Neil Howe: 'Civil War Is More Likely Than People Think'

[Eric the Green]

(07-22-2017, 07:13 AM)Mikebert Wrote: I think a civil war is very unlikely. A basic ingredient for war is a mass of aroused young males. Over the past number years I noted something I called "the male disease". I noticed working poor millennial men were not working, not on their own, but living with their mom/grandma or their baby mama and being supported by them, though sometimes they got disability. For example, my oldest grandchild (24), works, her husband doesn't, neither does the daddy of her firstborn. Number 2 is a 23, he  actually held a job for six months, once but otherwise was unemployed. Number 3 (22) works and has since he was 18. No. 4 (16) got a job, was fired in a week, not working since.  You get the picture. (All these folks are offspring of former foster children of ours, with whom we've had a grandparent relationship over the years.

Now these are just anecdotes, but data now backs this up, and you see stories about how millennials, particularly males, are not working as much as previous generations. One article I read a year or two ago suggested online porn was a factor.  But now the story seems to be around computer games, which are continually becoming more engaging. The idea is young men are choosing to spend more time playing and less time working.

Recently I read a story called Ready Player One, set in 2044, where economic depression had made half the population unemployed, and on the dole. The unemployed lived in "stacks" trailer parks where the trailers were stacked on top of each other to accommodate more people into a fixed space, and spend their days in this immersive computer generated world. The whole story takes place in this world, with brief excursions into "reality".

Recently I have seen stuff on universal basic income. If you combine a basic income with an addicting videogame I can see young males spending all their time online, expending all their aggression on virtual combat, and thus posing no threat of civil war ever again. To the extent we are heading in this direction civil war may well become a thing of the past.

It could happen; on the other hand, our elites do not want to finance this dole/guaranteed income, especially since these millennials also tend to be ethnically diverse, and the elites have convinced many more-rural young people that diversity is itself the problem; and those issues are the nub of the polarization itself. So, what if the millennial males and their offspring have to FIGHT for this dole, so they can play their video games in peace and financial security?