Basics of Generational Theory

[jgreenhall]

The Civil War is the only example that I have seen from the Anglo-American track where a Crisis goes sour. Strauss and Howe have it as a Crisis where there are no heroes. In any event, I can certainly identify the Civil War as a crisis that can't by any measure (other than the very slim measure of the abolotion of slavery in favor of jim crow) succeed.

Has anyone modeled the structure and toplogy of crises to try to identify what works and what doesn't work? What kinds of events, actions, appearances give rise to the kind of ideology and organizations that enable effective (even healthy) management of the crisis? Compare Revolutionary War and WWII to Civil War?

Presumably high on the list of dysfunctional is any value/principle that undermines civic "coming together".

[The Grey Badger]

The Korean War veterans are Silent Generation, and guns are not a huge issue among us except in the rural areas. Military security is, or was #1 until quite lately (which throws the seniors to McCain). But now it's been trumped by the economy, which throws us to Obama. There is also a gender divide among us, with the men leaning more towards McCain and the women, towards Obama.

However, if we do go for McCain, remember - there have been precious few elections in which the Silent voted for the winner. That's just a fact. Sigh.

[umoguy]

Taken from the Singularity Chapter, Evolution and life elsewhere in the universe section, and Maximum Effective Timespan subsection.

"It seems manifest that 80 years is the maximum effective lifespan of human beings. We believe that evolution may have "experimented" with different lifespans over the eons, and finally settled on the lifespan that takes the best advantage of human intelligence -- long enough to gather wisdom and pass it on, short enough so that mind doesn't get too cluttered."

I enjoyed this section of the book, being an avid sci-fi fan, and having read much on the singularity phenomenon already. However putting quotes around "experimented" does not do justice to the actual functional dynamics of evolution. I also take issue with the reasons why 80 years is an evolutionary result based on knowledge retention. I could go into a lengthy discussion of this, however it is late, and when I am less tired, and on the company clock perhaps I'll give a better reason. For now I recommend reading The Selfish Gene written by Richard Dawkins, of course you may have already read it. In which case I recommend a short perusal to refresh on biological evolution as opposed to generational and societal "progress". -Ben

[freddyv]

John, in your weblog you wrote, "Every day I keep asking myself whether this massive panic is in fact a requirement of generational theory. And every day I keep reviewing the reasons in my mind, and reach the conclusion that it must. A massive panic is necessary to launch the next 70-90 year cycle, and if it doesn't occur one day, then it's more likely to occur the next day, until it occurs. "

I disagree that we must see a single incident like the crash of '29 because the crash of '29 wasn't what caused the generational change. Yes, it was a big deal and headlined all the newspapers at the time but was it any bigger or talked about than "Black October" of 2008 or the crash of '87? It is what followed that built its reputation.

I have researched this pretty thourougly and the crash of '29 didn't bring about the generational change, it was the Great Depression that changed people, just as our "Great Unwind" will cause people to make major changes in their lifestyles, leading to the Generational Dynamics that seem to be inevitable.

I already see the change in some while many other people continue along the path they have always known, unable to even consider that one day soon they will not have all that they want as soon as they want it. IMO, this generational change is not attributable to a single event but to a great unravelling of our debt-ladden society that will take years and perhaps even decades to complete. IMO, that is the event you seek.

--Fred Voetsch

[John]

Dear Fred,

> I disagree that we must see a single incident like the crash of
> '29 because the crash of '29 wasn't what caused the generational
> change. Yes, it was a big deal and headlined all the newspapers at
> the time but was it any bigger or talked about than "Black
> October" of 2008 or the crash of '87? It is what followed that
> built its reputation.

> I have researched this pretty thourougly and the crash of '29
> didn't bring about the generational change, it was the Great
> Depression that changed people, just as our "Great Unwind" will
> cause people to make major changes in their lifestyles, leading to
> the Generational Dynamics that seem to be inevitable.

You and I aren't really disagreeing. In fact, you make my point for
me. If you were to ask a random person on the street, "When was the
last stock market crash?", he'd probably say, "The one going on right
now."

If you then ask him, "When was the previous stock market crash," he
might mention 2000, but he'd most likely say "1929." It's the 1929
crash that's remembered in history, for exactly the reasons you give
-- because of its aftermath. The crash of 1987 is barely remembered
today because of its benign aftermath.

What I believe that without a major "panic and crash event," the
generational cycle cannot be regenerated. A slow bleeding would just
be attributed to political bickering.

Also, completely apart from generational theory, I don't see how
things can go on much longer without all the CDS and other credit
derivative chains imploding, creating a much larger international
crash than occurred in 1929-33.

At any rate, I can't prove this. We'll just have to see what
happens.

Sincerely,

John

[John]

-- Determinism

> Determinism is a philosophy that everything that will ever happen
> is, essentially, predetermined, usually by a higher power, and
> that there is no free will.

When we talk about determinism in Generational Dynamics, we're not
talking about an individual. You have free will, I have free will,
and you and I can do as we wish. There is no determinism.

But when you're talking about huge masses of people, entire
generations of people, there IS determinism. Huge masses of people
ALWAYS act in certain ways, along generational lines, as described by
Generational Dynamics.

I'll illustrate the concept of determinism through an analogy.

Suppose you have a large balloon, and you're pumping water into it.
As you pump more and more water into it, the balloon becomes bigger
and bigger. Now, with 100% certainty, that balloon is eventually
going to explode. You can't predict the exact time, and you can't
predict what will trigger the explosion, but you can be absolutely
certain that the balloon will explode as more and more water is
pumped into it. That's the kind of determinism I'm talking about.

To take the analogy one step further, let's assign anthropomorphic
qualities to the water molecules, and assume that each molecule has
"free will." Then each molecule can do what she wants. If she knows
that the explosion is coming, then she might be able to prepare for
it in some way. But she can't prevent the explosion. No one can
prevent the explosion. The explosion is "deterministically"
inevitable.

Now let's take a specific example of the Georgia war that occurred
last summer. Here are some things that became apparent during this
war: The Georgians and the Russians basically like each other; the
Ossetians and the Russians basically like each other; but the
Georgians and Ossetians hate each other, and each would like to
exterminate the other.

Here are some predictions that I've heard various pundits make:
Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili will (or will not) be forced to
step down; Ukraine will (or will not) join Nato; Ukraine will (or will
not) eject Russia's navy from Sevastopol; South Ossetia will (or will
not) become an independent country.

Question: Which of these predictions will come true within two years?
Answer: It's impossible to say. These are all political decisions,
and political decisions cannot be predicted. They're not
predetermined.

Question: What is an example of something is predetermined to be true
in two years? Answer: The Georgians and the Ossetians will still
hate each other, and each will still want to exterminate the other.

Once that's established, then you can derive some corollaries. In
particular, you can predict that, at some point, there will be a war
of extermination between the Georgians and the Ossetians.

In the case of the balloon being pumped with water, you can predict
that, at some point, the balloon will explode. You can't predict
when, or what the triggering event will be, but you can be absolutely
certain that it will explode.

Of course you can make some estimates. You can say, "Water is being
pumped in x gallons per minute, and so the balloon will explode
within two to three hours."

In the case of Georgia, the analogy to pumping water is the
continuing growth of the populations, and continuing replacement of
generations of old, risk-averse survivors of the last crisis war with
young risk-seeking generations of kids with no fear of war.

You can't predict when the war will occur, or what will trigger it,
but you can make some estimates. That gets into the heart of the
Generational Dynamics forecasting methodology, where you use
long-term trends to develop a window of time, and then match up
short-term events to the long-term trends to narrow the time window.

Sincerely,

John

[Barion]

John,

In general, I agree with your principles. Because humans tend to be highly predictable, given no anomalies to interrupt the pattern, until humans evolve either biologically to be different enough, or we advance culturally enough (which may finally happen because of the singularity), yes, it seems to be inevitable that we'll engage in generational cyclic behavior. Of course, an example of an anomaly that could change things might be, say, the arrival of aliens, either friendly or unfriendly (an invasion would definitely unite the world). Becoming a part of an interstellar community, a la the Federation in Star Trek, might permanently end GD unless that's somehow universal among sapient lifeforms.

I think I will test out levels of risk-acceptance behavior among different generations and see how it was possible for people, for example, to take out subprime mortgages...how much of it was predatory lending and how much was borrower stupidity/fraud. It's easy to point fingers based on anecdotal evidence, but when you put it empirically to the test, you can end up with surprising results that defy common sense (like how people figured the Nazis were just all evil like Hitler, but it turns out most people will obey authority up to the point of killing another human if you raise the stakes incrementally rather than simply ordering murder right away).

[The Grey Badger]

A while back, I would have been among those who thought a sufficiently shocking event - invasion from space etc - would reset the generational clock. But in my Medieval History class, we've been going over the Black Death's European tour, not in too much detail, but I found it fascinating that France and Italy got flagellants, "Oh, God, what have we done to offend you?" whereas England tended more toward "They're poisoning the wells! Lynch them!"

(AND that, no dummies, everyone tried quarantine and sanitation first, or at least getting picky about trash collection. Only when those measures failed did everyone seek out the wild & crazy explanations, made worse by the very high mortality among the educated classes, which is to say, priests and doctors. Killed by their mandate to help.)

No idea what Scandinavia did at the time. Nor did they really touch on Spain. But - checking up elsewhere - England was apparently in a 4T. And the Continent? No idea, really; the textbook treats the Plague as if it were a de facto Europe-wide Crisis Era. However, I could see the difference in when they did when their normal measures failed, so - I'd say not even invasion from space would reset the clock. Not if killing off 1/3 to 1/2 the population of a continent didn't.

[John]

Dear Pat,

> No idea what Scandinavia did at the time. Nor did they really
> touch on Spain. But - checking up elsewhere - England was
> apparently in a 4T. And the Continent? No idea, really; the
> textbook treats the Plague as if it were a de facto Europe-wide
> Crisis Era. However, I could see the difference in when they did
> when their normal measures failed, so - I'd say not even invasion
> from space would reset the clock. Not if killing off 1/3 to 1/2
> the population of a continent didn't.

The Black Plague struck right in the midst of the Hundred Years War,
one of the perennial crisis wars between England and France.
The first phase began in 1337, and it was fought
intermittently until 1453.

The first phase of that war was a major victory for the English,
thanks to technology. A 14,000 man English army wiped out a 50,000
man French army in 1347, thanks to advanced weaponry. This was the
climax of the first phase of the war.

During this period, between the war and plague, the English
population was devastated.



After the first phase climaxed in 1347, there was a long period of
skirmishes and low-level violence. The last English victory over the
French was at Agincourt, France, in 1415. France rallied in 1429,
supposedly because of the spirit of the peasant girl, Joan of Arc,
with a big French victory of the English, with the second major
climax of the Hundred Years war.

Sincerely,

John

[DisIllusionist]

Has anyone seen this online video series called The Great Reset by Warren Pollock? I'm curious to see opinions from others familiar with generational dynamics.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/great-reset

Essentially he discusses how established political/economic/social/etc structures unfreeze, change, and refreeze into a new structures. His claim is the systemic failure/collapse has already occurred and the unfreezing is in process. This sounds very much like the transition from the fourth turning to the new first turning.