04-13-2020, 01:45 PM
(04-13-2020, 11:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(04-13-2020, 10:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:(04-13-2020, 10:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: So who said that a Crisis had to be a war?
John Xenakis is the primary exponent of the crisis war, and a firm believer in the necessity of them. In fact, he hangs generational dynamics on that premise.
Where I would say nukes make the Crisis war obsolete. While in the Industrial Age leaders and elites would start a war trivially, in this time the elites would lose influence and status, and make sure the leaders don’t threaten their position. In the Information Age, the Crisis war is virtually obsolete. That was why I was trying to rework the S&H theory to figure out how the cycles world work without a Trigger or a Regeneracy. Would the Awakening become the turning with the radical change? Can one change through democracy rather than conflict? Should we look to the Consciousness Revolution as the only Awakening that gives us an example of how it works in the Information Age?
The ideal position for a vindictive winner of a Crisis war is that the defeated people are either exterminated or reduced to slaves. The winner wants the assets of the former owners (typically farmland, buildings, livestock, houses, mines, and factories) for the veterans to 'settle'. Supposedly the neutron-bomb was perfect for that except for killing the livestock. If the winner isn't so vindictive, then it is enough that those defeated (unless criminals such as those who commit genocide or mistreat soldiers) have no cause for further struggle. The dirty thermonuclear bomb left nothing behind for the victor but ashes, rubble, and dying people.
The Consciousness Revolution began when the Information Age was in its infancy... and found information technology. Heck, fractals make a wonderful substitute for LSD...
Quote:But then along came the Coronavirus… I would not guarantee that a Trigger will happen in every period that the Prophet - Nomad - Civic generational alignment occurs. This time, if you consider September 11th, we had two such Triggers. The first failed to change the culture. The second? It seems too early to tell for certain. Will the old patriotic swing from selfishness to loyalty to the country still happen without a war to compel the change? That does not guarantee we will get even one Trigger next time around.
The Coronavirus acts much like a neutron bomb except for slower action by killing huge numbers of people, if not all in one place (as war does). It functions much like "inheritance powder" except leaving no traces of arsenic or thallium to point to a poisoner. It leaves assets behind, including livestock, crops, real estate, securities, cash, and infrastructure. But even that fails to solve one of the critical issues of our time -- how to generate prosperity in the absence of scarcity that serves as an impetus for more productivity.
We have little idea of what the toll will be. Figure, though, that much of the seeming prosperity of a few Americans -- economic rents -- will shrink greatly.
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.