We be Mega-3T; we are entering a Mega-4T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-29-2020, 11:42 AM)sbarrera Wrote: I am not so convinced of Mega-cycles either, but I find the idea intriguing.

@Einzige - do you have more detail on your theory? What, for example, drives the cycle?

I am a bit intrigued myself as well, but there is the same problem with turning theory if you do not take into account ages theory.  A lot of the critical observations that make up the theory were taken in the Industrial Age.  Therefore, you can not be sure the patterns will hold in the Information Age.  You have to confirm the patterns happening in the real world and ask if the patterns suggested are effected by nukes, insurgent wars or computers.

As we have had only one sample of Information Age turnings, it seems too early to tell if as long term a pattern as Mega Cycles will hold.  Are the changes observed due to the age boundary or the Mega Cycles?  It seems a bit soon to tell.  

If there is a lot of violence in the upcoming future, you might think in terms of the Mega 4T.  If there is little violence and as a result only a few crisis war triggers in the Information Age, you might think in term of ages theory.

I think Mega theory is a fall out of Einzige being enamored of Marx with his Industrial Age assumption that transformation of cultures requires a crisis war.  I see that as having changed.

[sbarrera]

(07-31-2020, 06:30 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-29-2020, 11:42 AM)sbarrera Wrote: I am not so convinced of Mega-cycles either, but I find the idea intriguing.

@Einzige - do you have more detail on your theory? What, for example, drives the cycle?

I am a bit intrigued myself as well, but there is the same problem with turning theory if you do not take into account ages theory.  A lot of the critical observations that make up the theory were taken in the Industrial Age.  Therefore, you can not be sure the patterns will hold in the Information Age.  You have to confirm the patterns happening in the real world and ask if the patterns suggested are effected by nukes, insurgent wars or computers.

As we have had only one sample of Information Age turnings, it seems too early to tell if as long term a pattern as Mega Cycles will hold.  Are the changes observed due to the age boundary or the Mega Cycles?  It seems a bit soon to tell.  

If there is a lot of violence in the upcoming future, you might think in terms of the Mega 4T.  If there is little violence and as a result only a few crisis war triggers in the Information Age, you might think in term of ages theory.

I think Mega theory is a fall out of Einzige being enamored of Marx with his Industrial Age assumption that transformation of cultures requires a crisis war.  I see that as having changed.

Interesting. It would be great to hear directly from Einzige.

Now, what about the fact that some of the early turnings were pre-Industrial? We already have the cycle spanning two different Ages in that sense. They start at the end of the Renaissance in the pre-Industrial Early Modern Age.

The only allowance I recall S&H making for a shift that happened from the early Turnings to our time is that the life-phases shortened, leading to shorter Turnings. That is, people, grow up faster now and so the generations come faster.

[pbrower2a]

One aspect of this Crisis is the loss of many of the characteristics of the pioneer society in which land and resources were common, monopolization was difficult and unreliable, and organizations had not yet become so bureaucratic. Life is not as easy as it used to be for a middle class that becomes increasingly proletarian in living conditions as the economic order becomes more hierarchical, exploitative, and inequitable. To compel people to suffer for lesser rewards under harsher conditions requires repression. Where rewards for effort are slight, repression gets severe.

Note for example that suburban areas established to preserve such rural characteristics as low densities in housing have lost that character. Such manifests itself in the blurring of urban and suburban characteristics.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-31-2020, 09:17 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Interesting. It would be great to hear directly from Einzige.

Now, what about the fact that some of the early turnings were pre-Industrial? We already have the cycle spanning two different Ages in that sense. They start at the end of the Renaissance in the pre-Industrial Early Modern Age.

The only allowance I recall S&H making for a shift that happened from the early Turnings to our time is that the life-phases shortened, leading to shorter Turnings. That is, people, grow up faster now and so the generations come faster.

I count the equilibrium of the Agricultural Age as beginning to break with the Black Death, Renaissance, gunpowder weapons and the printing press.  Not sure exactly where to put the age boundary.  In history, there are often areas of honest debate when you try to be too specific.

It is not just S&H turnings that has the cross perspective problem.  If you advocate for a given perspective, it is from tempting to inevitable not to confuse the issue by bringing in other perspectives.  No matter if you are reading up on turnings, ages, or civilizations, you tend to see the other ways of looking at things pretty much neglected.  Where I am trying to combine the three perspective I tend to think when reading about one perspective, yes, that's right, but what about...  It was a while before I started to apply the general rule, that if you crossed a border in any of the three systems, you had to be carful about your empiric observations.  You tend to get so absorbed in your favorite perspective that you ignore what you learned from the others.

[Eric the Green]

(07-31-2020, 12:57 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-31-2020, 09:17 AM)sbarrera Wrote: Interesting. It would be great to hear directly from Einzige.

Now, what about the fact that some of the early turnings were pre-Industrial? We already have the cycle spanning two different Ages in that sense. They start at the end of the Renaissance in the pre-Industrial Early Modern Age.

The only allowance I recall S&H making for a shift that happened from the early Turnings to our time is that the life-phases shortened, leading to shorter Turnings. That is, people, grow up faster now and so the generations come faster.

I count the equilibrium of the Agricultural Age as beginning to break with the Black Death, Renaissance, gunpowder weapons and the printing press.  Not sure exactly where to put the age boundary.  In history, there are often areas of honest debate when you try to be too specific.

It is not just S&H turnings that has the cross perspective problem.  If you advocate for a given perspective, it is from tempting to inevitable not to confuse the issue by bringing in other perspectives.  No matter if you are reading up on turnings, ages, or civilizations, you tend to see the other ways of looking at things pretty much neglected.  Where I am trying to combine the three perspective I tend to think when reading about one perspective, yes, that's right, but what about...  It was a while before I started to apply the general rule, that if you crossed a border in any of the three systems, you had to be carful about your empiric observations.  You tend to get so absorbed in your favorite perspective that you ignore what you learned from the others.

Some historians say the industrial age started in 1760. But the Watt steam engine wasn't even invented yet. I go by E. J. Hobsbawm who recounted lots of evidence in his book The Age of Revolution to show that the take-off was in the early 1780s. Of course, the take off could not have happened before the cultural and inventive changes of the previous 300+ years. Many historians use the rather-dependent-on-time terms of early modern for the period starting with the Renaissance and modern for the time since the Industrial and French revolutions. "Post-modern" applies easily to the Information Age.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-31-2020, 04:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some historians say the industrial age started in 1760. But the Watt steam engine wasn't even invented yet. I go by E. J. Hobsbawm who recounted lots of evidence in his book The Age of Revolution to show that the take-off was in the early 1780s. Of course, the take off could not have happened before the cultural and inventive changes of the previous 300+ years. Many historians use the rather-dependent-on-time terms of early modern for the period starting with the Renaissance and modern for the time since the Industrial and French revolutions. "Post-modern" applies easily to the Information Age.

The age boundaries are often defined by technology.  In this case, gunpowder weapons changed conflict, the printing press changed how information is kept and exchanged, and the steam engine changed how work is done.  Obviously, all three didn't happen at exactly the same time, but they all had a big place in redefining their respective fields.  The other factor is the style of government, which becomes in this case democracy.

The name Industrial gives the steam engine a sort of pride of place, but there is no doubt the others had a significant place too.  All four are definitely not going to happen at the same time.  Any given crisis can only change the culture so much.  It took many crises before the signature pattern of the Industrial Age clearly came forth, and even then you found many civilizations still having autocratic governments as the Information Age started with nukes and computers in World War II.

Come to think of it, all four ages - hunter gatherer, agricultural, industrial, and information - are named after the prime way of doing work. They are not named after how you handle information, your style of conflict, or style of government. I am not sure if that makes the style of work more important.

[Bob Butler 54]

In 1848 Marx helped write the Communist Manifesto.  It was one of his central works in trying to extend the period of revolutions.  It followed well the Industrial Age premise that to change a culture required violence, required a crisis war.

In 1949 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience. It proposed that a man did not have an obligation to right every wrong he encountered, but he did have a duty not to allow himself to be part of that wrong.  The essay became the beginning of non violence.

Civil Disobedience did not have the immediate impact of Communist Manifesto and similar works.  It sort of remained in intellectual circles while the Industrial Age played out, a time where crisis wars were common.  But…. Eventually the Industrial Age came to an end after World War II.  Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King ran with it.  The awakening that followed amplified it.

Two essays.

There is a saying in physics.  ‘If I see far it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.’  Marx never saw what Gandhi and King could do.  His claim that violence and revolution was necessary and inevitable was disproved.  Neither did Thoreau see his ideas put into practice.  But you wonder who was the greater giant, whose idea was further beyond his time.

[Eric the Green]

(08-01-2020, 02:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: In 1848 Marx helped write the Communist Manifesto.  It was one of his central works in trying to extend the period of revolutions.  It followed well the Industrial Age premise that to change a culture required violence, required a crisis war.

In 1949 Henry David Thoreau wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience. It proposed that a man did not have an obligation to right every wrong he encountered, but he did have a duty not to allow himself to be part of that wrong.  The essay became the beginning of non violence.

Civil Disobedience did not have the immediate impact of Communist Manifesto and similar works.  It sort of remained in intellectual circles while the Industrial Age played out, a time where crisis wars were common.  But…. Eventually the Information Age came to an end after World War II.  Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King ran with it.  The awakening that followed amplified it.

Two essays.

There is a saying in physics.  ‘If I see far it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.’  Marx never saw what Gandhi and King could do.  His claim that violence and revolution was necessary and inevitable was disproved.  Neither did Thoreau see his ideas put into practice.  But you wonder who was the greater giant, whose idea was further beyond his time.

You mean Thoreau 1849, and Industrial Age after World War II. I think when the ecology crisis and movement came in, in the sixties. But the obsolescence of nuclear war came in after WWII, except I don't think people really understood that until the anti-war movement and the diplomatic efforts of JFK onward. It was mutually-assured fear before then. And of course, Dr. Strangelove in 1964. Awakening began that year.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-01-2020, 03:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You mean Thoreau 1849, and Industrial Age after World War II. I think when the ecology crisis and movement came in, in the sixties. But the obsolescence of nuclear war came in after WWII, except I don't think people really understood that until the anti-war movement and the diplomatic efforts of JFK onward. It was mutually-assured fear before then. And of course, Dr. Strangelove in 1964. Awakening began that year.

You have to expect a little fudge factor on things like age and turning boundaries. Somebody is going to say but but but...

But the Information Age has as its major attributes computers, nukes, and proxy war. With the Bentley Park machines, the nukes at the end of the war, and Gandhi and King making their non violent appearance soon after, a plausible case could be made for the end of World War II. A little later, perhaps, but the early markers were there. As with the prior boundary, you can't expect everything to happen at once. Things were moving faster by this time, so it is tighter than the prior time, but maybe.

At least the argument is over a shorter piece of time.

[David Horn]

(08-01-2020, 03:44 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-01-2020, 03:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You mean Thoreau 1849, and Industrial Age after World War II. I think when the ecology crisis and movement came in, in the sixties. But the obsolescence of nuclear war came in after WWII, except I don't think people really understood that until the anti-war movement and the diplomatic efforts of JFK onward. It was mutually-assured fear before then. And of course, Dr. Strangelove in 1964. Awakening began that year.

You have to expect a little fudge factor on things like age and turning boundaries.  Somebody is going to say but but but...  

But the Information Age has as its major attributes computers, nukes, and proxy war.  With the Bentley Park machines, the nukes at the end of the war, and Gandhi and King making their non violent appearance soon after, a plausible case could be made for the end of World War II.  A little later, perhaps, but the early markers were there.  As with the prior boundary, you can't expect everything to happen at once.  Things were moving faster by this time, so it is tighter than the prior time, but maybe.  

At least the argument is over a shorter piece of time.

The real problem is relating historical artifacts.  Social history, where most people do their living, is strongly impacted by economic, scientific and political history, but not necessarily in real time.  For example, the impact of a distant war or virtually all trade treaties has a delayed effect, while wars closer to home or trade embargoes are more immediate.  And how do you evaluate the impact of something as defining as the Internet?  We know it's had a major impact now and will for a long time to come, but it didn't in the 1960s when it was conceived.  On the other hand, the space race seems to be almost a nothing burger today, but it wasn't 50 years ago.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-02-2020, 11:01 AM)David Horn Wrote: The real problem is relating historical artifacts.  Social history, where most people do their living, is strongly impacted by economic, scientific and political history, but not necessarily in real time.  For example, the impact of a distant war or virtually all trade treaties has a delayed effect, while wars closer to home or trade embargoes are more immediate.  And how do you evaluate the impact of something as defining as the Internet?  We know it's had a major impact now and will for a long time to come, but it didn't in the 1960s when it was conceived.  On the other hand, the space race seems to be almost a nothing burger today, but it wasn't 50 years ago.

I take your point.  True enough mostly.

I might question the nothing burger on space.  Musk and SpaceX seem in a hurry to put up a global satellite internet and get to Mars.  I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people are sleeping on things space but it is about to take off launch.

[David Horn]

(08-02-2020, 11:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-02-2020, 11:01 AM)David Horn Wrote: The real problem is relating historical artifacts.  Social history, where most people do their living, is strongly impacted by economic, scientific and political history, but not necessarily in real time.  For example, the impact of a distant war or virtually all trade treaties has a delayed effect, while wars closer to home or trade embargoes are more immediate.  And how do you evaluate the impact of something as defining as the Internet?  We know it's had a major impact now and will for a long time to come, but it didn't in the 1960s when it was conceived.  On the other hand, the space race seems to be almost a nothing burger today, but it wasn't 50 years ago.

I take your point.  True enough mostly.

I might question the nothing burger on space.  Musk and SpaceX seem in a hurry to put up a global satellite internet and get to Mars.  I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people are sleeping on things space but it is about to take off launch.

Space may return as an interest if we go to Mars with a manned mission (not soon I fear), or we establish a permanent base on the Moon (the more likely short-term option).  Our attention spans are getting shorter by the day, and that may also be contributing to how the S&H cycle works -- but that's an entirely different topic.

[pbrower2a]

More on the pioneer society as it morphs into an aristocratic society:

In a pioneer society there is much opportunity but inadequate capital. People end up creating capital through the hard work of clearing forests for farms. If one chooses some other way of life, then labor is very much in demand for digging mines, laying rail tracks, stringing telegraph or telephone lines, herding cattle from grazing areas to rail heads, and of course mining and logging. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound from saloons to banks. Life can go well if one takes care of oneself (OK, avoid the whore house, don't gamble away your money, and don't mess up your liver with excessive booze), and even as a laborer you might end up living like a capitalist.

So it was on the western frontier, whether in the Mohawk Valley just west of Schenectady or in central Nebraska or the Texas Panhandle. Farming gave way to ranching, of course, where the rain was unreliable unless one harvested a river (itself a pioneering activity).

Inheritance meant little, as there was little to inherit until the frontier had been settled to some extent.

Inherited wealth allows an economic order more aristocratic in character to appear. Such happens slowly, but steadily. Bureaucracies arise, and the cynic in me suggests that such reflects the desire of elites that smart people not toy with radical ideals such as left-wing populism or Henry George's Single Tax, let alone Marxism. Real wages plummet as capital deepens. Bureaucracies are good at controlling assets and processes, but they don't create wealth. As capitalism matures, it allows more luxuries to produce, and these become competitors for thrift.

It's hard to tell if we are in late-stage capitalism, but it is easy to see what a depraved capitalist order looks like because we live in one. Economic inequality intensifies, and monopolistic control of opportunity and living space ensure that economic elites get more. Consumer choice seems to broaden, even into the realm of vice. The definitive late-capitalist society is one rich in brothels and casinos (OK, maybe amusement parks and game arcades for people who pretend to have some moral compass), but in which intellectual activity is frowned upon unless it churns out something marketable, like entertainment. The more mindless the entertainment, the better it serves the economic elites who want no competition in thought. Political life gravitates to what the moneyed elites can foist, the optimum for those elites being those reliable lackeys who believe as those elites do, that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such churn a profit. The favored religiosity that those elites support (for the poor, and certainly not their hyper-hedonistic selves!) offers "pie in the sky when you die" in return for demanding little and being thankful to one's exploiters (and somehow God) for what one gets. Overall, the economy seems dedicated to no small extent at taking what assets the middle class still has.

This is not a happy time.

[RadianMay]

(08-03-2020, 07:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's hard to tell if we are in late-stage capitalism, but it is easy to see what a depraved capitalist order looks like because we live in one. Economic inequality intensifies, and monopolistic control of opportunity and living space ensure that economic elites get more. Consumer choice seems to broaden, even into the realm of vice. The definitive late-capitalist society is one rich in brothels and casinos (OK, maybe amusement parks and game arcades for people who pretend to have some moral compass), but in which intellectual activity is frowned upon unless it churns out something marketable, like entertainment. The more mindless the entertainment, the better it serves the economic elites who want no competition in thought. Political life gravitates to what the moneyed elites can foist, the optimum for those elites being those reliable lackeys who believe as those elites do, that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such churn a profit. The favored religiosity that those elites support (for the poor, and certainly not their hyper-hedonistic selves!) offers "pie in the sky when you die" in return for demanding little and being thankful to one's exploiters (and somehow God) for what one gets. Overall, the economy seems dedicated to no small extent at taking what assets the middle class still has.

This is not a happy time.

You seem to be describing the very society we live in.

I tend to interact more with the younger generation (young millennials or old zoomers, whichever you prefer) and life seems to be so vacuous within this generation. There is little talk about things that are intellectually stimulating, and discussions about anything with social consequences quickly devolves into party politics. Talk seems to always be about the newest TV show or movie that offers an escapist experience away from this world. Little effort seems to be put on critically reflecting what is actually going on around us.

This culture has also influenced me quite a bit, and I myself don’t see this as healthy at all. I’ve been moving towards more escapist forms of entertainment, and falling into escapist habits. Late stage lassaire faire capitalism seems be negatively impact our mental health too.

[Einzige]

Would you then agree that describing the past saeculum as a Megaunraveling would be accurate?

[sbarrera]

Escapist entertainment isn't a sign of an Unraveling; it's a sign of a Crisis. People want to get away from the relentless bad news. And not all of this entertainment is "mindless" - many TV shows and movies explore relationships, the meaning of life, or are political parables. They may not be the same as reading Immanuel Kant but they are a form of pop philosophy.

[Tim Randal Walker]

What we have been seeing could be considered a variation of the double rhythm. One implication being that every other 4T will focus on internal conflict. However (at least so far), the internal conflict this time is playing out as an internal Cold War.