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As some of you may know, I made a thread about how the length of a saeculum should be around 72 years last month. That thread ("Breaking the idea that saeculums are ~85 years") did not seem to get good reception based on the replies I saw and the poll I made. One question that I feel should be brought up is the length of a saeculum because I've heard so many different answers on it, with some being as early as 72 years and some going as much as 110.
The Kondratiev cycle and Michael A. Alexander in Investing in a Secular Bear Market say that a saeculum is 72 years.
Various users on here seem to think that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 88 years, with many saying, on average, that it's the span of Uranus' orbit (84.3 years).
S&H says that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 90 years.
Mike Ebert believes that saeculums are 90 years in length.
The Romans in the reign of Augustus believed that a saeculum was 110 years.
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(07-17-2019, 02:06 PM)Ghost Wrote: As some of you may know, I made a thread about how the length of a saeculum should be around 72 years last month. That thread ("Breaking the idea that saeculums are ~85 years") did not seem to get good reception based on the replies I saw and the poll I made. One question that I feel should be brought up is the length of a saeculum because I've heard so many different answers on it, with some being as early as 72 years and some going as much as 110.
The Kondratiev cycle and Michael A. Alexander in Investing in a Secular Bear Market say that a saeculum is 72 years.
Various users on here seem to think that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 88 years, with many saying, on average, that it's the span of Uranus' orbit (84.3 years).
S&H says that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 90 years.
Mike Ebert believes that saeculums are 90 years in length.
The Romans in the reign of Augustus believed that a saeculum was 110 years.
Saecula used to be about 80 years, which about seventy years ago was a freakishly-long lifetime. More people are obviously living to such ages thanks to greater prosperity and activity among the elderly, starting with the GI Generation who exerciused more, smoked less, and kept alert on current events as people of such age rarely did. Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns. Extinction of childhood memories of a time -- and childho0od memories can be extremely relevant. It could be that eras can stretch to force a certain length of a saeculum. We have yet to see any semblance of a Regeneracy that defines the social purpose of a Crisis Era. America is extremely polarized in its politics - ominously like Spain in the 1930s or Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Maybe Obama was the wrong sort of President (a mature Reactive who better fits the needs of top leadership mostly after a Crisis than during one), and Donald Trump is simply wrong at so many levels that he could never resolve anything.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(07-17-2019, 09:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns.
I think socially childhood is now longer than ever. Kids live with their parents longer than ever, marriage is also postponed. That's why I expect voting age or age of consent to go up eventually, especially given the fact young adults don't make responsible choices. The psychologist Robert Epstein talks about extended childhood disorder, but it's not clear to be that is indeed a disorder. Maybe a longer childhood is optimal for growth of personalities. In the past people had to grow up early only because death could happen at any moment due to epidemics, war and hunger. Now we can have children at 35, and still be in good health when our grandchildren arrive. If there is radical extension of lifespans, even a very long childhood won't be an obstacle for anything. Stapledon's Fifth Men had a childhood that lasted 200 years, but they lived up to 3000 years so childhood was less than a tenth of their lifespan.
Quote:Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
For the time being, yes. A turning is defined by a new generation coming of age, so longer childhoods mean longer turnings and saeculums. If future people are considered adults at 30, a saeculum will last about 120 years.
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(07-18-2019, 04:27 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: (07-17-2019, 09:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns.
I think socially childhood is now longer than ever. Kids live with their parents longer than ever, marriage is also postponed. That's why I expect voting age or age of consent to go up eventually, especially given the fact young adults don't make responsible choices. The psychologist Robert Epstein talks about extended childhood disorder, but it's not clear to be that is indeed a disorder. Maybe a longer childhood is optimal for growth of personalities. In the past people had to grow up early only because death could happen at any moment due to epidemics, war and hunger. Now we can have children at 35, and still be in good health when our grandchildren arrive. If there is radical extension of lifespans, even a very long childhood won't be an obstacle for anything. Stapledon's Fifth Men had a childhood that lasted 200 years, but they lived up to 3000 years so childhood was less than a tenth of their lifespan.
As economic actors, youth are often in economic childhood much longer than they used to be. Because most desirable jobs requite at the least a bachelor's degree and the really-desirable jobs require a graduate degree, and college education comes with huge debt, it could well be that people will often not be economically mature until their mid-thirties.
It is easy to imagine our elites seeking to limit political activity such as voting to people who own property -- which of course disenfranches the poor, but also most of the young adults still in debt for college educations.
Quote:Quote:Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
For the time being, yes. A turning is defined by a new generation coming of age, so longer childhoods mean longer turnings and saeculums. If future people are considered adults at 30, a saeculum will last about 120 years.
On the other hand, the tools of entertainment have gotten incredibly cheap, and those disseminate the youth culture. I see no cause to believe that American culture will ever fossilize. I expect that the Homeland Generation will replace the brashness of X mass culture with whimsy much as the Silent did with Lost culture, and that such will still define generations. I also expect the next Idealist generation to chafe under a sanitized, corporate mass culture in entertainment and robotic politics -- not at age 30 but at age 18 or so.
Culture distinction between generations and economic maturity may simply coincide. But let us think of all the child laborers of the early twentieth century: did they mature fast and become self-reliant? Hardly. They were completely dependent upon the owners and bosses, and the parents typically took the money that those kids could not sneak into a candy shop.
The tendency toward more education seems unlikely to reverse. We may see a need not only for technical education to get people into entry-level jobs, but also to get people to learn some liberal arts so that they can seek and to some extent achieve meaning in life. The expansion of K-12 education from K-8 as a norm in America occurred in part as a means of getting ill-paid children out or the workforce when jobs were scarce during the Great Depression. Besides, many employers are finding that subsidizing a college education is one way to retain good, if still underpaid, workers instead of having high turnover -- and having a chance of making those workers better fit a culture that might be less materialistic. Besides, people with more and better education are less likely to fall for demagogues of any kind, Left or Right.
One clear reality: we are producing all the material stuff that we need far more easily than we used to. We do not need as many people doing manufacturing work because we have machines doing much of the dangerous or body-wrecking work. It is also questionable that we need more stuff; except for new households especially with children on the way, most people are buying material goods either for one-time use or are simply replacing what is broken, torn, or grossly obsolete. When electric ranges were novelties, one could make huge profits by getting the first ones to people who did not have one. Today the market for them is either new housing, commercial use, or replacement. If one uses the Keynesian model for the overall economy in which Y=income, C =consumption, I =investment, G = government spending, and Y = C + I + G (which is a crude oversimplification), then one sure way to increase the measure of C is to raise costs through monopolization and gouging -- hardly how people want to spend more.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(07-18-2019, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: On the other hand, the tools of entertainment have gotten incredibly cheap, and those disseminate the youth culture. I see no cause to believe that American culture will ever fossilize. I expect that the Homeland Generation will replace the brashness of X mass culture with whimsy much as the Silent did with Lost culture, and that such will still define generations. I also expect the next Idealist generation to chafe under a sanitized, corporate mass culture in entertainment and robotic politics -- not at age 30 but at age 18 or so.
Culture distinction between generations and economic maturity may simply coincide. But let us think of all the child laborers of the early twentieth century: did they mature fast and become self-reliant? Hardly. They were completely dependent upon the owners and bosses, and the parents typically took the money that those kids could not sneak into a candy shop.
The tendency toward more education seems unlikely to reverse. We may see a need not only for technical education to get people into entry-level jobs, but also to get people to learn some liberal arts so that they can seek and to some extent achieve meaning in life. The expansion of K-12 education from K-8 as a norm in America occurred in part as a means of getting ill-paid children out or the workforce when jobs were scarce during the Great Depression. Besides, many employers are finding that subsidizing a college education is one way to retain good, if still underpaid, workers instead of having high turnover -- and having a chance of making those workers better fit a culture that might be less materialistic. Besides, people with more and better education are less likely to fall for demagogues of any kind, Left or Right.
We already see a new life stage unknown in the past: "rising adulthood". During rising adulthood people spend their parents' money, focus on parties and casual relationships without feeling much pressure to marry or to work too much. It is possible the new Prophets rebel against rising adulthood and demand being accepted as full-blown adults at age 18. But it's also possible they opt for another kind of rising adulthood, not party-oriented one but a period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration with only part-time work. Something like I had between the age of 20 (2006) and 31 (2017), but this was only possible for me because I'm from a middle class family. For new Prophets this kind of quarter life crisis might be mainstream.
Being dependent on owners and bosses is not relevant to the definition of maturity, every worker is depended on his boss even if the worker is 60 and the boss is 25.
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(07-18-2019, 10:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: (07-18-2019, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: On the other hand, the tools of entertainment have gotten incredibly cheap, and those disseminate the youth culture. I see no cause to believe that American culture will ever fossilize. I expect that the Homeland Generation will replace the brashness of X mass culture with whimsy much as the Silent did with Lost culture, and that such will still define generations. I also expect the next Idealist generation to chafe under a sanitized, corporate mass culture in entertainment and robotic politics -- not at age 30 but at age 18 or so.
Culture distinction between generations and economic maturity may simply coincide. But let us think of all the child laborers of the early twentieth century: did they mature fast and become self-reliant? Hardly. They were completely dependent upon the owners and bosses, and the parents typically took the money that those kids could not sneak into a candy shop.
The tendency toward more education seems unlikely to reverse. We may see a need not only for technical education to get people into entry-level jobs, but also to get people to learn some liberal arts so that they can seek and to some extent achieve meaning in life. The expansion of K-12 education from K-8 as a norm in America occurred in part as a means of getting ill-paid children out or the workforce when jobs were scarce during the Great Depression. Besides, many employers are finding that subsidizing a college education is one way to retain good, if still underpaid, workers instead of having high turnover -- and having a chance of making those workers better fit a culture that might be less materialistic. Besides, people with more and better education are less likely to fall for demagogues of any kind, Left or Right.
We already see a new life stage unknown in the past: "rising adulthood". During rising adulthood people spend their parents' money, focus on parties and casual relationships without feeling much pressure to marry or to work too much. It is possible the new Prophets rebel against rising adulthood and demand being accepted as full-blown adults at age 18. But it's also possible they opt for another kind of rising adulthood, not party-oriented one but a period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration with only part-time work. Something like I had between the age of 20 (2006) and 31 (2017), but this was only possible for me because I'm from a middle class family. For new Prophets this kind of quarter life crisis might be mainstream.
Being dependent on owners and bosses is not relevant to the definition of maturity, every worker is depended on his boss even if the worker is 60 and the boss is 25.
The reference to being dependent upon employers and bosses refers to child labor in the old days. The kids had responsibilities but were helpless. Children probably get something out of working in the family business because parents do not exploit their loved ones as they might the more usual child labor.
The sort of child labor that social reformers tried to put an end to did not promote personal development and maturity. Of course this reflects the time in which industrial workers, often beginning in childhood, were spent by age 35.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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07-18-2019, 11:58 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-18-2019, 12:13 PM by Eric the Green.)
(07-17-2019, 09:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (07-17-2019, 02:06 PM)Ghost Wrote: As some of you may know, I made a thread about how the length of a saeculum should be around 72 years last month. That thread ("Breaking the idea that saeculums are ~85 years") did not seem to get good reception based on the replies I saw and the poll I made. One question that I feel should be brought up is the length of a saeculum because I've heard so many different answers on it, with some being as early as 72 years and some going as much as 110.
The Kondratiev cycle and Michael A. Alexander in Investing in a Secular Bear Market say that a saeculum is 72 years.
Various users on here seem to think that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 88 years, with many saying, on average, that it's the span of Uranus' orbit (84.3 years).
S&H says that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 90 years.
Mike Ebert believes that saeculums are 90 years in length.
The Romans in the reign of Augustus believed that a saeculum was 110 years.
Saecula used to be about 80 years, which about seventy years ago was a freakishly-long lifetime. More people are obviously living to such ages thanks to greater prosperity and activity among the elderly, starting with the GI Generation who exerciused more, smoked less, and kept alert on current events as people of such age rarely did. Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns. Extinction of childhood memories of a time -- and childho0od memories can be extremely relevant. It could be that eras can stretch to force a certain length of a saeculum. We have yet to see any semblance of a Regeneracy that defines the social purpose of a Crisis Era. America is extremely polarized in its politics - ominously like Spain in the 1930s or Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Maybe Obama was the wrong sort of President (a mature Reactive who better fits the needs of top leadership mostly after a Crisis than during one), and Donald Trump is simply wrong at so many levels that he could never resolve anything.
It seems like 90 could be the new length, because of one thing I believe. Turnings in the past were too short. Events came a bit early. I include in that the end of world war II, which happened because Hitler was overconfident and too reckless and used up his resources, so the allies rolled over him. And the Kennedy assassination pushed the awakening a bit early. And this latter also involved Uranus conjoined to Pluto coming on (exact from late 1965 to mid 1966) which cannot be denied as an awakener of change.
The Awakening also seemed to end with the establishment cycle ending in 1980 with Reagan becoming president and John Lennon dead. However, I think S&H were right to extend that turning to 1984. The Awakening was losing its steam, but until the morning in America campaign in 1984, the would-be 3T had no momentum behind it. The big 1979 recession only ended in 1983, for example.
And the length of the saeculum of 84 years reasserts itself, because the great crisis that tests America's foundations comes on a regular cycle indicated by the Uranus Return to its position at the founding of Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence. So it will be again; I don't think it can be denied either. But this meant a longer than usual 3T to make up for the shorter 4T and 1T earlier. And the 4T will also be the length of a normal turning. This saeculum seems like it is lengthening because of the recent longer length of the 3T, and the messed up and muddled nature of the 4T so far (due to the double rhythm 1850s redux), plus the draggy end of the last 2T, and these years are all that most young people know today. And most millennials have a poor grasp of what came before them too.
Note also that S&H extend the nomad Gen X right up next to the boundary of the 3T, whereas the Lost ended 7 years before the following 3T according to them. Events seems to run ahead of generations too, pushing the turnings forward on the up cycle.
But this saeculum WILL end in 2028-29, and the next Awakening will once again be rushed to begin a bit too soon, because Uranus and Pluto will oppose each other starting in the mid 2040s. This will fulfill the cycle begun in the sixties with a full-on green revolution. So the 1T will not drag or extend itself; it will end explosively like the last one, although the next 2T will not be as chaotic and flash-in-the-pan as the last one, but pursued with full awareness and dedication to lasting results.
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(07-18-2019, 10:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: (07-18-2019, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: On the other hand, the tools of entertainment have gotten incredibly cheap, and those disseminate the youth culture. I see no cause to believe that American culture will ever fossilize. I expect that the Homeland Generation will replace the brashness of X mass culture with whimsy much as the Silent did with Lost culture, and that such will still define generations. I also expect the next Idealist generation to chafe under a sanitized, corporate mass culture in entertainment and robotic politics -- not at age 30 but at age 18 or so.
Culture distinction between generations and economic maturity may simply coincide. But let us think of all the child laborers of the early twentieth century: did they mature fast and become self-reliant? Hardly. They were completely dependent upon the owners and bosses, and the parents typically took the money that those kids could not sneak into a candy shop.
The tendency toward more education seems unlikely to reverse. We may see a need not only for technical education to get people into entry-level jobs, but also to get people to learn some liberal arts so that they can seek and to some extent achieve meaning in life. The expansion of K-12 education from K-8 as a norm in America occurred in part as a means of getting ill-paid children out or the workforce when jobs were scarce during the Great Depression. Besides, many employers are finding that subsidizing a college education is one way to retain good, if still underpaid, workers instead of having high turnover -- and having a chance of making those workers better fit a culture that might be less materialistic. Besides, people with more and better education are less likely to fall for demagogues of any kind, Left or Right.
We already see a new life stage unknown in the past: "rising adulthood". During rising adulthood people spend their parents' money, focus on parties and casual relationships without feeling much pressure to marry or to work too much. It is possible the new Prophets rebel against rising adulthood and demand being accepted as full-blown adults at age 18. But it's also possible they opt for another kind of rising adulthood, not party-oriented one but a period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration with only part-time work. Something like I had between the age of 20 (2006) and 31 (2017), but this was only possible for me because I'm from a middle class family. For new Prophets this kind of quarter life crisis might be mainstream.
Being dependent on owners and bosses is not relevant to the definition of maturity, every worker is depended on his boss even if the worker is 60 and the boss is 25.
Boomers already pursued this rising adulthood phase, very much including the "period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration." Usually astrology extends the youth phase into this phase already with how they describe the Saturn cycle. The Saturn Return happens at age 29 and that is the time when full adulthood begins. So we today are just fulfilling what is natural.
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(07-18-2019, 12:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (07-18-2019, 10:23 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: (07-18-2019, 08:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: On the other hand, the tools of entertainment have gotten incredibly cheap, and those disseminate the youth culture. I see no cause to believe that American culture will ever fossilize. I expect that the Homeland Generation will replace the brashness of X mass culture with whimsy much as the Silent did with Lost culture, and that such will still define generations. I also expect the next Idealist generation to chafe under a sanitized, corporate mass culture in entertainment and robotic politics -- not at age 30 but at age 18 or so.
Culture distinction between generations and economic maturity may simply coincide. But let us think of all the child laborers of the early twentieth century: did they mature fast and become self-reliant? Hardly. They were completely dependent upon the owners and bosses, and the parents typically took the money that those kids could not sneak into a candy shop.
The tendency toward more education seems unlikely to reverse. We may see a need not only for technical education to get people into entry-level jobs, but also to get people to learn some liberal arts so that they can seek and to some extent achieve meaning in life. The expansion of K-12 education from K-8 as a norm in America occurred in part as a means of getting ill-paid children out or the workforce when jobs were scarce during the Great Depression. Besides, many employers are finding that subsidizing a college education is one way to retain good, if still underpaid, workers instead of having high turnover -- and having a chance of making those workers better fit a culture that might be less materialistic. Besides, people with more and better education are less likely to fall for demagogues of any kind, Left or Right.
We already see a new life stage unknown in the past: "rising adulthood". During rising adulthood people spend their parents' money, focus on parties and casual relationships without feeling much pressure to marry or to work too much. It is possible the new Prophets rebel against rising adulthood and demand being accepted as full-blown adults at age 18. But it's also possible they opt for another kind of rising adulthood, not party-oriented one but a period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration with only part-time work. Something like I had between the age of 20 (2006) and 31 (2017), but this was only possible for me because I'm from a middle class family. For new Prophets this kind of quarter life crisis might be mainstream.
Being dependent on owners and bosses is not relevant to the definition of maturity, every worker is depended on his boss even if the worker is 60 and the boss is 25.
Boomers already pursued this rising adulthood phase, very much including the "period of aesthetic and spiritual exploration." Usually astrology extends the youth phase into this phase already with how they describe the Saturn cycle. The Saturn Return happens at age 29 and that is the time when full adulthood begins. So we today are just fulfilling what is natural.
Now if we're going by planet orbits:
It takes Jupiter about 11.862 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take seven Jupiter orbits for one saeculum (a total of 83.034 years would be one Jupiter saeculum).
It takes Saturn about 29.4571 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take three Saturn orbits for one saeculum (a total of 88.3713 years would be one Saturn saeculum).
It takes Uranus about 84.3 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would only take a single Uranus orbit for one saeculum.
It takes Neptune about 164.8 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take half of a Neptune orbit for one saeculum (a total of 82.4 years would be one Neptune saeculum).
It takes Pluto about 248 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take third of a Pluto orbit for one saeculum (a total of 82.66667 years would be one Pluto saeculum).
It takes Haumea about 284 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take two-sevenths of a Haumea orbit for one saeculum (a total of 81.14286 years would be one Haumea saeculum).
It takes Makemake about 309 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take two-sevenths of a Makemake orbit for one saeculum (a total of 88.28571 years would be one Makemake saeculum).
It takes Eris about 558 years to rotate around the Sun. Therefore, it would take two-thirteenths of an Eris orbit for one saeculum (a total of 85.84615 years would make one Eris saeculum).
Therefore, your average "planet cycle" saeculum would be 84.505835875 years, or only a little bit greater than the time it takes for Uranus to complete one orbit around the Sun.
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07-25-2019, 10:50 PM
(07-18-2019, 07:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Very good, Ghost!
Thanks.
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It has varied from 80 to 100 years. In Roman times a saeculum was a century, as shown in its French derivative siècle, the Italian secolo, and the Spanish siglo. Maybe it took longer for people in antiquity and medieval times to reach full cultural and economic maturity due to rigid, inherited social roles, malnutrition, and lower levels of formal education. It is clear that in the last two centuries people have grown up faster and taken on adult roles earlier as economic actors. The difference between people becoming adults at 20 instead of at 25 or so is between four generations in 80 years instead of 100.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(07-26-2019, 01:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It has varied from 80 to 100 years. In Roman times a saeculum was a century, as shown in its French derivative siècle, the Italian secolo, and the Spanish siglo. Maybe it took longer for people in antiquity and medieval times to reach full cultural and economic maturity due to rigid, inherited social roles, malnutrition, and lower levels of formal education. It is clear that in the last two centuries people have grown up faster and taken on adult roles earlier as economic actors. The difference between people becoming adults at 20 instead of at 25 or so is between four generations in 80 years instead of 100.
Interesting. I'm used to hearing that people today take *longer* to grow up.
Steve Barrera
[A]lthough one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. - Hagakure
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(07-26-2019, 02:10 PM)sbarrera Wrote: (07-26-2019, 01:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It has varied from 80 to 100 years. In Roman times a saeculum was a century, as shown in its French derivative siècle, the Italian secolo, and the Spanish siglo. Maybe it took longer for people in antiquity and medieval times to reach full cultural and economic maturity due to rigid, inherited social roles, malnutrition, and lower levels of formal education. It is clear that in the last two centuries people have grown up faster and taken on adult roles earlier as economic actors. The difference between people becoming adults at 20 instead of at 25 or so is between four generations in 80 years instead of 100.
Interesting. I'm used to hearing that people today take *longer* to grow up.
It depends upon whether one refers to intellectual sophistication (which depends upon what people do with their time), behavior (associated with cognitive development often defined with a measure such as IQ), vocational adulthood (probably slower now, as there are few teenagers upon whom their worn-out parents depended upon for making ends meet as was the case in the early-industrial era), cultural adulthood (kids in the last seventy years or so have typically distinguished themselves with a very different affiliation to mass culture by their mid-teens, political adulthood (there are eighteen-year-olds voting, and voting ages have been as high as thirty in the past), and economic adulthood (not being deeply in hock to lenders for education that allows one to hold a career). Mature enough for such vices as alcohol and cancerweed? The legal age for using either has gone up,,, and I see nothing unsophisticated about choosing not to drink, smoke, or gamble.
It is ambiguous. In the middle ages children were cannon fodder and orphans of tender age were responsible for making their economic contributions as serfs just like their deceased parents. In no way were they sophisticated in view of the complete lack of formal education for non-elites.
It is obvious that few people define themselves vocationally until they have reached their peak college degree if they get one. So one worked in the fast food business while going through college and has eventually become an engineer; one certainly quits speaking of oneself as a fast-food worker unless trying to get someone to accept such a job as a way to develop credibility as a worker.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(07-26-2019, 02:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (07-26-2019, 02:10 PM)sbarrera Wrote: (07-26-2019, 01:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It has varied from 80 to 100 years. In Roman times a saeculum was a century, as shown in its French derivative siècle, the Italian secolo, and the Spanish siglo. Maybe it took longer for people in antiquity and medieval times to reach full cultural and economic maturity due to rigid, inherited social roles, malnutrition, and lower levels of formal education. It is clear that in the last two centuries people have grown up faster and taken on adult roles earlier as economic actors. The difference between people becoming adults at 20 instead of at 25 or so is between four generations in 80 years instead of 100.
Interesting. I'm used to hearing that people today take *longer* to grow up.
It depends upon whether one refers to intellectual sophistication (which depends upon what people do with their time), behavior (associated with cognitive development often defined with a measure such as IQ), vocational adulthood (probably slower now, as there are few teenagers upon whom their worn-out parents depended upon for making ends meet as was the case in the early-industrial era), cultural adulthood (kids in the last seventy years or so have typically distinguished themselves with a very different affiliation to mass culture by their mid-teens, political adulthood (there are eighteen-year-olds voting, and voting ages have been as high as thirty in the past), and economic adulthood (not being deeply in hock to lenders for education that allows one to hold a career). Mature enough for such vices as alcohol and cancerweed? The legal age for using either has gone up,,, and I see nothing unsophisticated about choosing not to drink, smoke, or gamble.
It is ambiguous. In the middle ages children were cannon fodder and orphans of tender age were responsible for making their economic contributions as serfs just like their deceased parents. In no way were they sophisticated in view of the complete lack of formal education for non-elites.
It is obvious that few people define themselves vocationally until they have reached their peak college degree if they get one. So one worked in the fast food business while going through college and has eventually become an engineer; one certainly quits speaking of oneself as a fast-food worker unless trying to get someone to accept such a job as a way to develop credibility as a worker.
The line about being mature enough for alcohol and tobacco: the higher age applies only in the US. In most of the rest of the world folks can imbibe usually by age 18. Some country don't directly impose a minimum age, and that is why McDonald's in such countries as Spain, Italy and Portugal regularly serve beer. Are you surprised that the Millennials during their youth launch a crusade for lower drinking ages the same way Boomers did while Vietnam was going in. Once the Boomers moved out of that youthful age bracket things there pretty much went back to the way they were before.
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08-10-2019, 05:56 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2019, 06:03 AM by Ghost.)
(07-18-2019, 11:58 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (07-17-2019, 09:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (07-17-2019, 02:06 PM)Ghost Wrote: As some of you may know, I made a thread about how the length of a saeculum should be around 72 years last month. That thread ("Breaking the idea that saeculums are ~85 years") did not seem to get good reception based on the replies I saw and the poll I made. One question that I feel should be brought up is the length of a saeculum because I've heard so many different answers on it, with some being as early as 72 years and some going as much as 110.
The Kondratiev cycle and Michael A. Alexander in Investing in a Secular Bear Market say that a saeculum is 72 years.
Various users on here seem to think that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 88 years, with many saying, on average, that it's the span of Uranus' orbit (84.3 years).
S&H says that saeculums can be anywhere between 80 and 90 years.
Mike Ebert believes that saeculums are 90 years in length.
The Romans in the reign of Augustus believed that a saeculum was 110 years.
Saecula used to be about 80 years, which about seventy years ago was a freakishly-long lifetime. More people are obviously living to such ages thanks to greater prosperity and activity among the elderly, starting with the GI Generation who exerciused more, smoked less, and kept alert on current events as people of such age rarely did. Maybe 90 is now a better guess on the length of a saeculum.
Meanwhile, kids are making their cultural influence known earlier as markets for music and video. The voting age is down to 18, which may have some influence upon voting patterns. Extinction of childhood memories of a time -- and childho0od memories can be extremely relevant. It could be that eras can stretch to force a certain length of a saeculum. We have yet to see any semblance of a Regeneracy that defines the social purpose of a Crisis Era. America is extremely polarized in its politics - ominously like Spain in the 1930s or Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Maybe Obama was the wrong sort of President (a mature Reactive who better fits the needs of top leadership mostly after a Crisis than during one), and Donald Trump is simply wrong at so many levels that he could never resolve anything.
It seems like 90 could be the new length, because of one thing I believe. Turnings in the past were too short. Events came a bit early. I include in that the end of world war II, which happened because Hitler was overconfident and too reckless and used up his resources, so the allies rolled over him. And the Kennedy assassination pushed the awakening a bit early. And this latter also involved Uranus conjoined to Pluto coming on (exact from late 1965 to mid 1966) which cannot be denied as an awakener of change.
The Awakening also seemed to end with the establishment cycle ending in 1980 with Reagan becoming president and John Lennon dead. However, I think S&H were right to extend that turning to 1984. The Awakening was losing its steam, but until the morning in America campaign in 1984, the would-be 3T had no momentum behind it. The big 1979 recession only ended in 1983, for example.
And the length of the saeculum of 84 years reasserts itself, because the great crisis that tests America's foundations comes on a regular cycle indicated by the Uranus Return to its position at the founding of Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence. So it will be again; I don't think it can be denied either. But this meant a longer than usual 3T to make up for the shorter 4T and 1T earlier. And the 4T will also be the length of a normal turning. This saeculum seems like it is lengthening because of the recent longer length of the 3T, and the messed up and muddled nature of the 4T so far (due to the double rhythm 1850s redux), plus the draggy end of the last 2T, and these years are all that most young people know today. And most millennials have a poor grasp of what came before them too.
Note also that S&H extend the nomad Gen X right up next to the boundary of the 3T, whereas the Lost ended 7 years before the following 3T according to them. Events seems to run ahead of generations too, pushing the turnings forward on the up cycle.
But this saeculum WILL end in 2028-29, and the next Awakening will once again be rushed to begin a bit too soon, because Uranus and Pluto will oppose each other starting in the mid 2040s. This will fulfill the cycle begun in the sixties with a full-on green revolution. So the 1T will not drag or extend itself; it will end explosively like the last one, although the next 2T will not be as chaotic and flash-in-the-pan as the last one, but pursued with full awareness and dedication to lasting results.
But if there were years that were actually big when it came to turnings in the US (or the start of transitional periods at least), they'd be 1929, 1945, 1963, 1980, 2001, and probably 2016.
1929: Black Tuesday/End of the Roaring 20's
1945: End of World War II
1963: JFK assassination
1980: Reagan vs. Carter election, John Lennon's assassination
2001: 9/11
2016: Trump vs. Hillary election (Kind of like a Millennial or Gen Z's Reagan vs. Carter election)
Do you think that this is correct?
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08-10-2019, 08:44 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-10-2019, 09:13 AM by Mikebert.)
In those earlier books I believed that the generations in the modern era had had a fixed length of 18 years. This was based on a correlation between stock market cycles and generations that had been operating since the Great Power 3T. The stock market cycle broke down in 2014. Thus any conclusions based on it are invalid.
I now believe the base generational cycle consists of one dominant generation and one recessive generation. A integral number of these cycles can be bracketed together into a larger unit we call the saeculum.
In post-revolutionary America, the length of these generational cycles is the difference between the average age of people in leadership (AL) and the age at which youth come of age (21). With rising AL these cycles are getting longer with time.
Consider the period between the elections of 1860 and 1932 (after which big changes happened), defining important break-points in American history. Al was 58 in 1932 giving a cycle length of 37 years and defining a cycle from 1895-1932. AL was 55 in 1895, giving a cycle length of 34 years and defining a cycle from 1861-1895. So the 1860-1932 period defines one saeculum, containing four generations/turnings that span 72 years.
Now consider the cycle that ended in 1860. AL was 52 in 1860 giving a cycle length of 31 years and defining a cycle from 1829-1860. AL was 50 in 1829, giving a cycle length of 29 years and defining a cycle from 1800-1829. So the 1800-1860 period defines a saeculum, containing four generations/turnings that spans 60 years.
Does the 1800 election, which Jefferson referred to a “revolution” come across as a real turning point in American history like 1860 or 1929, or was Jefferson perhaps exaggerating a bit? I think he was exaggerating. So I note AL was 48 in 1800 giving a cycle length of 27 years and defining a cycle from 1773-1800. This gives me a saeculum from 1773 to 1860 that contains six generations/turnings that spans 87 years. This makes much more sense to me as a saeculum.
Let's speculate that 2008 began a new era in America, like these other dates. AL in 2008 was 61, giving a cycle length of 40 years and defining cycle from 1968-2008. AL was 56 in 1968, giving a cycle length of 35 years and defining a cycle from 1933-1968, which fits nicely in an 1932-2008 saeculum containing four turnings.
But does the election of 2008 really begin a new era? I certainly thought it was a big deal at the time, like Jefferson felt about 1800. But in hindsight we can see that 1800 was the big deal the victors thought it was. And maybe 2008 isn’t going to be either. At present AL has risen to 63, giving a 42 year cycle. If we add that to 2008, we have a potential saeculum running from 1932-2050, containing six turnings with average length 19.7 years.
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Note this analysis assumes that generations are created by history and the generations then create history when they come into leadership at age AL. Furthermore it assumes this mechanism *causes* the historical saeculum cycle S&H noted. If this is the case, then saecula have to conform to the generations in which case they don’t always have the same number of turnings in them.
Alternately we can decide that the saeculum is the fundamental unit. Periodically there was crisis periods which define saecula. These period can be arbitrarily broken into turnings/generations. John Xenakis takes this approach in which a period crisis war is generated by an endogenous process. These crisis wars then generate a saeculum, which is then split into turnings/generations according to archetypes.
For example suppose these is a financial/environment crisis around 2030 that results in a military conflict between the US and China + Russia in which the latter seek to force the US out of the Eastern hemisphere, that is, end the American overseas empire (sphere of influence). This could count as a crisis war and define a ninety-year saeculum from ca. 1940-2030. In this case the saeculum would have five generations: Silent, Boom, GenX, Millennial, GenZ.
It can go a lot of ways.
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08-11-2019, 08:12 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2019, 08:13 AM by Ghost.)
(08-10-2019, 09:07 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Note this analysis assumes that generations are created by history and the generations then create history when they come into leadership at age AL. Furthermore it assumes this mechanism *causes* the historical saeculum cycle S&H noted. If this is the case, then saecula have to conform to the generations in which case they don’t always have the same number of turnings in them.
Alternately we can decide that the saeculum is the fundamental unit. Periodically there was crisis periods which define saecula. These period can be arbitrarily broken into turnings/generations. John Xenakis takes this approach in which a period crisis war is generated by an endogenous process. These crisis wars then generate a saeculum, which is then split into turnings/generations according to archetypes.
For example suppose these is a financial/environment crisis around 2030 that results in a military conflict between the US and China + Russia in which the latter seek to force the US out of the Eastern hemisphere, that is, end the American overseas empire (sphere of influence). This could count as a crisis war and define a ninety-year saeculum from ca. 1940-2030. In this case the saeculum would have five generations: Silent, Boom, GenX, Millennial, GenZ.
It can go a lot of ways.
A saeculum starting in 1940 won't work because that's when WWII was going on.
1940-1945: 4T
1945-1963: 1T
1963-1980: 2T
1980-2008: 3T
2008-2030: 4T again
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08-11-2019, 01:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2019, 01:47 PM by Mikebert.)
(08-11-2019, 08:12 AM)Ghost Wrote: (08-10-2019, 09:07 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Note this analysis assumes that generations are created by history and the generations then create history when they come into leadership at age AL. Furthermore it assumes this mechanism *causes* the historical saeculum cycle S&H noted. If this is the case, then saecula have to conform to the generations in which case they don’t always have the same number of turnings in them.
Alternately we can decide that the saeculum is the fundamental unit. Periodically there was crisis periods which define saecula. These period can be arbitrarily broken into turnings/generations. John Xenakis takes this approach in which a period crisis war is generated by an endogenous process. These crisis wars then generate a saeculum, which is then split into turnings/generations according to archetypes.
For example suppose these is a financial/environment crisis around 2030 that results in a military conflict between the US and China + Russia in which the latter seek to force the US out of the Eastern hemisphere, that is, end the American overseas empire (sphere of influence). This could count as a crisis war and define a ninety-year saeculum from ca. 1940-2030. In this case the saeculum would have five generations: Silent, Boom, GenX, Millennial, GenZ.
It can go a lot of ways.
A saeculum starting in 1940 won't work because that's when WWII was going on.
1940-1945: 4T
1945-1963: 1T
1963-1980: 2T
1980-2008: 3T
2008-2030: 4T again
In that example I am using John Xenakis's crisis war concept in which saecula are based on crisis wars. WW II is a crisis war. I am assuming that another one starts around 2030. Here I am dating the crisis from beginning of one Crisis War to beginning of the next Crisis War. So your scheme is appropriate except for the 2008-2030 turning which would NOT be a Crisis because the crisis war doesn't begin until 2030.
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