Is it possible to have differently-timed saecula on a smaller scale?

[erdna3]

For example, take New York City. We may be in crisis society-wide (since 2008? 2020? 2001?) but that regional ecosystem had a much crazier period not too long ago: maybe from about "Ford to City: Drop Dead" to the mid-Giuliani era.

The Peak wasn't the 1950s either likely, there was much more and better building going on in the 1920s and 1930s (to the point where a "prewar building" is a status symbol locally), the Peak era had hastily-constructed housing projects and almost-housing-projects as there was continued flight to the suburbs.

If anything it feels like 2020 there was a recent transition from a 1T (maybe more of the 1870s less-communitarian variety, but it was definitely a period of growth and safety) to a 2T, as the tough-on-crime crisis policies got examined morally and the tax-breaks strategy got reevaluated (see the recent saga with putting an Amazon headquarters in Queens). 

All in all the whole place has never been fancier, even as you get vacancies and opioids etc. elsewhere, which leads to a prophet-y politics favorable to figures like AOC, right as loudmouthed politics falls off at the larger scale.

What do we make of all of this? If the turnings are different regionally is there a concept of a regional-generation also?

[pbrower2a]

Cycles within cycles? I think of the Roman Empire, a rotten entity at its inception with a veneer of grandeur and prosperity and even an almost-modern mass culture... but the leadership deteriorated, the culture shifted to the anti-material ideology of early Christianity, the tax base shrank as only the poor paid the taxes and the big landowners who exempted themselves from taxation got to be a bigger share of the economy. Technological innovation vanished, and creativity vanished.

Maybe a technological fix such as steam power would have given the Roman classical world a new economic life. Even without movable type the Romans would have done mass printing on a huge scale, improved the speed of both land and sea transportation by replacing oars with steam engines and horses with steam cars. The problem was "what would you do with all the slaves?"

[pbrower2a]

We face the prospect of an economic world in which (barring global warming that messes up the food supply or a new Ice Age) we have not only the potential, but also the reality of productivity so high that scarcity no longer exists. OK, desirable real estate: with eight billion people, landlords will be able to extract their desired pounds of flesh out of tenants. We will harness the sun and the winds to the extent that we can power everything important. With a huge supply of material from the public domain we will have no shortage of material for entertainment and culture.

The "telescreens" from science fiction may offer us images of whatever location we desire, whether of an automobile graveyard (yeah, sure) to some scenic wonder. Maybe even a feed from a space telescope. Horsehead Nebula, anyone? Or would it be (this would obviously be premium) a seat in Microsoft Stadium (formerly known as Yankee Stadium) to watch a live Yankees game? Or the Philharmonie in Berlin to witness Bruckner's Eighth Symphony... live? Obviously this would appear with excellent sound quality for a live concert of any kind.



For those who have prospered due to scarcity such brings an end to one obvious means of exploitation. Economic power of employers over employees may die. Brutal styles of management may become irrelevant as people have meaningful choices irrespective of their job skills. It may not be Marxian socialism, but it might be just as fearsome to the economic elites that many of us have feared all our lives.

Our work will be slight. Maybe in our youth we will mostly be obliged to do the heavy lifting, the food-picking and packing, the assembly-line work, and the construction and maintenance. In return we will live without commodity fetishes and status symbols. Having to do real work will break narcissism.