G
gai_saber
Iron
- Joined
- May 26, 2020
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Joe Biden has won; Donald Trump has lost; for some a heavy overcast has at last been vanquished; for some a heavy overcast has been ushered in. And for some, it matters not who the victor was; at bottom we only feel hollowness...
Secular Cycles is a social cycle theory positing, at bottom, that large-scale complex societies undergo ongoing cyclical periods of high-instability and low-instability (political instability). For the U.S., the author posits this graph for the dynamics of instability:
The author suggests the two driving structural-demographic forces responsible are popular immiseration and intraelite conflict. Here are the corresponding trends (using proxies) for the aforementioned elements:
[ATTACH
=full]464069[/ATTACH]
And finally, plotting the trends together, we see this pattern (Popular Well-being is low when Elite Overproduction is high and vice-versa):
It is suggested by this model that the United States is currently at a point of peak instability -- in virtue of all going on, perhaps there is some merit to to this theory.
People are so narrow, so determined by their upbringings; they vie with so much zeal for their cause against others', with so much loyalty to what is "right", or what is the "truth", with little doubt that their stalwart devotion is to a false cause. To insert "truths", to "select truths", to be blithely ignorant of facts... this is how people live their lives: it is impossible for them to live otherwise, for to do otherwise, to see beyond their fictitious world, to see from many perspectives, is unsettling... is frightening.
People are so disposed to talk about "change", so given to talk about how they want a better future for posterity... Those with high spirits at Donald Trump's defeat, those with low spirits at Donald Trump's defeat... are you so certain that anything has truly changed? are you so certain that we are not merely at another turn of the wheel as is suggested above?
Secular Cycles is a social cycle theory positing, at bottom, that large-scale complex societies undergo ongoing cyclical periods of high-instability and low-instability (political instability). For the U.S., the author posits this graph for the dynamics of instability:
The author suggests the two driving structural-demographic forces responsible are popular immiseration and intraelite conflict. Here are the corresponding trends (using proxies) for the aforementioned elements:
[ATTACH
=full]464069[/ATTACH]
And finally, plotting the trends together, we see this pattern (Popular Well-being is low when Elite Overproduction is high and vice-versa):
It is suggested by this model that the United States is currently at a point of peak instability -- in virtue of all going on, perhaps there is some merit to to this theory.
People are so narrow, so determined by their upbringings; they vie with so much zeal for their cause against others', with so much loyalty to what is "right", or what is the "truth", with little doubt that their stalwart devotion is to a false cause. To insert "truths", to "select truths", to be blithely ignorant of facts... this is how people live their lives: it is impossible for them to live otherwise, for to do otherwise, to see beyond their fictitious world, to see from many perspectives, is unsettling... is frightening.
People are so disposed to talk about "change", so given to talk about how they want a better future for posterity... Those with high spirits at Donald Trump's defeat, those with low spirits at Donald Trump's defeat... are you so certain that anything has truly changed? are you so certain that we are not merely at another turn of the wheel as is suggested above?
