hard to transplant because nobo…

Well, obviously "education" is already a political term and will be defined as required. The way I mean education is in a holistic sense. Education is about learning to learn, learning to think for yourself, learning about history and science in an as-unbiased-fashion as possible. But the learning about yourself and how to think for yourself is the key. In countries with that sort of education you'll have less problems with free speech to begin with. Because first of all there are fewer people who come up with unfounded conspiracy theories and second of all fewer people who fall for it - because they learned to think for themselves. But it's gift that keeps giving ... third of all there will be less division in society because it will be a fairer society to begin with. Education is based on a fair society, leads to a fair society and stabilizes a fair society. But if a country is at a point where a Betsy DeVos is appointed as secretary of education - well, good night ...

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

#40

Post by paganel »

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…

>at the 25+ crowd with fresh degrees, tons of debt and not-precisely-excellent earning opportunities

There are numerous studies and theories saying that late 19th-early 20th century revolutions wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been coordinated by educated people who hadn't found a stable job (mostly as government employees, not that many private white-collar jobs back then). The Russian revolution definitely wouldn't have happened without university-educated Lenin and Trotsky, and I'd say that even Stalin falls under "educated but with no stable job" umbrella (if I'm not mistaken he had gone to a priest seminary).

In my country (Romania) most of the inter-war intellectuals had turned extremists for exactly that reason, i.e. too few white-collar jobs to chase for people who had finished university. The most well-known examples are guys like Eliade or Cioran, but a more relevant one is Corneliu Zelea-Codreanu [1], which is currently well liked by some people in the US [2] and in Northern Italy [3]. A very relevant book on the subject can be found here [4], unfortunately for the time being with no English translation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneliu_Zelea_Codreanu

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-charlottesvil...

[3] https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2018/11/20/news/lealta_azi...

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Limitele-Meritocratiei-Intro-Societat...

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