Possible future predictions?

[pbrower2a]

(07-05-2020, 06:30 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: My predictions from a US 1985-born standpoint: Even if the coronavirus isn't the spark event for the 4T of our time, it sure revealed the various systems in place in US society are not working for the populace. I'm feeling like it is, because we're experiencing that real disruption/change to everyday life that can happen in a 4T. I and millions of others came into work on Friday the 13th of March 2020 like any other day and was working home the next week. The virus up to that point in the US was just a 'TV news event' unless you or family member/friend were a direct victim of it. I feel like work/school-from-home is here to stay and there will be a big financial reason to keep it this way, where practical. 5G networks with their faster speeds are coming on at a time when we need the Internet more than ever now. IIRC, during the last 4T the primary media source changed to become TV, whereas now it's looking clear that the Internet is taking over with the momentum and centrality to our lives that TV had in the 20th century. The Internet by its nature and structure is decentralised by design but it is central to how we conduct our lives now.

Welcome! COVID-19 clearly demonstrates the consequences of much going wrong at once. Crisis eras do not result from conscious efforts to change everything at once with some grand design of social reform; all other Crisis eras seem to result from society as a whole sleepwalking  its way into a bad situation. So we were a bit drunk, woke up with a bad headache, and took the wrong pills.  Off to the hospital for the stomach pump!

As you will see from my posting record I have practically nothing good to say about the current President, and all that saves us from even greater harm is that he is basically lazy. I'll try to stay clear of any partisan bickering on this post... but to put things in as general terms as is possible, sometimes we find out what is right through a process of trial and error that shows us every imaginable bluder before we get things right.    
 

Quote:I feel like we're at the point since at least late March that there is no going back to the old 3T ways in general, even though it seemed the 3T was on its way out for several years now. The mood amongst everyone I know is crisis even when the word isn't specifically mentioned. In the S&H books it was mentioned that everyone in society knows when the Crisis is here, right? As for politics? This is a messy one for the US. We have no FDR equivalent in office or running this time, it seems. When was the last time this happened in a 4T? Or perhaps other countries that were not in sync with the US Turnings can give some hint of how this can play out? My own political beliefs are very liberal, so i was disappointed in Sanders losing in 2016 & bowing out this year. I also think the virus has put an end to globalisation & cosmopolitanism at least for now. Whether this becomes long-term remains to be seen.

I concur. Donald Trump offered us a return to Third Turning ways as a means of reviving the economy with another speculative boom characteristic of the latter years of a Third Turning. Speculative booms lead to heavy investment in questionable activities at the expense of public services that do real good and in plant and equipment that together create the jobs and production that make prosperity for far more people. A speculative boom devours wealth instead of creating it. When people realize that there is no new person to which to sell an over-valued investment that looks like easy money, then the game is over and a financial panic happens.

We learn, or at least so we home. Adults as young as late-wave GI's, whatever their position on the political spectrum, did everything possible to prevent a replay of the speculative circus that led to the 1929 Stock Market Crash. They succeeded so long as they remained influential in American life. Seventy years after the Roaring Twenties, when the last GI's passed 80 and were at most relics in political and cultural life, nothing stopped people from doing really-stupid things in investments. Predatory lending? Liar loans? Negative amortization? A late-wave GI such as Bob Dole or Jimmy Carter would have stopped people from doing such. But people who did not remember the economic calamity of 1929-1932 because they were born after it or were infants at the time saw only the easy money.   

Quote:I think the virus being around will push things in social areas in a different direction, too. Not much has really been discussed in the MSM about implications that can become long-term in that area lately. My expectations? Marriage & family life are being pushed to the forefront as we speak. The work/life balance can not be ignored anymore. Before, people jumped jobs for more money and better personal prospects/enjoyment but I think now, the main choice will be how a new job will impact their family life. The money & enjoyment of the job will take a backseat as long as it's enough & the job isn't too backbreaking/annoying.

People are going to find themselves shoved into activities that they could imagine only in their nightmares. A big student loan, and you must work shoveling literal cow manure  in a dairy because the white-collar jobs have vanished?  Or perhaps you find that the only alternative is to operate a small business with few promises except long hours of work trying to make a meager profit that is your living? 

Just look at the last 4T in some other countries. If the religious heritage of your ancestors suddenly became unfashionable, first in Germany and then some other places, you may have gone from doing well to being completely helpless even against a plot to exterminate others like you.  You may be lucky in that the situation in which you find yourself is back-breaking, annoying, and unpromising. 

(Here's a hint on answering a classic question on most job interviews. The answer to the question

"Where do you want to be five years from now?"

is typically

"Doing exactly the job for which I am applying"...

even if  you see it as a stopgap, something that you do because you ended up with $2000 in debt on your charge cards without having any fun while charging things on them. I hate to sound like an extreme leftist, but the people who own the assets and comprise the bureaucratic elite of America act as if the rest of humanity exists solely to serve their power, indulgence, and gain for as little as possible irrespective of the human cost. If we are lucky, then such people, Marxist stereotypes of capitalist ownership and management, will change their ways or find themselves shoved aside. The difference between them and Marxist-Leninists is that they endorse pure plutocracy!

Quote:I've spent some of the last 3 months wondering as someone who is single how dating will change after this is over, and wondering if during this time of social distancing if it's better to be single or better to be married. Many in my generation have been of the type to hold out forever till the 'perfect' person came along. There is an interesting parallel in the pandemic that may have been a big early mistake by the US powers that be: They let the perfect be the enemy of the good (in the form of requiring specific N95 masks instead of just telling people any multi-layer face covering is far better than nothing at all when it comes to the virus spread). On the other hand, the whole Zoom dating thing reminds me of a time when courtship existed. I wouldn't be surprised if people will go to vetting their dates online by video and being very cautious about who they meet in person from here on out. The virus won't be the only thing on people's mind eventually. About social life in general, I wonder how the global pandemic happening in a 4T differs from the 1918 one last go around in a 3T. Has anyone made any comparisons yet or had any thoughts here about this?

Part of understanding the generational theory is figuring out what really changes every twenty years or so and what doesn't. Physical and mathematical laws do not change; they may be better refined (the last basic change in physics was relativity, roughly 115 years ago). The teachings of such sages as Socrates, Moses, Gautama Buddha, and Confucius remain largely relevant. The golden section remains pleasing to they eye today as it was when the Greeks built the Parthenon.  Maybe some things go into style and go out... but it is safe to figure that we do not have to be in the original audience for the music of Haydn and Mozart to appreciate their works. Fads and crazes usually show why they have no lasting value. 

Only rarely do we get truly new knowledge. Most of our progress is refinement of what we already have. 

As for dating -- arranged marriages used to be the norm, and as I was surprised to discover, they often worked out well. After all , the couple were from the same background -- same village, same class, similar prospects for fathers and sons-in-law, same religion, same culture. Maybe love might develop because people had much in common and that was the best thing possible and both knew that.  Rent the movie Fiddler on the Roof and watch it... it holds up well in showing how that world worked until it no longer did. Not your culture? The shtetl was not my ancestors' culture either, but I figure that at some point, my Mennonite ancestors lived much like the Jews of Anatevka except for their religion.  

The Plague of 2020 puts much on hold for an indefinite time. Crisis Eras tend to do that. Nobody knew how long the Civil War would last... or how long America would be involved in the Second World War. Crisis Eras bring dislocations as other times don't to people who think they have deep roots where they are. Some people return to their roots; some people find a more satisfying reality after the Crisis somewhere else and on different terms.  

Quote:Long-term: Middle of 2020s/2030s. High begins with however we resolve this Crisis. Whatever cultural norms established during this Crisis will become the standard for society for years to come. Us Millennials will probably start entering political circles by then and fight tooth & nail to keep the new standards around. Given how this crisis was science-based, I expect science & technology will become more entrenched in society at all levels. Millennials will move out of the cities due to high costs, desire for a family, and less people & virus. 3D printing goes really mainstream with all that brings with it. Climate change will remain an ongoing threat but won't be fully dealt with till late in the upcoming Saeculum because humanity puts the here & now up front, and climate change is both a global & long-term issue. 2040s/2050s: Next Awakening begins. The people of this time start to eschew the technological marvels we based our lives on & got addicted to over the prior decades. Not sure how the rest of the 2T will look. Perhaps another spiritual awakening being part of the overall back-to-nature movement. The cities may come back at this point as 'green' cities where polluting vehicles are not allowed in. 2060s/2070s: The next 3T begins. My generation will sit this one out, isolate in our bubbles again (perhaps even become nomadic bubbles to avoid climate change impacts brewing). I was a child/teen in the starts & heart of the 3T we just had, so I'm very interested in seeing a 3T from older adult eyes.

I expect the successful leadership of this Crisis Era to push change for the better. Such will include de-concentration of economic activity. I look at the last High and see that where one lived  (unless one was black in "Ku Kluxistan" or lived in seriously-disadvantaged barrios or Indian Reservations) did not make a great difference in economic prospects. One could live well in places such as South Bend, Indiana; Newark, New Jersey; Flint, Michigan; Dayton, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; or St. Louis Missouri... and those are all dumps now.  If one goes to the few places that offer high-paying jobs, one faces high rents that devour as much as 70% of one's after-tax income. Indeed I am old enough to remember that a good rule of thumb was that people should not be paying more than 35% of their income as housing costs because anything more is deep trouble... oh, is that over!  America is a landlord's paradise, and the people who make the real money in Silicon Valley are not so much the software engineers  and designers of circuits as the property owners who lease them their tiny apartments. Considering that landlords are not known for innovation and imagination -- and that the current President has been successful in business as a landlord leasing property in a high-cost area and unsuccessful in other ventures... Of course that may be mere coincidence. 

I see three big problems on  the horizon. The first is the end of scarcity. It used to be easy to make a good living by making stuff that people needed as additions to their lives (appliances, electronic entertainments, cars, furniture)... the market for such things is now largely replacement. Getting more stuff means clutter which makes life more complicated than is necessary. Maybe the trend to buy experiences  (talking about that trip to Hue will get people to listen, but showing off a new car won't) instead of stuff will be the norm. Real poverty will not be so much the menace of gross need as it will be being a crashing bore. People may rediscover the intellectual life as more enriching than collecting 'cute' figurines as my late mother did. I broke one and thought little of it as I swept the shards into a dustpan and unceremoniously dumped the once 'cute' figurine into a waste basket. (I can give a basic description of the general pattern: the figurines have adults with very childlike features. It's pure Kitsch, and I didn't even examine the object that I broke). Second is the singularity, when our machines become more sophisticated in their calculating ability than we are -- when they can compose impressive sonnets and symphonies. Third, of course, is climate change... and big parts of the world will start to have wet-bulb temperatures around 35 C (95 F)... in which case people will be in big trouble because they will be unable to dispose of waste heat effectively and will face heatstroke in places like Riyadh and Jakarta., not to mention the inundation of some of the world's prime cropland. If you thought Stalin horrible for forcible collectivization of agriculture and turning farmers into serfs of a horrid State... at least one got to survive as a serf. King Neptune will not only take title to land but evict the recent farmers. Things could be very messy just in time for the Crisis of 2100 with the effects of global warming as the cause of the intractable nightmare. 

Quote:My parents look back fondly on their 1 & 2T youth, and I'm unsure if I should be looking forwards excitedly to the 1T & 2T this time around, or if I should dread it. Perhaps someone who lived through them can give some insight? Like if you like a life of XYZ, a certain Turning would be your favourite & why.

I am likely old enough to be your father, having been born in 1955. Take my current age (64) and subtract that from 1955... and you get the year 1891.  My maternal grandmother was born that year, and she lived until I was seventeen years old. I got to know lots of people who lived in the horse-and-buggy era.  So I remember people born during the Missionary Awakening (which was not a good time to be a child)  and the following Third Turning. This was a rural area, and I came to recognize the 1920's (let alone the Great Depression) as well short of any halcyon time.  My paternal grandparents were born in the 1910's, and the only blessing that I could see from being born then is that it was difficult to develop any bad habits. 

People will be ready for the end of the Crisis Era... and as I see it people will be doing what they wanted to do before things went amok. Such isn't very imaginative, but it is understandable. It makes sense, which is about all that many can legitimately hope for.