Something Like Late Antiquity Will Happen Again

[X_4AD_84]

Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

[Ragnarök_62]

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzPQ24...view?hl=en

[Eric the Green]

The next late antiquity is cosmically scheduled for the 23rd and 24th centuries. At your service
http://philosopherswheel.com/fortunes.htm

"2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together"

The "current post Middle Ages wave of civilization" is already past. The 20th century is a new era of civilization.

[Mikebert]

I was going to mention this guy with a dark ages theory I encountered about 15 years ago, as an example of how not to go about thinking on this issue, but I see Rags has dredged his opus up.  It suffers from the usual problems when someone from a hard science like physics tries his hand in the social sciences.  They come up with elaboate theories that are largely based on their own analysis.  This is a fool's errand.  If it were possible to construct a valid theory of dark ages from armchair theorizing, it would have been done long ago and demonstrated to work.

Even in physics they build on the work of others.  A valid social theory is going to build on the work of others.  I believe there is a role for natural scientists is this endeavor, but I do not think they are going to come from physics.  Biology is a better field since it deals with complex living systems: procaryotic cells, eucaryotic cells, and complex combinations of eucaryotic cells (animals and plants) that themsleves interact with themselves and the enviroment in ecosystem ensembles.  People are one kind of animal interacting in an ecosystem.

Over the last century biology has become a mature science with the discovery of evolution, biochemistry, genetics, and mathematical formulations of the evolution of populations of biological organisms.  They are now about where physics was in the 19th century.  And like with the "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry, a lot of technology based on biology has been developed that works. We live longer, we invented antibiotics (a direct application of evolution).  We can now modfied organisms (applications of evolution, genetics, biochemistry).  Mathematical frameworks for the behavior of populations of animals and plants in an evironment has been developed.

It is this discipline of natural (and increasingly "hard") scientists who have the best chance of making a contribution to social science.  To do so they have to move up a notch in complexity from the natural systems to the much more complex interactions humans (who have gigantic brains which function to manage social releationships) in highly artifical environments of their own creation.  And to do they they are going to have to really on the previous work of large numbers of social scientists so as avoid going into blind alleys like this dark ages guy (and all the other similar stuff I've seen) have done.

[pbrower2a]

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

1. Civilization is not human nature. The hunter-gatherer is the expression of human nature. Civilization that implies that the workers have a stake in the system is sustainable. Pure exploitation is not sustainable. Civilization takes centuries to develop and can take only a few years to wipe out. So people fail to maintain the irrigation and drainage canals... tsk, tsk. tsk. The population will crash with the loss of the food supply.

2. Elites need to recognize that the common man needs a stake in the system just to prevent a socialist insurrection at the first opportunity. But drifting off to go fly fishing can be very attractive. It satisfies the drives of the hunter-gatherer that have never really left us.

3. Less civilized? That is presumptuous.
 
4. #2, at the least.

5. The end of technological advancement as a cause of economic growth may be upon us. We are using fewer resources to achieve as much, at least per capita. We have no technofixes as easy, uncontroversial solutions to our economic distress.

6. Changes in climatic patterns may arise before the inundations from shrinking ice sheets. An open Arctic  during the peak sun seasons will have an effect upon rainfall pattens in at the least the middle latitudes. Polar regions at the solstice get even more intense solar radiation than do the tropics.

By 2100 we could have a summer low over the Arctic that sucks up moisture from the middle latitudes, creating seasonal droughts where those do not now occur. Just imagine the American High Plains as desert.

7. Do you hate Midwestern blizzards? Then I have a solution for you. It's called "Florida".

Those midwestern blizzards protect soil moisture and prevent the growth of tropical microorganisms  that cause plant blights and 'tropical' diseases. We had the 'Year with no winter' in 2012, the year in which the  Cfa/Dfa climate boundary reached Michigan instead of along the Ohio River. We also had poor crop yields for a lack of soil moisture.

[Einzige]

I certainly hope so. I find the prospect liberating.

[pbrower2a]

(09-21-2016, 11:11 PM)Einzige Wrote: I certainly hope so. I find the prospect liberating.

Chaos is dangerous and destructive.  It is not to be treated lightly, and it is to be avoided if at all possible.

Political chaos shows the incompetence and unresponsiveness of political leadership that led to the chaos. As for the speed in which late antiquity met its demise, such a historian as Arnold Toynbee suggested that the Roman Empire that lasted (in Rome and points west)  little more than 500 years, the social order was corrupt and ultimately unsustainable even from late Republican times. Imperial Rome survived so long as it did by living off its rich resources.

We have a long way to go before the demise of the USA or its successor. We have too many resources for one bad leader to bring it down.

[Eric the Green]

(09-23-2016, 10:19 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Chaos is dangerous and destructive.  It is not to be treated lightly, and it is to be avoided if at all possible.

Political chaos shows the incompetence and unresponsiveness of political leadership that led to the chaos. As for the speed in which late antiquity met its demise, such a historian as Arnold Toynbee suggested that the Roman Empire that lasted (in Rome and points west)  little more than 500 years, the social order was corrupt and ultimately unsustainable even from late Republican times. Imperial Rome survived so long as it did by living off its rich resources.

We have a long way to go before the demise of the USA or its successor. We have too many resources for one bad leader to bring it down.

That's right. Look for it to be brought down or transformed about 350-400 years from now.

[Warren Dew]

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

What century do you have in mind for "late antiquity"?  Are you talking about the collapse at the end of the bronze age?  Fall of Troy, Sea Peoples, Mycenean and Hittite civilizations wiped out?  Or are you talking about some other period?

[Warren Dew]

(10-02-2016, 07:24 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-23-2016, 10:19 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Chaos is dangerous and destructive.  It is not to be treated lightly, and it is to be avoided if at all possible.

Political chaos shows the incompetence and unresponsiveness of political leadership that led to the chaos. As for the speed in which late antiquity met its demise, such a historian as Arnold Toynbee suggested that the Roman Empire that lasted (in Rome and points west)  little more than 500 years, the social order was corrupt and ultimately unsustainable even from late Republican times. Imperial Rome survived so long as it did by living off its rich resources.

We have a long way to go before the demise of the USA or its successor. We have too many resources for one bad leader to bring it down.

That's right. Look for it to be brought down or transformed about 350-400 years from now.

Expecting us to go 4-5 generational cycles without a major collapse when nuclear weapons are available for use in any crisis period seems optimistic to me.

[Marypoza]

(10-02-2016, 07:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

What century do you have in mind for "late antiquity"?  Are you talking about the collapse at the end of the bronze age?  Fall of Troy, Sea Peoples, Mycenean and Hittite civilizations wiped out?  Or are you talking about some other period?

-- I'm thinking he means the Roman Empire, & the ensuing Dark Ages, which I have heard described as a Depression that lasted 500 yrs. Let's hope this current Depression 2.0 (let's call it what it is) doesn't last as long

[pbrower2a]

(10-02-2016, 07:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

What century do you have in mind for "late antiquity"?  Are you talking about the collapse at the end of the bronze age?  Fall of Troy, Sea Peoples, Mycenean and Hittite civilizations wiped out?  Or are you talking about some other period?

That makes sense.

In a way we are still in the Renaissance. Paradoxically the highest technology of our time allows us more access to antiquity than people not in antiquity ever had. There was never an end to the Renaissance, but instead only a change in direction. The Renaissance seems to have slowly morphed into the Enlightenment, itself in part a rediscovery of ancient values (think of the American and French Revolutions and of the emancipation of workers, including both agricultural slaves in the 19th century and industrial workers in the early 20th century).

The Renaissance re-established classical standards of esthetics and scholarship but did not challenge the contemporary norms of politics. The American and French Revolutions looked in part to antiquity for models of democracy. Such was the transformation.

When we recognize ethical and cultural decadence as such, and not solely for novelty, then we can get out of nasty times. When we see nothing wrong with something rotten, then what passes as conservatism simply preserves the rot. Rot is unstable and destructive in its own right.

I see much of the fault of our time in an educational system that inculcates no values and lets people take whatever path they want with neither cultural nor moral guidance. K-12 education? Most of its fault lies in inequities of spending (middle-class kids get much more resources than do poor kids) and in some corrupt districts (like the Detroit Independent School District, which may need to lose some of its independence). It's in university-level teaching, where high-school kids go in hooked on mass low culture which by default gives one practically no values, and even if it has academic rigor gives one no cause to believe that there is more to life than sex, material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, and cheap thrills, and often find nothing better except connections to facilitate getting more of the same.

If you want to fault K-12 education, then look where the teachers and administrators come from. I would like our K-12 teachers to have more liberal-arts training so that they can suggest that there is more to life than... I need not repeat it. Look also where most of our leaders in business come from.

I once saw a question posed at a mock interview.

"Mrs. X is a 55-year-old executive secretary at your company. She and her husband intend to go on a once-in-a-lifetime second honeymoon in Paris, where they will get to enjoy much that they have deferred for years while they were working for your company. She has not worked here solely for the money, which isn't all that much. You couldn't pay her enough for her contributions in part because you would overturn the reality that secretarial and clerical staff would insist on being overpaid. She has her vacation time aligned with that trip. She can;t put it off a month or so without paying hefty fees for rescheduling the second honeymoon, and her husband would have similar difficulties in rearranging things. All of a sudden, as she is in the last days before setting off to the City of Lights, your company undergoes a merger with a failing competitor, and you will need her skills to make the merger work. How do you get her to cancel the trip?"

Here is my answer.

No, you do not disrupt that second honeymoon for the merger. You try to make that merger work without her, or put it off until she has returned from Paris. Is she that important? Yes -- and you want to make sure that she is at her best when the merger goes through.

This second honeymoon represents much that you value in her -- her planning, her foresight, and her commitment. Someone simply putting off a trip to a gambling casino or an amusement park or a camping trip to the Rockies? Such takes little foresight or planning, and the younger worker who gets pressured to put such off for a couple of weeks will enjoy the trip just the same a couple weeks later. You can make all sorts of promises to a younger worker, like job security for making some adjustments.

So you get her to stay to make the merger work on time. But while she is doing paperwork she is thinking about the boat cruise down the Seine for which there is no real equivalent in America. While she is making phone calls to facilitate transfers of assets she is thinking of the stroll down the Champs-Élysées that she might otherwise be doing. While she is making the customer lists of your former competitor yours she contemplates the might-have-been of an irreplaceable journey through a gallery of the finest paintings and sculptures of existence.

Can she do this alone? It means more with her husband. Are you going to risk her marital stability for that? She has loyalties bigger than to her boss and the management of this company. This second honeymoon is no spur-of-the-moment jaunt; it involves virtues that she shows on the job: planning, foresight, dedication, and denial of instant gratification. It might be far easier for your company if she were shallow enough to be interested only in some big-ticket item that she could buy, like some household remodeling, a car, or a boat. But she is 55, and she may see this second honeymoon as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After all, her husband just got a diagnosis of a terminal condition. Oh, you did not know that? That's why you cannot expect her to put the second honeymoon off. There might not be a next year for the second honeymoon with her husband.

Induce her to defer (really abandon) the second honeymoon, and she might be good only for the merger. You show to your subordinates that the company exists only for making money irrespective of human cost, which puts your firm on the ethical level of a crime syndicate. Oh, there is more to life than making money for your employer? Look also at what it could do to her performance. For the sake of everyone it is best that you accommodate her family life, something more primal to people than the acquisitive instinct.  Within three months she retires anyway because she does not really need the money.

Now if she goes on that second honeymoon? Your staff will enjoy finding out about it on her communications from Paris. Learning that this is a possible objective in life while 30 might bring out the best in other employees. Maybe they will start thinking about long-range plans; maybe they will find that foresight offers rewards. It's easier to work for a company that demonstrates that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence for owners and executives. Doing the right thing isn't easy, but it usually has better consequences.

After the second honeymoon is over you can complete the merger. Or while it is going on you can hire some recent college grads as temporary help to facilitate the merger. Or you can get existing staff to stretch their abilities while she is away. She won't be around in ten years, and you will need someone to do what she has been doing. Maybe she isn't so tech-savvy as those kids. She is 55, and you cannot trust her to be around for ten years. But if her employment outlasts her husband's remaining life, she could be a desirable employee for some time.

So what about the people at the former, but failing company that you are transforming into a subsidiary? Maybe about 10% of them will be lucky enough to keep their jobs. The failing competitor was hemorrhaging good workers, which you can reasonably expect when people aren't getting raises for five years or so. Management was crappy, and you might prefer the temps who coordinated the transformed a company's assets into yours than the people who used to have custody over them.

...The 'right' answer is probably to make promises that she can never accept, offer her a pay raise as an inducement, or threaten her job security.

[Marypoza]

(10-03-2016, 08:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(10-02-2016, 07:55 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

What century do you have in mind for "late antiquity"?  Are you talking about the collapse at the end of the bronze age?  Fall of Troy, Sea Peoples, Mycenean and Hittite civilizations wiped out?  Or are you talking about some other period?

That makes sense.

In a way we are still in the Renaissance. Paradoxically the highest technology of our time allows us more access to antiquity than people not in antiquity ever had. There was never an end to the Renaissance, but instead only a change in direction. The Renaissance seems to have slowly morphed into the Enlightenment, itself in part a rediscovery of ancient values (think of the American and French Revolutions and of the emancipation of workers, including both agricultural slaves in the 19th century and industrial workers in the early 20th century).

The Renaissance re-established classical standards of esthetics and scholarship but did not challenge the contemporary norms of politics. The American and French Revolutions looked in part to antiquity for models of democracy. Such was the transformation.

When we recognize ethical and cultural decadence as such, and not solely for novelty, then we can get out of nasty times. When we see nothing wrong with something rotten, then what passes as conservatism simply preserves the rot. Rot is unstable and destructive in its own right.

I see much of the fault of our time in an educational system that inculcates no values and lets people take whatever path they want with neither cultural nor moral guidance. K-12 education? Most of its fault lies in inequities of spending (middle-class kids get much more resources than do poor kids) and in some corrupt districts (like the Detroit Independent School District, which may need to lose some of its independence). It's in university-level teaching, where high-school kids go in hooked on mass low culture which by default gives one practically no values, and even if it has academic rigor gives one no cause to believe that there is more to life than sex, material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, and cheap thrills, and often find nothing better except connections to facilitate getting more of the same.

If you want to fault K-12 education, then look where the teachers and administrators come from. I would like our K-12 teachers to have more liberal-arts training so that they can suggest that there is more to life than... I need not repeat it. Look also where most of our leaders in business come from.

I once saw a question posed at a mock interview.

"Mrs. X is a 55-year-old executive secretary at your company. She and her husband intend to go on a once-in-a-lifetime second honeymoon in Paris, where they will get to enjoy much that they have deferred for years while they were working for your company. She has not worked here solely for the money, which isn't all that much. You couldn't pay her enough for her contributions in part because you would overturn the reality that secretarial and clerical staff would insist on being overpaid. She has her vacation time aligned with that trip. She can;t put it off a month or so without paying hefty fees for rescheduling the second honeymoon, and her husband would have similar difficulties in rearranging things. All of a sudden, as she is in the last days before setting off to the City of Lights, your company undergoes a merger with a failing competitor, and you will need her skills to make the merger work. How do you get her to cancel the trip?"

Here is my answer.

No, you do not disrupt that second honeymoon for the merger. You try to make that merger work without her, or put it off until she has returned from Paris. Is she that important? Yes -- and you want to make sure that she is at her best when the merger goes through.

This second honeymoon represents much that you value in her -- her planning, her foresight, and her commitment. Someone simply putting off a trip to a gambling casino or an amusement park or a camping trip to the Rockies? Such takes little foresight or planning, and the younger worker who gets pressured to put such off for a couple of weeks will enjoy the trip just the same a couple weeks later. You can make all sorts of promises to a younger worker, like job security for making some adjustments.

So you get her to stay to make the merger work on time. But while she is doing paperwork she is thinking about the boat cruise down the Seine for which there is no real equivalent in America. While she is making phone calls to facilitate transfers of assets she is thinking of the stroll down the Champs-Élysées that she might otherwise be doing. While she is making the customer lists of your former competitor yours she contemplates the might-have-been of an irreplaceable journey through a gallery of the finest paintings and sculptures of existence.

Can she do this alone? It means more with her husband. Are you going to risk her marital stability for that? She has loyalties bigger than to her boss and the management of this company. This second honeymoon is no spur-of-the-moment jaunt; it involves virtues that she shows on the job: planning, foresight, dedication, and denial of instant gratification. It might be far easier for your company if she were shallow enough to be interested only in some big-ticket item that she could buy, like some household remodeling, a car, or a boat. But she is 55, and she may see this second honeymoon as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After all, her husband just got a diagnosis of a terminal condition. Oh, you did not know that? That's why you cannot expect her to put the second honeymoon off. There might not be a next year for the second honeymoon with her husband.

Induce her to defer (really abandon) the second honeymoon, and she might be good only for the merger. You show to your subordinates that the company exists only for making money irrespective of human cost, which puts your firm on the ethical level of a crime syndicate. Oh, there is more to life than making money for your employer? Look also at what it could do to her performance. For the sake of everyone it is best that you accommodate her family life, something more primal to people than the acquisitive instinct.  Within three months she retires anyway because she does not really need the money.

Now if she goes on that second honeymoon? Your staff will enjoy finding out about it on her communications from Paris. Learning that this is a possible objective in life while 30 might bring out the best in other employees. Maybe they will start thinking about long-range plans; maybe they will find that foresight offers rewards. It's easier to work for a company that demonstrates that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence for owners and executives. Doing the right thing isn't easy, but it usually has better consequences.

After the second honeymoon is over you can complete the merger. Or while it is going on you can hire some recent college grads as temporary help to facilitate the merger. Or you can get existing staff to stretch their abilities while she is away. She won't be around in ten years, and you will need someone to do what she has been doing. Maybe she isn't so tech-savvy as those kids. She is 55, and you cannot trust her to be around for ten years. But if her employment outlasts her husband's remaining life, she could be a desirable employee for some time.

So what about the people at the former, but failing company that you are transforming into a subsidiary? Maybe about 10% of them will be lucky enough to keep their jobs. The failing competitor was hemorrhaging good workers, which you can reasonably expect when people aren't getting raises for five years or so. Management was crappy, and you might prefer the temps who coordinated the transformed a company's assets into yours than the people who used to have custody over them.

...The 'right' answer is probably to make promises that she can never accept, offer her a pay raise as an inducement, or threaten her job security.

-- & if she's 55 she'll probably tell them to f off, esp if she gets a widows pension

[pbrower2a]

(10-03-2016, 08:28 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(10-03-2016, 08:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: "Mrs. X is a 55-year-old executive secretary at your company. She and her husband intend to go on a once-in-a-lifetime second honeymoon in Paris, where they will get to enjoy much that they have deferred for years while they were working for your company. She has not worked here solely for the money, which isn't all that much. You couldn't pay her enough for her contributions in part because you would overturn the reality that secretarial and clerical staff would insist on being overpaid. She has her vacation time aligned with that trip. She can;t put it off a month or so without paying hefty fees for rescheduling the second honeymoon, and her husband would have similar difficulties in rearranging things. All of a sudden, as she is in the last days before setting off to the City of Lights, your company undergoes a merger with a failing competitor, and you will need her skills to make the merger work. How do you get her to cancel the trip?"

Here is my answer.

No, you do not disrupt that second honeymoon for the merger. You try to make that merger work without her, or put it off until she has returned from Paris. Is she that important? Yes -- and you want to make sure that she is at her best when the merger goes through.

This second honeymoon represents much that you value in her -- her planning, her foresight, and her commitment. Someone simply putting off a trip to a gambling casino or an amusement park or a camping trip to the Rockies? Such takes little foresight or planning, and the younger worker who gets pressured to put such off for a couple of weeks will enjoy the trip just the same a couple weeks later. You can make all sorts of promises to a younger worker, like job security for making some adjustments.

So you get her to stay to make the merger work on time. But while she is doing paperwork she is thinking about the boat cruise down the Seine for which there is no real equivalent in America. While she is making phone calls to facilitate transfers of assets she is thinking of the stroll down the Champs-Élysées that she might otherwise be doing. While she is making the customer lists of your former competitor yours she contemplates the might-have-been of an irreplaceable journey through a gallery of the finest paintings and sculptures of existence.

Can she do this alone? It means more with her husband. Are you going to risk her marital stability for that? She has loyalties bigger than to her boss and the management of this company. This second honeymoon is no spur-of-the-moment jaunt; it involves virtues that she shows on the job: planning, foresight, dedication, and denial of instant gratification. It might be far easier for your company if she were shallow enough to be interested only in some big-ticket item that she could buy, like some household remodeling, a car, or a boat. But she is 55, and she may see this second honeymoon as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After all, her husband just got a diagnosis of a terminal condition. Oh, you did not know that? That's why you cannot expect her to put the second honeymoon off. There might not be a next year for the second honeymoon with her husband.

Induce her to defer (really abandon) the second honeymoon, and she might be good only for the merger. You show to your subordinates that the company exists only for making money irrespective of human cost, which puts your firm on the ethical level of a crime syndicate. Oh, there is more to life than making money for your employer? Look also at what it could do to her performance. For the sake of everyone it is best that you accommodate her family life, something more primal to people than the acquisitive instinct.  Within three months she retires anyway because she does not really need the money.

Now if she goes on that second honeymoon? Your staff will enjoy finding out about it on her communications from Paris. Learning that this is a possible objective in life while 30 might bring out the best in other employees. Maybe they will start thinking about long-range plans; maybe they will find that foresight offers rewards. It's easier to work for a company that demonstrates that there is more to life than material gain and indulgence for owners and executives. Doing the right thing isn't easy, but it usually has better consequences.

After the second honeymoon is over you can complete the merger. Or while it is going on you can hire some recent college grads as temporary help to facilitate the merger. Or you can get existing staff to stretch their abilities while she is away. She won't be around in ten years, and you will need someone to do what she has been doing. Maybe she isn't so tech-savvy as those kids. She is 55, and you cannot trust her to be around for ten years. But if her employment outlasts her husband's remaining life, she could be a desirable employee for some time.

So what about the people at the former, but failing company that you are transforming into a subsidiary? Maybe about 10% of them will be lucky enough to keep their jobs. The failing competitor was hemorrhaging good workers, which you can reasonably expect when people aren't getting raises for five years or so. Management was crappy, and you might prefer the temps who coordinated the transformed a company's assets into yours than the people who used to have custody over them.

...The 'right' answer is probably to make promises that she can never accept, offer her a pay raise as an inducement, or threaten her job security.

-- & if she's 55 she'll probably tell them to f off, esp if she gets a widows pension

True. Which is an aspect that I didn't even look at. But even if I did not know of her husband's terminal diagnosis, one may be at a company which, like most others, tells employees to not bring their problems to work. It's dehumanizing, but it is efficient. So she may have not told anyone.

She is 55, and she is working for something other than the money. Maybe she has been taking much leave in her husband's medical crises, which might be a clue. But if she does not take her problems to work, then she may not have told the company.

Letting her go on that second honeymoon is the decent, humane choice. You might want her to stick around after her husband has died. She does her job well enough, and you want her to keep doing her job well.

[Eric the Green]

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

We may never get the renaissance or regeneracy that I and others have predicted.

But no, once again I have to point out, the mega cycle usually discussed here is totally bogus. If today is a mega-unravelling, then there is no correlation between the historical trends and facts of the various "mega cycles" with the supposed-other turnings. And the American Revolution was not the start of America.

Only the 500-year cycle of civilization holds sway over cycles hundreds of years longer than a saeculum.

America started with Columbus and the European Renaissance. That was taught to me in the 7th grade, and it's still true. The American Revolution was just a transfer of state authority, and little more. The essential state system just continued as it was, with the colonists demanding the same rights that the people of the Motherland had.

Nevertheless it lit a spark under the old country, and a triple Revolution ensued: industrial, political and romantic.

However, this was only the seeds of things to come, and it was the great Unravelling of the old Renaissance civilization. Industrialism and its false notion of "progress" was the chief dissolving, unravelling agent. A new world civilization has replaced the Renaissance European one since the 1890s and the World Wars. America has become like Rome, just as Rome had replaced the Greek civilization of which Rome was a consolidation.

It's important to recognize that the "post middle ages" civilization that Mr. X 84 mentions, is 125 years past now; dead and long gone.

Ours is the new world of multi-national corporations, of mass media, mass transportation and electronic utilities and communication, of developing high-tech, of modern physics and shifting paradigms in thought from Einstein and Nietzsche onwards, of modern art and music and pop music dominance-- starting with the "New Art" (Art Nouveau), of mass immigration, of worldwide culture and information, of economic and increasingly-political world integration, of environmentalism and the consciousness of death looming over the human ability to manipulate and dominate Nature and kill ourselves with mass weapons. This is our age, and it's only 125 years old now.

Where we are today is in the early phase of the Roman Empire. So although you may think that America is declining, the fact is that this Empire will be around in some form for at least another 300 to 400 years.

You might as well sit back and relax and get used to it!

Our saeculum cannot be a mega-unravelling. It can only be a mega-high, because we are at the end of a saeculum in which American hegemony and wealth was unquestioned and attained a power the world had not seen before.

That hegemony may decline as the world becomes more integrated, as the world civilization born in the Great War and the League of Nations matures. But it won't go away entirely. We are not at that point on the cycle at all. So it will take quite some time for a mega-unravelling to develop in the cycle of civilization 500-years long. It will be 500 years after the late 18th and 19th centuries, the last such mega-unravelling of the previous Renaissance Civilization.

Needless to say, the long-term trend is the reverse of Trump, Brexit, LePen, Putin and their kind. World integration and federation (and with localized control too) will increase. Social Darwinism, fascism and racism will decline again. The great change can't be put back into the bottle of isolationism. Trumpism is a hiccup in the 4T of our saeculum; it is a catalyst that will likely only spur change in all the opposite directions to the ones he advocates.

[Marypoza]

(02-17-2017, 01:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

We may never get the renaissance or regeneracy that I and others have predicted.

But no, once again I have to point out, the mega cycle usually discussed here is totally bogus. If today is a mega-unravelling, then there is no correlation between the historical trends and facts of the various "mega cycles" with the supposed-other turnings. And the American Revolution was not the start of America.

Only the 500-year cycle of civilization holds sway over cycles hundreds of years longer than a saeculum.

America started with Columbus and the European Renaissance. That was taught to me in the 7th grade, and it's still true. The American Revolution was just a transfer of state authority, and little more. The essential state system just continued as it was, with the colonists demanding the same rights that the people of the Motherland had.

Nevertheless it lit a spark under the old country, and a triple Revolution ensued: industrial, political and romantic.

However, this was only the seeds of things to come, and it was the great Unravelling of the old Renaissance civilization. Industrialism and its false notion of "progress" was the chief dissolving, unravelling agent. A new world civilization has replaced the Renaissance European one since the 1890s and the World Wars. America has become like Rome, just as Rome had replaced the Greek civilization of which Rome was a consolidation.

It's important to recognize that the "post middle ages" civilization that Mr. X 84 mentions, is 125 years past now; dead and long gone.

Ours is the new world of multi-national corporations, of mass media, mass transportation and electronic utilities and communication, of developing high-tech, of modern physics and shifting paradigms in thought from Einstein and Nietzsche onwards, of modern art and music and pop music dominance-- starting with the "New Art" (Art Nouveau), of mass immigration, of worldwide culture and information, of economic and increasingly-political world integration, of environmentalism and the consciousness of death looming over the human ability to manipulate and dominate Nature and kill ourselves with mass weapons. This is our age, and it's only 125 years old now.

Where we are today is in the early phase of the Roman Empire. So although you may think that America is declining, the fact is that this Empire will be around in some form for at least another 300 to 400 years.

You might as well sit back and relax and get used to it!

Our saeculum cannot be a mega-unravelling. It can only be a mega-high, because we are at the end of a saeculum in which American hegemony and wealth was unquestioned and attained a power the world had not seen before.

That hegemony may decline as the world becomes more integrated, as the world civilization born in the Great War and the League of Nations matures. But it won't go away entirely. We are not at that point on the cycle at all. So it will take quite some time for a mega-unravelling to develop in the cycle of civilization 500-years long. It will be 500 years after the late 18th and 19th centuries, the last such mega-unravelling of the previous Renaissance Civilization.

Needless to say, the long-term trend is the reverse of Trump, Brexit, LePen, Putin and their kind. World integration and federation (and with localized control too) will increase. Social Darwinism, fascism and racism will decline again. The great change can't be put back into the bottle of isolationism. Trumpism is a hiccup in the 4T of our saeculum; it is a catalyst that will likely only spur change in all the opposite directions to the ones he advocates.

-- you got a chart for all that?

[Eric the Green]

(02-17-2017, 09:33 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

We may never get the renaissance or regeneracy that I and others have predicted.

But no, once again I have to point out, the mega cycle usually discussed here is totally bogus. If today is a mega-unravelling, then there is no correlation between the historical trends and facts of the various "mega cycles" with the supposed-other turnings. And the American Revolution was not the start of America.

Only the 500-year cycle of civilization holds sway over cycles hundreds of years longer than a saeculum.

America started with Columbus and the European Renaissance. That was taught to me in the 7th grade, and it's still true. The American Revolution was just a transfer of state authority, and little more. The essential state system just continued as it was, with the colonists demanding the same rights that the people of the Motherland had.

Nevertheless it lit a spark under the old country, and a triple Revolution ensued: industrial, political and romantic.

However, this was only the seeds of things to come, and it was the great Unravelling of the old Renaissance civilization. Industrialism and its false notion of "progress" was the chief dissolving, unravelling agent. A new world civilization has replaced the Renaissance European one since the 1890s and the World Wars. America has become like Rome, just as Rome had replaced the Greek civilization of which Rome was a consolidation.

It's important to recognize that the "post middle ages" civilization that Mr. X 84 mentions, is 125 years past now; dead and long gone.

Ours is the new world of multi-national corporations, of mass media, mass transportation and electronic utilities and communication, of developing high-tech, of modern physics and shifting paradigms in thought from Einstein and Nietzsche onwards, of modern art and music and pop music dominance-- starting with the "New Art" (Art Nouveau), of mass immigration, of worldwide culture and information, of economic and increasingly-political world integration, of environmentalism and the consciousness of death looming over the human ability to manipulate and dominate Nature and kill ourselves with mass weapons. This is our age, and it's only 125 years old now.

Where we are today is in the early phase of the Roman Empire. So although you may think that America is declining, the fact is that this Empire will be around in some form for at least another 300 to 400 years.

You might as well sit back and relax and get used to it!

Our saeculum cannot be a mega-unravelling. It can only be a mega-high, because we are at the end of a saeculum in which American hegemony and wealth was unquestioned and attained a power the world had not seen before.

That hegemony may decline as the world becomes more integrated, as the world civilization born in the Great War and the League of Nations matures. But it won't go away entirely. We are not at that point on the cycle at all. So it will take quite some time for a mega-unravelling to develop in the cycle of civilization 500-years long. It will be 500 years after the late 18th and 19th centuries, the last such mega-unravelling of the previous Renaissance Civilization.

Needless to say, the long-term trend is the reverse of Trump, Brexit, LePen, Putin and their kind. World integration and federation (and with localized control too) will increase. Social Darwinism, fascism and racism will decline again. The great change can't be put back into the bottle of isolationism. Trumpism is a hiccup in the 4T of our saeculum; it is a catalyst that will likely only spur change in all the opposite directions to the ones he advocates.

-- you got s chart fot all that?

All in my book!

http://philosopherswheel.com/book.htm

[Marypoza]

(02-17-2017, 03:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 09:33 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(02-17-2017, 01:48 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-20-2016, 08:32 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Given:
1) Late Antiquity was not in any way unique at the time - there had been previous, repeated falls of earlier Civilizations
2) Clear failure of the "glue" that has held the current post Middle Ages wave of Civilization together
3) Rising mass migrations from less Civilized parts of the world
4) Reactionary forces here in the West using #2 and #3 to bolster their own ultimately self destructive plans
5) The onset of zero / negative economic growth meaning less and less to invest in infrastructure, education and human development
6) Even if we reverse anthropogenic environmental mods and impacts, the Law of Averages dictates that the unbelievably favorable environmental conditions enjoyed since the Little Ice Age cannot and will not last
7) Ongoing evolution of harmful microorganisms, parasites, toxic molds / fungi, etc;

A mega Unraveling is an inevitability. It is not a matter of if, but when.

The only real question would be, would the next mega Unraveling phase with a future Saecular 3T, would it phase with the conclusion of the current or future Saeculum, or is this the sort of thing that is more random in nature, and does not phase at all with the Saecular "carrier frequency?"

DISCUSS!

We may never get the renaissance or regeneracy that I and others have predicted.

But no, once again I have to point out, the mega cycle usually discussed here is totally bogus. If today is a mega-unravelling, then there is no correlation between the historical trends and facts of the various "mega cycles" with the supposed-other turnings. And the American Revolution was not the start of America.

Only the 500-year cycle of civilization holds sway over cycles hundreds of years longer than a saeculum.

America started with Columbus and the European Renaissance. That was taught to me in the 7th grade, and it's still true. The American Revolution was just a transfer of state authority, and little more. The essential state system just continued as it was, with the colonists demanding the same rights that the people of the Motherland had.

Nevertheless it lit a spark under the old country, and a triple Revolution ensued: industrial, political and romantic.

However, this was only the seeds of things to come, and it was the great Unravelling of the old Renaissance civilization. Industrialism and its false notion of "progress" was the chief dissolving, unravelling agent. A new world civilization has replaced the Renaissance European one since the 1890s and the World Wars. America has become like Rome, just as Rome had replaced the Greek civilization of which Rome was a consolidation.

It's important to recognize that the "post middle ages" civilization that Mr. X 84 mentions, is 125 years past now; dead and long gone.

Ours is the new world of multi-national corporations, of mass media, mass transportation and electronic utilities and communication, of developing high-tech, of modern physics and shifting paradigms in thought from Einstein and Nietzsche onwards, of modern art and music and pop music dominance-- starting with the "New Art" (Art Nouveau), of mass immigration, of worldwide culture and information, of economic and increasingly-political world integration, of environmentalism and the consciousness of death looming over the human ability to manipulate and dominate Nature and kill ourselves with mass weapons. This is our age, and it's only 125 years old now.

Where we are today is in the early phase of the Roman Empire. So although you may think that America is declining, the fact is that this Empire will be around in some form for at least another 300 to 400 years.

You might as well sit back and relax and get used to it!

Our saeculum cannot be a mega-unravelling. It can only be a mega-high, because we are at the end of a saeculum in which American hegemony and wealth was unquestioned and attained a power the world had not seen before.

That hegemony may decline as the world becomes more integrated, as the world civilization born in the Great War and the League of Nations matures. But it won't go away entirely. We are not at that point on the cycle at all. So it will take quite some time for a mega-unravelling to develop in the cycle of civilization 500-years long. It will be 500 years after the late 18th and 19th centuries, the last such mega-unravelling of the previous Renaissance Civilization.

Needless to say, the long-term trend is the reverse of Trump, Brexit, LePen, Putin and their kind. World integration and federation (and with localized control too) will increase. Social Darwinism, fascism and racism will decline again. The great change can't be put back into the bottle of isolationism. Trumpism is a hiccup in the 4T of our saeculum; it is a catalyst that will likely only spur change in all the opposite directions to the ones he advocates.

-- you got s chart fot all that?

All in my book!

http://philosopherswheel.com/book.htm

--sweeeeeet another thing to read. I'm still sloggin thru that spiral stuff