What are your plans for the next 1T?

[pbrower2a]

(03-17-2022, 09:57 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(03-17-2022, 06:11 PM)galaxy Wrote: Don't plan for turnings. It is impossible to know what they will look like before they happen. Wait for them to happen, and then live according to the present, not according to a plan created in the past for an unknown future.

I feel like recent geopolitical events have really made this especially clear.

Good planning isn't about preparing for some outcome you think it inevitable. It's about reading trends, looking at a range of possible outcomes based on an understanding of cause and effect and making sure you have contingencies for each.

It's easy to predict that unless the next High entrenches an authoritarian regime in America, then the range of political discourse will pull toward the political center that practically disappeared in the current era. Basically the plutocratic ideology of what Sowronek calls the neoliberal era (Reagan through at least Trump) will be cast off. Skowronek's"neoliberal era corresponds to the current Crisis Era (or at least most of it) and the preceding 3T, and is roughly half a Saeculum. The orthodox ideology holds that the sole purpose in human existence is to make those already filthy-rich even more filthy-rich. An opposition builds in politics, and it is capable of winning some elections, but it wins by becoming more radical. Its fault is that even if it is good at making its point it is ineffective at achieving anything when politically in charge because the Right has gutted taxes necessary for implementing any major, and even needful reforms. Thus the liberals fail and the right-wing ideologues give lavish support to politicians who stand for the intensification of economic inequality and the promotion of crony capitalism.

Mass culture, whatever the ideology, will be less brash and more overtly commercial. Anything exotic (think of "Latin" and "Hawaiian" inclusions in popular music in the 195's) will be bowdlerized into something innocuous. I expect Millennial tastes to reflect that. Instrumentals will be one way to avoid political and cultural controversies. Corridos that laud drug traffickers will not be the sort of music that passes the censorship of marketers. After all, children might be listening. Some parts of American culture have gone as far as possible with "Hang Mike Pence!" and "F--K Joe Biden".

The best opportunity for young adults will be in creating the foundation of a material order that far better meets basic human needs. Construction and manufacturing will expand in the renovation (if not reconstruction) of those parts of America that got left behind under the recent ethos of "the Devil take the hindmost". Green energy will shove fossil fuel use into narrow niches. Think of all those convenience store-gas station combinations; recharging the electric cars that will supplant current "gas buggies" over about fifteen years will reshape how people do much of their retail business. People adapt or go broke, and businesses adapt or go bankrupt. Skilled labor will pay better than the glorified clerical work that most college grads end up doing.

I almost expect undergraduate education to return to its old objective of expanding the mind (so that graduates become more nimble thinkers) and improving the student. Undergraduate specialization will be abandoned so that one does not learn with an economics major the jargon of economics and strictures of an economic focus while being unprepared to put one's learning to use. In view of the great expansion of knowledge and entertainment, we need more people to recognize that there is more to life than "sex&drugs&rock-n-roll", material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, and cheap thrills. Maybe if one is lonely one can listen to some opera.

If you disliked the style of the Barack Obama as President, then you will dislike the coming 1T. Except for a liberal agenda, Obama was the perfect conservative.