City Council approves fireworks ban as other Pa. cities plan to follow suit

https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/l...7ac8d.html

Neil Howe in an interview he did, argued that the whole Middle East is on the same saeculum. However, I would disagree with him, because I see a split between Turkey, Iran and possibly Kurdistan, with that of the Arab World.

Neil's observations that the Arab world (which includes North Africa and Israel) is about 12-14 years behind North America is pretty accurate. Essentially their last Crisis was in the 1940's and 1950s, last High during the 1960s and 1970s, the last Awakening during the 1980s and 1990s, the last Unravelling in the 2000s and 2010s. Right now they have just started their current Crisis in the two to four years. Therefore; the Arab Spring I argue was an Unravelling to Crisis transitional event, similar to what the 1848 revolutions were in Europe.

However, it is obvious to me and some others, that Turkey and Iran are on a completely different saeculum, one which is aligned with Russia and Central Asia. Their last Crisis started around 1976-1978, which led to a High lasting until around 2014-2016 and currently they are in an early stage of an Awakening. In Iran, it probably began with the outbreak of anti-government protests focusing on the overthrow of the regime between 2014-2016.

Going back into history, the Crisis before that for both Turkey and Iran happening between c.1900-c.1920. Which featured political upheaval that led to the overthrow of the Ottoman and Qajar dynasties, mirrored what was happening in Russia with the Russian Revolution followed by the Civil War. All these events utterly profoundly transformed the institutional structures of all these countries. However, in the Arab world, this process did not occur until the 1950s, with the Algerian War of Independence, along with Baathist revolutions in Syria, Egypt, and Iraq which overthrew their monarchies. 

During the late 1970s both Iran and Turkey, went through major political and institutional upheaval. In Iran, there was the utterly trans-formative Iranian revolution. Also in Turkey, there was a wave of political violence more accurately a low scale civil war, which resulted from an economic collapse which started in 1976. If it wasn’t for the Turkish military launching a coup, which suppressed both extreme right-wing nationalists and far-left groups, Turkey could have descended into a Civil War. 

Nothing like this happened in the Arab world during the 1980s, despite some of their young Prophet generation trying to replicate the Iranian Revolution in their countries. Such attempts at an Islamist revolution, which included the civil war in Algeria ultimately ended in failure. Also, the Arab Spring did not spread into either Turkey or Iran (apart from majority Arab Khuzestan province), which were still in a High at the time. Rather in Iran you had the Green Movement which aimed towards reforming the regime, rather than overthrowing it (which anti-government protests from 2014-2016 are aiming to achieve).

Currently the Arab world is dissatisfied with their 'outer world', especially the regimes which are in power all across the region. However in both Turkey and Iran, people are dissatisfied with their 'inner world' and not so much with the 'outer world'.  Indeed, in Iran in recent years apart from anti-government protests, people have become increasingly dissatisfied with the Islamic religion itself and the whole country is becoming rapidly secularised. Also, you have the Iranian equivalent of the bra burning movement, the White Wednesdays movement where generally young defy laws requiring the wearing of the Hijab, by going out into public not wearing a Hijab. Not to mention that many Iranians are increasingly embracing their Zoroastrian heritage. This all indicates to me that Iran is undergoing more a cultural rather than political revolution (which will likely happen relatively peacefully once the old Nomad Khamenei dies)

Report: US Government Chronically Lied About Trillion Dollar War In Afghanistan

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/09/us-go...ghanistan/

I'm sick and tired of being Millennial because I get blamed for everything. Will this continue forever? It seems like it.

I have been doing some thinking about the saeculum in South-East Asia and I believe they are currently in an early Unravelling, starting sometime in this decade. While their last Crisis being approximately from c.1955-c.1975, with the last Awakening being from approximately the middle 1990s to the middle 2010s. An old Fourth Turning poster visited Malaysia in the early 2010s and remarked that the country seemed to be in an Unravelling.

The region of South-East Asia, I define as being Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, The Philippines and possibly Burma. The peoples of this region, despite differences in religion, often see themselves as part of the same civilization or 'world' which has a Hindu-Buddhist foundation.

Anyway, In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, the whole region was wracked by wars, political upheaval, and revolutions, that I will explain briefly below.

In Vietnam, you had the Vietnam war, which triggered a Civil Wars in both Cambodia and Laos. Indeed, I can definitely see Ho Chi Minh (1890) being a 'Grey Champion' in Vietnam's last Crisis. The Vietnam war being an Awakening war for America, the whole it was a Crisis war for Vietnam. The Vietnam war ended in a total victory for the Communists and resulting in a lot of exiles.

In Malaysia, there was the “Malayan Emergency” which was a war of liberation for the Malays. Also had Singapore breaking off from Malaysia and becoming an independent nation.

In Indonesia, you had the fall of Sukarno in 1965, which resulted in the killing of anywhere between 500,000 to 3,000,000 Communists, other leftists, those Javanese who practiced a syncretic form of Islam and ethnic Chinese people. The events of 1965 are Indonesia I cannot see as anything other than a Crisis event. The Australian film The Year of Living Dangerously set in Jakarta in 1965, really portrayed a Crisis mood quite well.

In Thailand, in 1973 you had a massive student uprising, which overthrew the military dictatorship of Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn.

Political upheavals in the Philippines starting in 1965, which resulted in the rise of Ferdinand Marcos (1917). Which was accompanied by other strongmen leaders taking power, such as Lee Kuan Yew (1925) in Singapore, Pol Pot (1925) in Cambodia and in Indonesia Suharto (1921). After reflecting on their personalities and ruling styles, I  would argue they were all Nomads. Also, It seems obvious to me that the last Crisis throughout South-East Asia was approximately from c.1955 to c.1975, give or take a few years either way.

The next wave of political upheaval occurred in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997. In Indonesia, you had the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, Reformasi movement in Malaysia, Second EDSA revolution in 2001 in the Philippines, which resulted in the removal of Joseph Estrada as President. Also, Islamist movements started to really take off during this period in the region as well.

It seems that the whole region became in the late 1990s awash in political activism by young adults, in a manner consistent from what you would expect from Young Adult Prophets. Also remembering what the current events shows were reporting from the region back then, the mood was one of an Awakening throughout the region at the time.

Currently, the mood throughout the whole region is definitely an Unravelling one in my opinion. For example; there are culture wars currently raging in both Malaysia and Indonesia, between secularists and Islamists. Does that sound familiar to you Americans?. Also, young people these days are more focused on making money, than political activism which was the case say twenty years ago.

Trump Revives Threat of Force Against North Korea's 'Rocket Man'

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...rocket-man

I would argue that Sub-Saharan Africa is on a different saeculum to the West and they are currently in an Awakening which started in the 2010s. 
 
I will start with South Africa, which I argue is currently in an Awakening which started in 2012.  Their last Crisis was roughly from 1976 (with the Soweto uprising) to the end of Apartheid in 1994. Also, I can see both the Boer War and the the revolution Shaka initiated which created the Zulu Kingdom which is a period called the Mfecane ("Upheaval" or "The Crushing"), as part of previous Crisis's. The current South African zeitgeist while it has soured a bit, is still quite optimistic and the institutional order is relatively strong. South Africans remember the period roughly from 1976 to 1994 much differently, they consider it among the darkest periods in their history.  Indeed, the South African zeitgeist is the total opposite of South America, which is very deep into a Crisis.
 
When it comes to South African generations, the “Generation of 1976” are described in a way that is so consistent with a Civic Generation, since they are praised for the sacrifices they had so that the modern South African nation exists today and the South African media have reported how active older people seem to be today. While The Born Frees (the description of which is very consistent with a Prophet generation), those born after the end of Apartheid are very fiery and some are challenging the order their parents the “Generation of 1976” established although that is a bit simplistic. Because some of the Generation of 1976 have always been revolutionary and starting to exhibit hubris as they have taken the reigns of power. For example; the recent exportation of White owned farmland without compensation, initiated by a Civic generation president Cyril Ramaphosa (1952). 
 
Indeed, South Africa’s presidents have showed very clear reflections of their generations, with PW Botha and Nelson Mandela as Prophets, FW De Klerk, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma as Nomads. While the current president Cyril Rampaphosa is a member of a Civic Generation.
 
The sort of zeitgeist that indicates an Awakening to me, is not just restricted to South Africa either. A former Fourth Turning forum user, who speaks to a Nigerian guy born in the 1980s, said that Nigeria is currently going through an Awakening and that guy is a member of an Artist generation.  Also, I have some observations from Uganda as well.

The story goes I was dating online a woman from Uganda (1988 cohort), who we met through the OkCupid website, for a few months. We got to know each other very well, also I learnt a lot about Ugandan society and even read local newspapers. Well, the impression I got Uganda is not a society in a Crisis currently. Rather the societal mood would be something more consistent with a society in an Awakening. Ugandan society is currently in an optimistic mood, although the established order is being challenged especially by the young people. This makes a lot of sense, given the events of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, which scream totally like a Crisis event to me.

An example; there are young people in Uganda who are part of the student climate action strike movement. However, they have not managed to mobilize huge groups of their peers in their activism, which I found surprising because here in Australia that has exactly happened. This woman’s job is a public health worker, specializing in providing clean water to communities (especially refugee camps) in the North of the country. She is also a single mother; whose son lives with her parents in another part of the country.
 
Her personality to me did not fit into either a Nomad or Civic archetype, rather come to think of it her personality is very consistent with that of an Artist, entering the midlife stage in a society in an Awakening. The contrasts between her and my former Peruvian (1982) girlfriend who is very much a Nomad "tough cookie" is very striking.
 
Indeed, she found my midlife Nomad personality intriguing, however yet baffling at the same time, especially that I have become very cautious in recent years.

The title says it all. Most if not all of the gig economy platforms, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc. use a five-star rating system, which in itself is fine. But the way they administer it is very flawed to say the least. In their minds anything below five stars might just as well be zero. I would think that a lot of people would by nature be reluctant to give five stars unless the provider went way over and beyond the call of the duty, such as rescuing the family dog from ongoing traffic.  If the rating system were administered the way it should be, anything 3.5 (70 percent) or higher would be passing unless a real serious offense was committed. Uber boots drivers from their platform if their rating falls below 4.6, which is still 92 percent, very commendable on any school test. I am wondering if any of you here have any ideas as to where this four stars equals zero mentality comes from. Might also be interesting to have a discussion on how these companies can say that there people are not employees if they indeed have the power to boot them from the platform. A lawsuit waiting to happen? And also as to if this type of arrangement represents the wave of the future.

I started reading this book about waves of technological development, and thought it would make a great subject for comparison with saecular theory or historical cycle theory in general. I'm only part way through it, and here is what I've learned so far, as presented on my blog.

http://stevebarrera.com/ruling-the-waves...breakdown/

Ruling the Waves: A Saecular Breakdown

I've posted before about "books from the Third Turning that I didn't get around to until the Fourth Turning." Waiting on the bookshelf for some time has been Ruling the Waves, by Debora L. Spar. This book is subtitled "a History of Business and Politics along the Technological Frontier" and in the introduction discusses the Internet a bit. It was published in 2001 (pre-9/11!), when the commercial Internet was young and Web 2.0 was just getting going. The book was hoping, then, to shed some light on what was to come in the development of cyberspace.

The author has a premise that when a ground-breaking new technology is introduced, it goes through four phases of development before becoming a commonplace part of everyday life on which we depend. First there is the invention phase, involving just a few people, and then the entrepreneur phase, where risk-takers develop the new technology commercially. Next is what she calls a period of "creative anarchy," when the most successful entrepreneurs battle for supremacy in the marketplace, and finally the rulemaking phase, where those who now dominate the technology application push for a fixed legal structure within which to operate.

She goes through different waves of technology, and I was interested to see how what she describes compares to Strauss & Howe saecular theory. The first wave Spar analyzes is the wave of advancements that led to the Age of Discovery - but this happens over a long period of time (centuries) so bringing saecular theory into it seems difficult. The next technological wave was that of the telegraph, and here it is easier to do the analysis.

I was half-expecting to find that the Gilded generation were major players in the drama of the development of the telegraph, since they are the Nomad generation of the Civil War Saeculum. After all, the Nomad generation of the current saeculum, my generation, has had a big part to play in the rise of Internet technology. But what I found is that the the main players in the story (looking at the U.S. part of it) were all from two generations - Compromise and Transcendental. The Gilded are nowhere to be found, probably because they were too young.

The narrative of the development of the telegraph did track pretty well with the turnings of the Civil War Saeculum, however. The invention period occurs at the end of the Transcendental Awakening, the 2nd turning. It involves two key players, Samuel Morse (b. 1791, Compromise Generation) of course, and Alfred Vail (b. 1807, Transcendental Generation), who worked closely with Morse. The idea of transmitting electricity over wires had been known about for decades; their genius was in combining the transmission with encoding, to create information. They managed to get some public backing through Congress to build a line, but the enterprise failed.

So then came the entrepreneurs to buy them out, and build a private enterprise instead. A key player was Amos Kendall (b. 1789, Compromise), a former postmaster general who left his position specifically for this purpose. He proved that it was possible to raise funds privately to build a telegraph line, and once the public caught on to what the technology made possible, the money started flowing into more and more companies building regional lines. Other big time entrepreneurs of this period included Henry O'Rielly (b. 1806, Transcendental) and Cyrus Field (b. 1819, Transcendental), who built the first trans-Atlantic line.

Without going into too much detail, the competition became fierce, as well as costly to the companies involved. In the period leading up to the Civil War, that is the 3rd turning in saecular terms, there was fighting over patent rights and access to markets, as well as confusion sowed by competing signal standards and encoding methods. This is the "creative anarchy" period in Spar's terminology.

The winner of this period of conflict turned out to be Western Union, thanks in large part to the efforts of Hiram Sibley (b. 1807, Transcendental), who led it in its transformation into a telegraph company, eventually establishing the first transcontinental line. With this consolidation came standardization - the rulemaking period. After the Civil War, in the 1st turning of the next saeculum, Western Union became a huge and powerful monopoly, enough to worry people into pressuring the government to regulate it, though not much was done in the Gilded Age.

I just find it fascinating that the so many of the key players in the development of the telegraph were from the Transcendental generation, the Prophet archetype of the Civil War Saeculum. They were the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs equivalents of their time, and of this technological wave.

It wasn't until the end of the new saeculum, with the founding of the FCC, that private communication networks became thoroughly regulated. That was during the era of radio, which is actually the next technology covered by Spar's book. So I will continue reading Ruling the Waves, and report in another post what I discover.

What would be differences between the archetypes in terms of Big 5 personality traits?
I thought about Agreeableness - a prophet would be low since he prefers his own vision, even if noone agrees with him. A civic would be high, since cooperation with others is more important for him. However, prophets are fascinated by the supernatural, and this is a trait of high agreeableness people.
Openness to Experience can also be relevant. A prophet is open to unusual and otherworldly experiences, while a civic prefers down to earth, well known things.
One lady on Personality Cafe prefers to define prophetic as high openness and low conscientiousness, and civic as low openness and high conscientiousness. Sounds good match.

What about nomads and artists?

Or could these be just cultural mindsets, which don't depend on personality?