Originally Posted by Croakmore

And one more thing. I don't know how ANY credible history of Native Americans can be posited without the recognition that smallpox and measles were vastly more genocidal, in real time, than those conquering Europeans can be credited for. Coastal Indian Tribes of the Northwest, for example, suffered >90% extinction by way of peaceful contacts with Europeans. This makes the white race superior by way of antibody protection alone. Forget the horses, gunpowder, and religion. I don't think those microbes really cared very much about K-cycles.

Guns, Germs, and Steel, anybody? Actually, the germs may not care about K-cycles, but they'd certainly interact with what orginally drove K-cycles and the crisis war cycle--population cycles. High population densities will promote the spread of pandemics, while low densities will impede their dispersal.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

And one more thing. I don't know how ANY credible history of Native Americans can be posited without the recognition that smallpox and measles were vastly more genocidal, in real time, than those conquering Europeans can be credited for. Coastal Indian Tribes of the Northwest, for example, suffered >90% extinction by way of peaceful contacts with Europeans.

Well Croakmore, when I first started I expected the same thing. Often, disease took out a larger population than war did. But, by following the algorithm that John layed out, (essentially a war that has more energy than other wars) I found that disease had virtually no effect on the cycle, unless it nearly wiped the tribe out.

After I thought about this microbe issue a little more I can see now how something like K-cycles might explain the onset of a epidemic, given the forces that brought Indians in contact with Eropeans.

Originally Posted by jeffw

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I am also wondering if Keynesian Economics might have a role in the World War Anomaly. Might the ability to alter economic cycles effect economic cycles? If the economic and war cycles are in sync, and the economic cycles change, might this be part of the anomaly?

The world war anomaly is the same thing as the Civil War anomaly. It's cause is the shortening of the saeculum causing the saeculum to become out-of-sync with the Kondratiev cycle. Later, with the rise of Keynesian economics the Kondratiev cycle now became a consequence of the saeculum, or more properly the influence of the saeculum on the political sphere, which impacts government policy, which impacts the economy. Through this linkage, the K-cycle came to roughly align with the saeculum. Using the stock market as a proxy for the K-cycle, the 2000 market peak signaled a "seasonal" change from fall to winter in the K-cycle. Back in 2000, based on this change I forecast that the fall to winter transtion in the saeculum was likely to happen soon. A year later came 911, which I took as evidence that a seasonal change in the saeculum had indeed begun.

That sounds like you're saying that you think that 9/11 was caused by the saecular cycle. Is that what you really think?

I think some sort of triggering event reflecting saecular forces was bound to come along soon after 2000. It happened to be 911. It could have been something else.

As for the timing of 911, I do think the perps took the stock market conditions into consideration, one of their goals was to wreak economic damage. I suspect they hoped for a crash and subsequent depression following 911. In order to have a market ripe for crashing, a bubble is necessary and so 911 would have to happen after the 2000 peak, but not too long after the peak.

So although the saeculum did not create Bin Laden and his fanatics, given their existence, the decision when to strike did reflect secular stock market cycles. Since the unraveling corresponds to a secular bull market, and the most opportune time to strike would be shortly after a secular bull matket peak (like 2000), 911 was going to happen early in the winter season, if it was to happen at all.

Dear Richard,

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I don't agree. The essential difference between WWI and WWII was
> NOT geographical. In fact the essential difference between those
> wars flew high above mere geography, both metaphorically and
> physically. The essential difference between WWI and WWII can be
> summarized in just two words: Billy Mitchell. Indeed it was
> aviation technology, which had no geographic boundaries, that
> defines the difference. And I am beginning to think that those
> K-cycles and their ilk are there just to be worried over by
> tinkering historians, who, like tinkering biologists (me, in
> particular), need such delightful things to bother us.

Since you consider any argument involving statistics or probability
to be fraudulent, except for arguments that you yourself put forth,
and since you weren't the one who put forth the argument about
K-cycles, I could have guessed that you would reject the concept, if
I'd thought about it, even if you hadn't told us.

As for your argument about Billy Mitchell, I can't figure out what
you're saying.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> And one more thing. I don't know how ANY credible history of
> Native Americans can be posited without the recognition that
> smallpox and measles were vastly more genocidal, in real time,
> than those conquering Europeans can be credited for. Coastal
> Indian Tribes of the Northwest, for example, suffered >90%
> extinction by way of peaceful contacts with Europeans. This makes
> the white race superior by way of antibody protection alone.
> Forget the horses, gunpowder, and religion. I don't think those
> microbes really cared very much about K-cycles.

Perhaps you should read a few more credible histories. There's no
credible argument I've seen that disease prevents war. As far as I
know, the Black Death didn't affect the Hundred Years' War, for
example, except perhaps to slow it down a little.

I know of no reason to believe that the crisis wars that Matt has
identified would have been any different without smallpox and
measles, except possibly for a timing adjustment. The generational
wars are caused by the flow of generations, and won't be stopped by
disease.

This is relevant to today's world. I've estimated that of the
world's 6.5 billion population, some 3 billion will die in the war.
If bird flu kills one billion people, that still leaves 2 billion more
to be killed in the war. A human bird flu epidemic will not prevent
a "clash of civilizations" world war, and may actually speed it up.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

The Role of "False Panics" in Generational Patterns

Generational theory is based, in a sense, on George Santayana's
famous saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it." That is, crises recur when the generation that lived
through the last crisis is replaced by a generation that can't
remember it.

But why can't the new generation remember the crisis -- at least in
the form of stories retold by parents and history teachers? Why is
it impossible for a new generation to learn wisdom from an earlier
generation?

I'd like to propose a new mechanism by which wisdom gets lost. The
mechanism is called the "false panic," and it seems to occur 55-60
years after a previous disaster.

Let me illustrate it with three examples:

Panic of 1987

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was enormous fear of
financial ruin. The Great Depression was discussed frequently in
school and by my parents and their friends. This nervousness carried
through the 60s, 70s and 80s. You used to hear investment advice
that distinguished "low-risk, low-yield" investments for seniors from
higher-risk growth investments for younger people.

By the 1990s, all that had changed. Everyone expected low-risk,
high-yield investments. That's still true today.

The event that triggered the change was the False Panic of 1987.
It's a "false panic" because the economy recovered quickly, within a
few months.

The Panic of 1987 occurred 59 years after the crash of 1929. Anyone
who remembered the 1929 crash had to be 55 years or older.

Thus, the 1987 panic appears to have occurred at the of a significant
generational change. Whatever latent fears that still existed about
a recurrence of the 1929 panic were focused on this moment, as those
who remembered the 1929 were quickly disappearing, and were replaced
by those who didn't remember it.

The 1987 panic seems to have an important milestone in the
generational changes that led to today's situation. Before 1987,
older people frequently expressed fear of another crash and another
Great Depression. This fear was an important part of public policy,
business policy, and investment policy.

But the quick recovery after the 1987 panic seems to have reversed
the public mood. After this, the public seemed to believe that
the problem of panics and depressions had been solved.

Swine Flu Panic of 1976

The Swine Flu False Panic of 1976 occurred exactly 58 years after the
Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

It appears to be the same kind of thing. Up to that point, people
were afraid of a recurrence of the 1918 epidemic. The 1976 panic
was a political fiasco that reversed the public mood, and left the
public with no further fear of a flu epidemic.

Palmer Raids of 1919

On June 2, 1919, a number of bombs were detonated in Washington and
seven other American cities. This caused a panic that led to the
rounding up of thousands of "radicals" and "leftists," jailing many.
The panic lasted about a year, but ended in political fiasco when an
expected "Communist revolution" didn't occur on May 1, 1920.

This panic occurred 58 years after Abraham Lincoln suspended
habeas corpus in 1861 during the Civil War. Even during the
Civil War, this act must have been a big shock to the country,
because it permitted the government to round up people and jail them
without a trial or legal representation.

So Lincoln's action rippled through the generations and caused a
"false panic" 58 years later,in 1919, that lasted a year.

-----------------

I don't really know how pervasive this "false panic" concept is in
the generational paradigm, or whether the 58-59 year period varies in
other nations or times in history. But I'm very impressed by the
strength and consistency of these three examples, so it's worth
exploring further the role of "false panics" throughout the entire
generational paradigm as the mechanism for throwing off the wisdom of
previous generations so that the same mistakes can be made again.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

The Role of "False Panics" in Generational Patterns

Generational theory is based, in a sense, on George Santayana's
famous saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
repeat it." That is, crises recur when the generation that lived
through the last crisis is replaced by a generation that can't
remember it.

But why can't the new generation remember the crisis -- at least in
the form of stories retold by parents and history teachers? Why is
it impossible for a new generation to learn wisdom from an earlier
generation?

I'd like to propose a new mechanism by which wisdom gets lost. The
mechanism is called the "false panic," and it seems to occur 55-60
years after a previous disaster.

Let me illustrate it with three examples:

Panic of 1987

When I was growing up in the 1950s, there was enormous fear of
financial ruin. The Great Depression was discussed frequently in
school and by my parents and their friends. This nervousness carried
through the 60s, 70s and 80s. You used to hear investment advice
that distinguished "low-risk, low-yield" investments for seniors from
higher-risk growth investments for younger people.

By the 1990s, all that had changed. Everyone expected low-risk,
high-yield investments. That's still true today.

The event that triggered the change was the False Panic of 1987.
It's a "false panic" because the economy recovered quickly, within a
few months.

The Panic of 1987 occurred 59 years after the crash of 1929. Anyone
who remembered the 1929 crash had to be 55 years or older.

Thus, the 1987 panic appears to have occurred at the of a significant
generational change. Whatever latent fears that still existed about
a recurrence of the 1929 panic were focused on this moment, as those
who remembered the 1929 were quickly disappearing, and were replaced
by those who didn't remember it.

The 1987 panic seems to have an important milestone in the
generational changes that led to today's situation. Before 1987,
older people frequently expressed fear of another crash and another
Great Depression. This fear was an important part of public policy,
business policy, and investment policy.

But the quick recovery after the 1987 panic seems to have reversed
the public mood. After this, the public seemed to believe that
the problem of panics and depressions had been solved.

Swine Flu Panic of 1976

The Swine Flu False Panic of 1976 occurred exactly 58 years after the
Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

It appears to be the same kind of thing. Up to that point, people
were afraid of a recurrence of the 1918 epidemic. The 1976 panic
was a political fiasco that reversed the public mood, and left the
public with no further fear of a flu epidemic.

Palmer Raids of 1919

On June 2, 1919, a number of bombs were detonated in Washington and
seven other American cities. This caused a panic that led to the
rounding up of thousands of "radicals" and "leftists," jailing many.
The panic lasted about a year, but ended in political fiasco when an
expected "Communist revolution" didn't occur on May 1, 1920.

This panic occurred 58 years after Abraham Lincoln suspended
habeas corpus in 1861 during the Civil War. Even during the
Civil War, this act must have been a big shock to the country,
because it permitted the government to round up people and jail them
without a trial or legal representation.

So Lincoln's action rippled through the generations and caused a
"false panic" 58 years later,in 1919, that lasted a year.

-----------------

I don't really know how pervasive this "false panic" concept is in
the generational paradigm, or whether the 58-59 year period varies in
other nations or times in history. But I'm very impressed by the
strength and consistency of these three examples, so it's worth
exploring further the role of "false panics" throughout the entire
generational paradigm as the mechanism for throwing off the wisdom of
previous generations so that the same mistakes can be made again.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Richard,

This is a response to your message in another thread.
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...=150896#150896

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Actually, John, I went to your site and read most of it. I focused
> mainly on Chapters 6 & 7, as I recall, with hopes of learning
> about your first principles and assumptions. They did not come
> forward as I hoped, so I wrote a "strawman draft" of an absract
> that would have clarified these issues (to my satisfaction, at
> least), and I posted it on your Objections To Generational
> Dynamics thread. Maybe you recall?

Actually, chapters 4 and 5 are really prerequisites to chapters 6 and
7. I'm still writing new expository material that I hope will make
things clearer, and hopefully when I post the new material, it will
be better.

Generational Dynamics is turning out to be a lot more complex than I
realized, and to require a lot more mathematics than I realized.
Even though I try to keep the discussion as informal as possible,
there's still an underlying mathematical sensibility that's required
for a real understanding. An understanding of the concepts of
mathematical logic is required because Generational Dynamics
essential creates an abstract model and embeds it with an isomorphic
mapping into the "real" model, the actual earth. An understanding of
the concepts of statistics and probability is necessary because
Generational Dynamics deals with the behavior and attitudes of large
masses of people, and that can only be done statistically. Given
your views of mathematics, especially that statistics and probability
theory are not valid mathematical theories, it may be that
Generational Dynamics is incompatible with your religious beliefs.

Perhaps most important at all is that understanding Generational
Dynamics requires knowing how to do "systems thinking." Some people
are just unable to understand Generational Dynamics, and the ability
to do systems thinking seems to be the factor that separates those
who can understand Generational Dynamics from those who never will.
I'll talk more about this below with "systems dynamics."

I've been experimenting with different ways to explain the
forecasting methodology. I gave a brief example in chapter 7, which
I'm expanding into a much lengthier example in the following
paragraphs. Let me know what you think:

Suppose a truck is leaving NYC, with a hidden GPS transmitter. You're
an FBI agent, and you know that it's going to some big city somewhere
in the country, but you don't know which one, you don't know what
route it will take, and you don't know how long the trip will take -
one day, one week, or two months. Your job is to figure out, as
quickly as possible, what city it's going to, because that's the only
way you an prevent some horrible terrorist attack.

• The car travels through Pennsylvania, and then turns left in
  mid-Pa and goes south.
  
  You guess that he's going to Knoxville, Birmingham or Atlanta, but
  you need more information.
  
• The truck visits a small city in Kentucky, spends a few days,
  then heads north towards Chicago. It enters the Chicago city limits.
  
  You put the Chicago FBI office on alert to be ready to grab the
  truck.
  
• But the truck stays on the highway and bypasses Chicago, and
  visits a small town north of Chicago, spends a view days, and heads
  southwest, bypasses Oklahoma City, heads west toward Los Angeles.
  
  You put the L.A. FBI office on alert.
  
• The truck approaches L.A., and you put the L.A. FBI office on
  alert. But the truck bypasses L.A., and ends up in San Diego.
  
  That's what you would do. But I study patterns of thousands of these
  truck trips over the past many years, and I discover that this
  particular truck trip will go to either Seattle or San Diego with
  almost 100% certainty.
  
  So if I'm predicting what's going to happen, I can easily ignore the
  side trip towards Knoxville, or the trip towards Chicago. As the
  truck approaches Chicago, I might say, "60% chance for Seattle and
  40% chance for San Diego." And then as it approaches L.A., I would
  say, "San Diego, with near 100% certainty."

That's the difference between ordinary "pundits" and me, using
Generational Dynamics.

For example, I know with 100% certainty that the Mideast is heading
toward a regional crisis war between Arabs and Jews that will engulf
the entire region. That's the destination. Once I know that with
certainty, then I can predict all kinds of things with very high
probability -- that the Mideast Roadmap would fail, that things would
get worse after Arafat's death, etc. And the rise of Hamas is no
surprise. I even wrote on my web log in September, "Hamas appears
poised to take full control of Gaza, as they're expected to do well
in Parliamentary elections to be held on January 6, thus pushing aside
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority in Gaza."

Mine is the only web site that's gotten all its predictions right
because I know something that no one else knows: That Arabs and Jews
are headed for a genocidal crisis war with 100% probability. Other
people believe that a war can be prevented, so they get everything
wrong. But I know what the destination is, so I get everything
right.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> My issue has always been with the invocation of "dynamics," which
> may mean different things to either one of us. In my mind, when
> you invoke this term and imply that it is describable through
> mathematics or probability and statistics I automatically ask: By
> what principles based on what assumptions?

> If you want to cast your theory in dynamical terms I think you
> have to attend to my concerns. Otherwise, how can I get on with
> the other details of your model if I don't know what principles
> allow the gears to rotate in a dynamical fashion? So much of your
> reasoning appeals to me, actually interests me, that I simply need
> to know something useful about the principles that effectively
> account for your confusing web of emergent properties.

> But please understand that my criticism is driven by a genuine
> interest in anything that claims to be "dynamical" -- Newtonian
> or otherwise. Frankly, I question that biological life is
> "dynamical." The laws of thermodynamics do not smile upon
> biological life, nor do Newton's laws, nor those of relativity,
> nor even those of quantum mechanics. I see absolutely no credible
> explanation of biological life, and especially its evolution,
> that can be justified as "dynamical" in any scientific
> context.

Generational Dynamics is "dynamics" in the sense of Systems Dynamics,
which was developed by Jay Forrester at MIT in the 1950s. Today,
Professor John D. Sterman is head of that department at MIT. The
following quotes and discussion are based on a paper that can be
found on his web site, called "All models are wrong: reflections on
becoming a systems scientist," and subtitled "All decisions are based
on models ... and all models are wrong."

http://mit.edu/jsterman/www/
http://mit.edu/jsterman/www/All_Models.html
http://mit.edu/jsterman/www/All_Models_Are_Wrong_(SDR).pdf

I identify very closely with the following introductory paragraphs to
Prof. Sterman's paper, since they might have been written about
Generational Dynamics instead of Systems Dynamics:

Originally Posted by John D. Sterman

> Thoughtful leaders increasingly recognize that we are not only
> failing to solve the persistent problems we face, but are in fact
> causing them. System dynamics is designed to help avoid such
> policy resistance and identify high-leverage policies for
> sustained improvement. What does it take to be an effective
> systems thinker, and to teach system dynamics fruitfully?
> Understanding complex systems requires mastery of concepts such as
> feedback, stocks and flows, time delays, and nonlinearity.
> Research shows that these concepts are highly counterintuitive and
> poorly understood. It also shows how they can be taught and
> learned. Doing so requires the use of formal models and
> simulations to test our mental models and develop our intuition
> about complex systems. Yet, though essential, these concepts and
> tools are not sufficient. Becoming an effective systems thinker
> also requires the rigorous and disciplined use of scientific
> inquiry skills so that we can uncover our hidden assumptions and
> biases. It requires respect and empathy for others and other
> viewpoints. Most important, and most difficult to learn, systems
> thinking requires understanding that all models are wrong and
> humility about the limitations of our knowledge.

> Such humility is essential in creating an environment in which we
> can learn about the complex systems in which we are embedded and
> work effectively to create the world we truly desire.

I agree with Sterman in every respect except one: He believes that we
can use systems thinking to change things, and create the world we
desire, but the point of Generational Dynamics is that you can't
change things.

But he's absolutely right about the difficulty of understanding
complex systems, even in simple cases.

To illustrate this, here's a very simple problem from his
paper:

• 

In the above problem, most people get the first two questions right,
but few people correctly answer the last two. And yet, this is a
fairly simple problem involving a familiar situation, and using
fairly small numbers. I'll give the four answers later in this
message, and you can get a full explanation of the answer in the
actual paper.

In the above problem, "stocks" refers to the people in the store, and
"flows" refers to people entering and leaving the store. The
"feedback" and "time delay" concepts refer to the fact that once a
person enters the store, he leaves at a later time. These four
concepts are crucial to systems dynamics.

In the case of Generational Dynamics, "stocks" refers to the
population, "flows" refers to generational flows, and "feedback" and
"time delay" refer to relationship among the generations through
time.

Thus Generational Dynamics is actually fairly similar to the store
problem, but it's substantially more complex. In the store problem,
we're only concerned with a few people entering or leaving the store.
In Generational Dynamics, we're talking about large masses of people,
four generational eras, and various "soft" concepts, such as behaviors
and attitudes toward other generations and towards war.

It's also pretty clear that Generational Dynamics differs from the
store problem in one more significant way. The store problem
(ans: 4, 21, 13, 30) can be analyzed with very simple discrete
mathematics. But Generational Dynamics, which deals with large
masses of people, requires some kind of statistical analysis, since
discrete mathematics can't deal with billions of people. (And as I
always like to say, the population of China is 1.4 billion people,
and 1.4 billion equals infinity for all practical purposes.)

Sterman's paper also points out that any Systems Dynamics model
requires computer simulation for full understanding:

Originally Posted by John D. Sterman

> Why simulation is essential

> Some advocates of systems thinking go even further, arguing that
> it is not necessary to build a formal, working simulation at
> all—that causal maps or other purely conceptual models are
> sufficient. They are mistaken. Simulation is essential for
> effective systems thinking, even when the purpose is insight, even
> when we are faced with a ‘‘mess’’ rather than a well-structured
> problem.

> I am not opposed to all qualitative modeling. I do it myself.
> Building a formal model takes time. The data you need to build
> and test your model are rarely available without significant cost
> and effort. We must constantly make judgments about whether the
> time and cost of additional modeling and data collection are
> justified. A good qualitative mapping process will surface the
> mental models of the client. Often these have narrow boundaries
> and are dynamically impoverished. There is no doubt that many
> students, senior executives, and policy makers derive enormous
> value from expanding their mental models to include previously
> unrecognized feedbacks. But we must recognize that such
> qualitative modeling exposes us to one of the most fundamental
> bounds on human cognition: our inability to simulate mentally the
> dynamics of complex nonlinear systems. Indeed, our experimental
> studies show that people are unable to accurately infer the
> behavior of even the simplest systems, systems far simpler than
> those emerging from qualitative modeling work. Formal models,
> grounded in data and subjected to a wide range of tests, lead to
> more reliable inferences about dynamics and uncover errors in our
> mental simulations.

Re-reading Sterman's paper reminds me that I really need to do some
computer modeling of generational patterns in order to get a better
understanding.

Sterman makes a number of points that I've found to be true as well:

Originally Posted by John D. Sterman

> All decisions are based on models . . . and all models are
> wrong

> The concepts of system dynamics people find most difficult to
> grasp are these: All decisions are based on models, and all models
> are wrong. These statements are deeply counterintuitive. Few
> people actually believe them. Yet accepting them is central to
> effective systems thinking.

> Most people are what philosophers call "naïve realists": they
> believe what they see is, that some things are just plain
> True—and that they know what they are. Instead, we stress that
> human perception and knowledge are limited, that we operate from
> the basis of mental models, that we can never place our mental
> models on a solid foundation of Truth because a model is a
> simplification, an abstraction, a selection, because our models
> are inevitably incomplete, incorrect—wrong. ...

> Recognizing the limitations of our knowledge, the ‘‘inevitable a
> priori’’ assumptions at the root of everything we think we know,
> is deeply threatening.... It’s one thing to point out that someone
> else’s opinions are ‘just a model’—it’s quite something else to
> recognize the limitations of our own beliefs. And how are we to
> make decisions if all models are wrong? The concept that ... there
> is no ultimate, absolute foundation for our beliefs, is so deeply
> counterintuitive, so threatening, that most people reject it as
> ‘‘obviously false’’ or become so dizzy with doubt that they run
> screaming as fast as they can to someone who claims to offer the
> Truth.

This has been extremely important to me. I always have to watch
myself, to question myself, to see if I'm reaching a conclusion
because I "want" it to be that way. I'm always realizing more and
more that Generational Dynamics is actually very mathematically
rigorous, unexpectedly so, and requires creating an abstract model
that maps into the earth, and then using the abstract model to draw
conclusions about the earth. Thus, when I reach a conclusion like,
"There will be a new genocidal crisis war between Arabs and Jews," I
have to check and double-check to make sure that I'm reaching that
conclusion through a mathematical analysis of the abstract, not
because of flawed thinking.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> When people finally come up with a truly "dynamical" model for
> life -- one that can be replicated in any kind of laboratory --
> they will disturb the course of human history so much as to
> require a reset of the calendar to the year After Artificial
> Creation (AAC). Thus it is in this spirit that I use such strict
> rules for any claims of dymanical behavior. (And it may be
> entirely true that historians are not naturally warm to my rules
> of clarification. If they are not then they should not bother
> themselves with the proof-begging burdens of dynamics.)

The kind of abstract model I've been talking about cannot be
replicated in a laboratory, although it can be simulated on a
computer.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

... An understanding of
the concepts of statistics and probability is necessary because
Generational Dynamics deals with the behavior and attitudes of large
masses of people, and that can only be done statistically. Given
your views of mathematics, especially that statistics and probability
theory are not valid mathematical theories, it may be that
Generational Dynamics is incompatible with your religious beliefs.

John, thanks for your well-considered response. However, you are mistaken about my position on probability and statistics. I never said it was not a valid application of mathematics; I said only that probability and statistics is not a branch of mathematics, not like geometry and the calculus, for examples. Oh, and as for my "religious beliefs"? I don't think you could build a very good religion out of what I believe!

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Perhaps most important at all is that understanding Generational
Dynamics requires knowing how to do "systems thinking." Some people
are just unable to understand Generational Dynamics, and the ability
to do systems thinking seems to be the factor that separates those
who can understand Generational Dynamics from those who never will.
I'll talk more about this below with "systems dynamics."

I have a few thoughts on "systems thinking," if you will indulge me.

I am involved with an email discussion group called "Foundations of Information Science," chaired astutely by a Spaniard named Pedro Marijuán (not to be confused with the herb bearing the feminine gender of that name), of the University of Saragossa. Information and systems scientists from more than a dozen countries post their thoughtful and deep POVs on the meaning and the modeling of systems that somehow embrace an economy or an ecology of information and knowledge. Last year a wild and wooly fight broke out, albeit dignified, over the definitions of “information” and “knowledge.” (I stayed out of it to avoid being pulverized; these guys are heavyweights. Some of the most forceful ones are “radical constructionist.”) There were many conflicting POVs. The only conclusion that emerged from this wonderful brawl was that there are no universally agreed-upon definitions of either term, which is troublesome for such a group of self-celebrated experts.

Right now the FISers are discussing molecular and biological “dynamics.” This topic, too, brings on considerable disagreement. So I mostly read and learn without contributing very much. However, I stay in touch with three of the FISers on matters of ecological and evolutionary modeling.

Because I have encountered so much confusion and disagreement on first principles and declared assumptions I have become grouchy about their importance. Indeed they are what cause so many battles on the FIS forum.

So here’s my point: When one speaks of “dynamical systems,” one needs to be very careful about their meaning. I seriously question if any dynamical model will truly represent an evolving biological system, much less a social one, and even less an historical one. If I can’t represent even a frog as a dynamically evolving biological system, operating in a dynamically physical world, how are I going to represent it as a dynamic social system, operating in a dynamically biological system, which is part of a dynamic environment? I’m frustrated by contradictions in the meaning of “dynamics.”

I'd say a frog's circulatory system involves hyrodynamics and maybe even Bernoulli's principle, and I'd say its nervous might even obey Ohm's Law, and so on. But I'm still at loss for a dynamical frog, and especially so for its dynamical history and evolution.

Besides these dismal conditions, what is there to stand on? Maybe I will find firmer footing in something like "alternative universes," which have their own problems with definition. I, like Richard Dawkins, am trouble about “the conceit of hindsight.” And, somewhat like Lee Smolin, I suspect a kind of Darwinian selection of “daughter universes.” Smolin sees quantum mechanics as applicable in a rigorous way, and Dawkins sees it as Darwinian. I happen to see them as more evidence that “dynamics,” as we claim to know it, may not be as relevant to biological systems as once believed.

Maybe this helps to explain to you why I am so touchy about first principles and declared assumptions.

--Croakmore

On Venezuela

I have briefly looked into the country, enough to identify the crisis wars and what that means for today. I wasn't planning on posting anything just yet, but already I have seen a couple surprises.

(1811-1822 Climax 1819) Native Venezuelan Simon Bolivar relentlessly pursues Spanish, with hopes of driving them out of the region. After many defeats, he finally succeeds, creating Gran Colombia.

Venezuela and Ecuador secede from Gran Colombia in 1830 thanks in part to a large seperatist movement led by Jose Antonia Paez, a patriot who fought in the independence war. This is not incredible, but it doesn't fit your standard austerity description.

(1858-1865 Climax 1863) Paez is president of the Caudillos from 1831 to 1848, when a revolution forces him out. Civil War erupts in 1858, dubbed the Federalist Wars, an extremely violent confrontation between the liberals and conservatives. The liberals win. This is a VERY short mid-cycle period.

(1945) After harsh rule by an American-Indian dictator and the finding of oil, civilians and the military overthrow the government. The also entered WWII this year on the Allies side.

Currently, it seems Venezuela is headed toward a civil war. There is a huge gap between rich and poor. President Hugo Chavez wants a social revolution to undo free-market policies of the last 20 years, however there is much opposition to this in the country. Chavez seems to support rebel groups in neighboring Colombia. The army isn't very loyal and questions Chavez' policies. And most importantly, Chavez wants to create an army that is loyal to him. He is passes out guns to his followers, angering the military. It seems almost like a textbook case.

I will expand on this in the coming days/weeks. I am a little disturbed by that mid-cycle period.

Matt

Dear Richard,

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> John, thanks for your well-considered response. However, you are
> mistaken about my position on probability and statistics. I never
> said it was not a valid application of mathematics; I said only
> that probability and statistics is not a branch of mathematics,
> not like geometry and the calculus, for examples. Oh, and as for
> my "religious beliefs"? I don't think you could build a very good
> religion out of what I believe!

Once again you're not making any sense. You seem to be criticizing
my use of the word "application," but I used the word "theory," not
"application." You're the one who has a problem when you talk about
a "statistics application," since you can't have an application
without applying something, and you have no theory to apply. I refer
to it as a "religion" because saying that the theory of probability
is not a branch of mathematics is so bizarre, that I can't see it as
anything but a religious belief.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I have a few thoughts on "systems thinking," if you will indulge
> me.

> I am involved with an email discussion group called "Foundations
> of Information Science," chaired astutely by a Spaniard named
> Pedro Marijuán (not to be confused with the herb bearing the
> feminine gender of that name), of the University of Saragossa.
> Information and systems scientists from more than a dozen
> countries post their thoughtful and deep POVs on the meaning and
> the modeling of systems that somehow embrace an economy or an
> ecology of information and knowledge. Last year a wild and wooly
> fight broke out, albeit dignified, over the definitions of
> “information” and “knowledge.” (I stayed out of it to avoid being
> pulverized; these guys are heavyweights. Some of the most forceful
> ones are “radical constructionist.”) There were many conflicting
> POVs. The only conclusion that emerged from this wonderful brawl
> was that there are no universally agreed-upon definitions of
> either term, which is troublesome for such a group of
> self-celebrated experts.

> Right now the FISers are discussing molecular and biological
> “dynamics.” This topic, too, brings on considerable disagreement.
> So I mostly read and learn without contributing very much.
> However, I stay in touch with three of the FISers on matters of
> ecological and evolutionary modeling.

> Because I have encountered so much confusion and disagreement on
> first principles and declared assumptions I have become grouchy
> about their importance. Indeed they are what cause so many battles
> on the FIS forum.

> So here’s my point: When one speaks of “dynamical systems,” one
> needs to be very careful about their meaning. I seriously question
> if any dynamical model will truly represent an evolving biological
> system, much less a social one, and even less an historical one.
> If I can’t represent even a frog as a dynamically evolving
> biological system, operating in a dynamically physical world, how
> are I going to represent it as a dynamic social system, operating
> in a dynamically biological system, which is part of a dynamic
> environment? I’m frustrated by contradictions in the meaning of
> “dynamics.”

> I'd say a frog's circulatory system involves hyrodynamics and
> maybe even Bernoulli's principle, and I'd say its nervous might
> even obey Ohm's Law, and so on. But I'm still at loss for a
> dynamical frog, and especially so for its dynamical history and
> evolution.

> Besides these dismal conditions, what is there to stand on? Maybe
> I will find firmer footing in something like "alternative
> universes," which have their own problems with definition. I, like
> Richard Dawkins, am trouble about “the conceit of hindsight.” And,
> somewhat like Lee Smolin, I suspect a kind of Darwinian selection
> of “daughter universes.” Smolin sees quantum mechanics as
> applicable in a rigorous way, and Dawkins sees it as Darwinian. I
> happen to see them as more evidence that “dynamics,” as we claim
> to know it, may not be as relevant to biological systems as once
> believed.

You're letting yourself get too bound up in details, to such an
extent that you can't see any picture, let alone the big picture.
It's nice to spend hours arguing over the meaning of "information"
and "knowledge," but in the end those discussions themselves are
neither informative or knowledgeable. And the fact that these people
are "heavyweights" doesn't mean that they actually know anything, or
that they aren't simply spouting bullshit.

Suppose you throw a rock into a lake. The water splashes, and then
ripples form concentric circles around the point of impact. The
ripples spread farther and farther until they reach the shore, right
at your feet at the point you were standing when you threw the rock.

Now you've got yourself so bound up, you'd have to deny that those
ripples even exist. Your mind wouldn't be standing on the shore with
your body; your mind went with the rock, splashed into the lake, and
now is sitting on the bottom of the lake with the rock. Your mind is
looking around at the molecules and currents of water, trying and
failing to use "radical construction" to put the water molecules
together into a ripple, and you're saying, "There's no way that these
chaotically moving water molecules could ever form a ripple." And
you'll never see those ripples until you're willing to let your mind
jump back out of the water, on the shore, where the ripples are plain
to see.

There's no way to fully "construct," radically or otherwise, a
macroscopic view from a microscopic view. There are some lesser
things you can do: You can use Statistical Theory or Chaos Theory to
prove some relationships between the two views, or you can construct
an abstract model that relates the two views in some way.

Throughout all academic disciplines, there are always tools that
relate microscopic and macroscopic views. In fluid mechanics, you
have concepts like "water pressure" and "liquid viscosity" that
provide a macroscopic measure without attempting to construct their
meanings from microscopic elements. Chemists and physicists use
Avogadro's number to relate gross mass to atomic mass. And
economists use concepts like "supply and demand" to relate
microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts.

When we talk about cycles and patterns, they occur throughout nature.
Liquid molecules in the lake, molecules of air in the wind, light
photons, and so forth, all form cycles and patterns naturally.

In the animal world, population cycles and patterns are common. For
example, lemmings have a cycle length of several years. When their
population is growing, the number of predators grow and the amount of
food disappears. At some point, there are so many predators and so
little food that lemmings become almost extinct. Then, the food
grows back and the predators die off, and the cycle repeats itself.

This kind of population dynamics can be affected by a number of
factors, not only predators and food, but also different types of
parasites. These different factors can combine in different ways to
provide different kinds of population cycles.

Once you throw in "intelligence" as an additional factor, there's no
reason to believe that all cycles disappear. In fact, what we
would expect is that the patterns become more complex and that is
indeed what happens.

In fact, I would put it to you that your whole base assumption is
wrong. I believe you think that the existence of a cycle or pattern
has to be proved, because "no cycle" is the normal state of affairs;
it seems to me that cycles and patterns are the normal state of
affairs, and that "no cycle" is what would have to be proved - except
that it can't be proved since it's not true.

I personally have moved way beyond this discussion. When I first
picked up TFT late in 2001, I was genuinely questioning whether
generational patterns exist. Since then, we now have different
proofs of generational patterns, using four different
methodologies:

1. Strauss and Howe's original work, identifying six cycles in
   Anglo-American history. This is a "constructionist" methodology,
   constructing the generational archetypes and eras by examining
   individual histories and diaries from different eras.
   
2. I've identified over 100 crisis wars throughout history, showing
   that these patterns exist at other places and times in history
   besides the Anglo-American timeline.
   
3. I've given a kind of mathematical proof that, under certain
   reasonable assumptions, any intelligent species must follow a crisis
   war cycle as part of its evolutionary development. Incidentally,
   there's no "hindsight" involved in either this methodology or the
   next one.
   
4. I've used my web site, http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com , for
   a specific purpose: To test the predictive value of Generational
   Dynamics forecasting, and thus indirectly prove the correctness of
   the underlying theory. My web site has now been up for over three
   years. I've posted dozens of predictions, and not one has turned out
   to be wrong. Many have been proven right, some are still pending,
   but not a single one has been proven wrong. This has been
   astonishing even to me personally.

So for me at least, the existence of generational patterns,
generalized from Strauss and Howe's original work to all of human
history, and even to intelligent species on other planets (if they
exist), is no longer a question that I need to debate: Those patterns
are as close to a proven fact as almost anything can be.

And so Richard, when you come to me and talk about the meaning of the
"information" and "knowledge" and the need for "radical
construction," and then you tell me you don't see how those ripples
can possibly exist, my response is this: Just stand on the shore and
watch, and you'll see them.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> On Venezuela

> I have briefly looked into the country, enough to identify the
> crisis wars and what that means for today. I wasn't planning on
> posting anything just yet, but already I have seen a couple
> surprises.

> (1811-1822 Climax 1819) Native Venezuelan Simon Bolivar
> relentlessly pursues Spanish, with hopes of driving them out of
> the region. After many defeats, he finally succeeds, creating Gran
> Colombia.

> Venezuela and Ecuador secede from Gran Colombia in 1830 thanks in
> part to a large seperatist movement led by Jose Antonia Paez, a
> patriot who fought in the independence war. This is not
> incredible, but it doesn't fit your standard austerity
> description.

> (1858-1865 Climax 1863) Paez is president of the Caudillos from
> 1831 to 1848, when a revolution forces him out. Civil War erupts
> in 1858, dubbed the Federalist Wars, an extremely violent
> confrontation between the liberals and conservatives. The liberals
> win. This is a VERY short mid-cycle period.

> (1945) After harsh rule by an American-Indian dictator and the
> finding of oil, civilians and the military overthrow the
> government. The also entered WWII this year on the Allies side.

> Currently, it seems Venezuela is headed toward a civil war. There
> is a huge gap between rich and poor. President Hugo Chavez wants a
> social revolution to undo free-market policies of the last 20
> years, however there is much opposition to this in the country.
> Chavez seems to support rebel groups in neighboring Colombia. The
> army isn't very loyal and questions Chavez' policies. And most
> importantly, Chavez wants to create an army that is loyal to him.
> He is passes out guns to his followers, angering the military. It
> seems almost like a textbook case.

> I will expand on this in the coming days/weeks. I am a little
> disturbed by that mid-cycle period.

Reading your summary reminds me of why I never got very far in
Venezuela. There's no clear crisis war timeline, and so a great deal
more study is required. You were looking for a project, and this
looks like a good one.

As I read through the history of Venezuela, it's clear that
Simón Bolívar's conquest is a seminal crisis war, but nothing since
then is very clear.

The civil war from 1858-63 does not read like a crisis war.
Normally, a civil war has to be a crisis war, because it brings into
conflict two large masses of people who normally live with each
other. But there are exceptions (the most famous being Caesar's
famous crossing of the Rubicon) where the civil war is essential a
fight between politicians, and that appears to be the case with the
Venezuelan civil war.

Even Venezuela's participation in WW II doesn't look like a crisis
war.

So it's hard to figure out what's going on. But this is nothing new.
For a long time I was puzzed about the timeline of Persia (Iran).
The natural assumption was that WW I and the destruction of the
Ottoman Empire was a crisis war for Iran, but I was never able to
find the historical evidence to support that. Then one day I dug a
little deeper and looked at the Constitutional Revolution late in
1900s decade. I had originally thought it was just a palace coup,
but it turned out to be a major civil war that enveloped the country.
So that turned out to be the crisis war that preceded the 1979
Revolution and the subsequent Iran/Iraq war.

I've just reviewed the Library of Congress history of Venezuela,
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/vetoc.html . The LOC histories tend to
be overly political, and there's little that's presented there that
helps. However, reading through, my intuition tells me that there's
a lot more going on in the transitional period from the end of
Antonio Guzmán Blanco's dictatorship in 1888 to the ascension of Juan
Vicente Gómez in 1908. However, it's not clear how this period
breaks down, especially because of the intervention of American
warships. One possibility is that 1902 was the climax, and 1902-08
is the first part of the Austerity period; and the other possibility
is that the climax occurred in 1908. (Rereading the text, it's also
possible that the climax occurred in 1899 when Castro took power.)

The student rebellions of the 1930s were clearly Awakening events,
but there's another problem: Was there another crisis war hidden
in the last few decades? I can't tell from the LOC description
whether the 1958 coup was a major civil war or a palace coup.

It's not impossible that Venezuela has gone 100 years without a
crisis war, but it's very unusual. One mitigating factor would be
the oil wealth -- money can definitely postpone a crisis war, even
for decades, as it's done in Saudi Arabia. But Venezuela looks to me
a lot messier than Saudi Arabia, so I have my doubts.

At any rate, this brings us to the question of what you should do
next. I'm glad that you've taken on this project, because it very
much needs to be done, in view of Venezuela's increasing importance
in the world with that Nazi Hugo Chávez in power, allying with the
other Nazi, Fidel Castro. Take a look at this article which I saved
when I first saw it two years ago.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1226

What you need to do is really dig into Venezuelan history, and the
methodology to use is to get as close as possible to Strauss and
Howe's original methodology. Their methodology was to read histories
and diaries from people living in the various eras. That usually
isn't possible for other countries and eras, but there are ways to
come close. One principle is that, generally speaking, a history
book written a century ago is a better source than one written today,
because it was written closer to the time of the actual events. One
resource I found very valuable when Catholics are involved is the New
Advent site ( http://www.newadvent.org ), which was written in the
1900s decade. Another principle is that it's important to read
materials from all points of view. For example, understanding the
American Civil War is impossible without reading opinions of
Southerners in the late 1850s. It's often necessary to read four or
five detailed accounts of any war to get a clear picture.

The War of the Spanish Succession was always a difficult war for me,
and I had to come back to it over and over. I read probably a dozen
accounts of it in different books, and in one case I went over the
Border's bookstore and spent a whole day reading different detailed
accounts of the war. It was only after I'd done this that I was able
to pull together all the different threads from England, Scotland,
France and Spain, and complete the timeline for England in this
period.

That's the kind of thing that you're going to have to do. A good
place to start might be a detailed biography of Simón Bolívar -- and
this will bring you into the related histories of Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru and Bolivia. You should also try to distinguish the various
indigenous populations (the Cariban, Arawak and Chibcha), and see
what happened to each of them. This will help you to understand the
caudillismo period, and all the various factions involved in the
Bolívar conquest, the 1858 civil war, the 1908 ascension of Gómez, and
the nature of the 1958 coup.

This is a lot of work, but don't worry about it. Just starting
reading everything you can on the history of Venezuela. Plan on
reading half a dozen books. Go to the library and the bookstore and
read some more. After a while, it'll really begin to sink in, and
you'll get an intuitive feel for how the generational cycle works.

My experience was that figuring out the first few cycles took a week
or two each. But once I'd done a dozen of them, things started to
fall into place a lot more quickly, and I could get later ones done a
lot more quickly.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can help of if you have any
other questions.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Alright,

I had only looked at this for about an hour, and it seems that you are more of an expert on Venzuela than I am. I figured the Indian timelines were messy (which they were), but this looks even messier. Good news is that there is probably more information.

What triggered my 1858 thinking was the use of the words, "civil war." I had also heard that there was fierce fighting. I suppose the internet will not be as much of an ally this time around.

The 1945 was the only thing I could find after that, and I pretty much assumed that it was the crisis war. You can tell by reading my notes), that I wasn't too satisfied with the 1945 answer.

Hopefully I can sort this mess out.

Thanks a lot,

Matt

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

> Alright,

> I had only looked at this for about an hour, and it seems that you
> are more of an expert on Venzuela than I am. I figured the Indian
> timelines were messy (which they were), but this looks even
> messier. Good news is that there is probably more information.

> What triggered my 1858 thinking was the use of the words, "civil
> war." I had also heard that there was fierce fighting. I suppose
> the internet will not be as much of an ally this time around.

> The 1945 was the only thing I could find after that, and I pretty
> much assumed, and you can tell by reading my notes, that I wasn't
> too satisfied with the 1945 answer.

> Hopefully I can sort this mess out.

Let me assure you that my "expertise" on Venezuela is extremely
superficial, limited to a few names.

Just go to the library and spend an afternoon reading reading
histories of Venezuela, and everything will start to fall into place.
Really. When you finish this project, then you'll be a true expert on
Venezuela.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

...
Now you've got yourself so bound up, you'd have to deny that those
ripples even exist. Your mind wouldn't be standing on the shore with
your body; your mind went with the rock, splashed into the lake, and
now is sitting on the bottom of the lake with the rock. Your mind is
looking around at the molecules and currents of water, trying and
failing to use "radical construction" to put the water molecules
together into a ripple...

I never said I was a radical constructionists.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

In fact, I would put it to you that your whole base assumption is
wrong. I believe you think that the existence of a cycle or pattern
has to be proved, because "no cycle" is the normal state of affairs;
it seems to me that cycles and patterns are the normal state of
affairs, and that "no cycle" is what would have to be proved - except
that it can't be proved since it's not true.

But then you say this:

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I personally have moved way beyond this discussion. ...I've identified over 100 crisis wars throughout history, showing
that these patterns exist at other places and times in history
besides the Anglo-American timeline... I've given a kind of mathematical proof that, under certain reasonable assumptions, any intelligent species must follow a crisis war cycle as part of its evolutionary development.

What? Our species is evolving from one crisis war to the next? I don't know of any evolutionary biologists who would agree with you? This leads me to think you are a bit too careless with your terms.

John, our minds work differently, and that’s OK. This doesn’t make you wrong; only confused, at least to me. To me, it’s important to know what probability and statistics purports to do. I’ll drop it there.

As I see it, your invocation of “dynamics” requires more of a rigorous definition than, say, “trends” or “patterns.” Dynamics is something with discrete mechanical properties (and they can be statistically mechanical, too), explained precisely by way of first principles.

Take my ’95 F-150 (please); it is a motor vehicle that operates on very specific dynamic principles: principles of metallurgy, principles of internal combustion, principles of mechanical advantage, principles of electronics, the principle of wheel and axle, principles of fluid hydraulics, the principle of helm, etc. And as I drive her down the road I can be reassured that these principles are real and that they are important. I make assumptions: the gas is of good quality, the road is satisfactory, the weather is going to be good, my tires are OK, my wiring is not frayed, I am alert enough to avoid an accident, and so on. I want to be as clear as possible about all these matters (especially now when people are driving around watching their GPS devices and DVD players and eating burgers and fries while talking on their cell phones).

All I am trying to do is to coax out of you those first principles that allow your “generational dynamics” to be actually dynamical.

I just hate to be standing on the shoreline, watching those waves lap upon my feet, and not knowing anything about how they were generated. Was there a storm? A tidal surge? An earthquakei? An explosion? Or just a big rock … kerplunck? In any case, the first principles of these waves must involve gravitation. But forging right on to chaos theory seems a little presumptive to me (besides, don't you mean catastrophe theory?). If you wish to make more sense of your “generational dynamics” you should be continuously referring back to your first principles, upon which your argument must stand. All I am asking is, what are they?

I get the feeling you are talking about the pulse of your historical “patient,” and maybe even measuring its blood pressure, instead of accounting for its dynamics. Maybe the greatest confusion for me lies in how you differentiate patterns from dynamics. Short of any truly dynamical first principles, I don’t see how the patterns of your system can be attributed to “dynamics.”

Why does it have to be "dynamics," anyway? Nothing is lost for you if you just square up and admit that your historical patterns, no matter how statistically valid they seem to be, are just that -- patterns -- and that proving their "dynamics" is neither relevant nor necessary.

--Croakmore

John, let me take another track that veers away from the sharp criticism I may have applied too tediously, which I am wont to do. Maybe the principles I am looking for, regarding dynamical support for your GD infrastructure, can be argued sucessfully using those principles that operate in fluid dynamics, thus preserving your interest in surface waves. Those principles in a fluid-dynamics context are often seen to comprise the infrastructure of certain complex, self-organizing systems, capable of generating order out of chaos. And, in the context of dissipative structures (systems with high energy demands and high entropy production that operate "far from equilibrium"), I am wondering if co-oscillating harmonics might shed some light on your theory.

Everything you seem to require is there: mathematical and statistical modeling, oscillating behavior, integrated time series, collapsing wave functions, Cartesian projections. I especially like the torus model for coupled oscillators, which allows you to identify key perturbations in your dynamical system. (I recommend trying to locate some of the visual modeling approaches used by Ralph Abraham and Christopher Shaw.) But there are other references that allow for embedded oscillations and perturbations in a torus metaphor.

Maybe these ideas are sweeter than my usual doses of vinegar.

--Croakmore

Dear Richard,

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I never said I was a radical constructionist.

This reminds me of the kinds of conversations I used to have when I
was hanging around in feminist forums in the early and mid 90s. The
conversation usually went something like this: Me: "Many feminists do
nothing but bash men." She: "Feminists never bash men." Me:
[Several quotes from feminists bashing men.] She: "Those are radical
feminists." Me: "It seems to me that all feminists are radical
feminists." She: "I'm not a radical feminist." Me: "Oh. So you
think that Andrea Dworkin, Marilyn French, et al, are WRONG?" She:
"No, I'm not willing to say they're wrong." Me: "Well, if you're not
willing to say that radical feminists are wrong, then what's the
difference between a feminist and a radical feminist?" And so on.

And so, Richard, my question for you is this: If you're not a radical
constructionist, as you claim, then can you name one or two important
radical constructionist principles that you think are wrong?

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Take my ’95 F-150 (please); it is a motor vehicle that operates on
> very specific dynamic principles: principles of metallurgy,
> principles of internal combustion, principles of mechanical
> advantage, principles of electronics, the principle of wheel and
> axle, principles of fluid hydraulics, the principle of helm, etc.
> And as I drive her down the road I can be reassured that these
> principles are real and that they are important. I make
> assumptions: the gas is of good quality, the road is satisfactory,
> the weather is going to be good, my tires are OK, my wiring is not
> frayed, I am alert enough to avoid an accident, and so on. I want
> to be as clear as possible about all these matters (especially now
> when people are driving around watching their GPS devices and DVD
> players and eating burgers and fries while talking on their cell
> phones).

The motor vehicle example doesn't relate at all. Your motor vehicle
has a dozen or so components that operate in a certain way because
they're constrained by various gears and bolts. The four-cycle
engine is controlled exogenously.

The Generational Dynamics patterns apply to 6.5 billion components
(i.e., people), each of them acting in a separate, independent
manner.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> John, let me take another track that veers away from the sharp
> criticism I may have applied too tediously, which I am wont to
> do. Maybe the principles I am looking for, regarding dynamical
> support for your GD infrastructure, can be argued sucessfully
> using those principles that operate in fluid dynamics, thus
> preserving your interest in surface waves. Those principles in a
> fluid-dynamics context are often seen to comprise the
> infrastructure of certain complex, self-organizing systems,
> capable of generating order out of chaos. And, in the context of
> dissipative structures (systems with high energy demands and high
> entropy production that operate "far from equilibrium"), I am
> wondering if co-oscillating harmonics might shed some light on
> your theory.
> http://www.baw.de/vip/en/departments...w/frqw-en.html

> Everything you seem to require is there: mathematical and
> statistical modeling, oscillating behavior, integrated time
> series, collapsing wave functions, Cartesian projections. I
> especially like the torus model for coupled oscillators, which
> allows you to identify key perturbations in your dynamical
> system. (I recommend trying to locate some of the visual modeling
> approaches used by Ralph Abraham and Christopher Shaw.) But there
> are other references that allow for embedded oscillations and
> perturbations in a torus metaphor.

This is actually very close to what's going on, but I can't think of
anything in Generational Dynamics that corresponds to the exogenous
force of the moon's gravity.

The Generational Dynamics oscillations are driven completely
endogenously by independent elements ("people") that can act in any
way they want. Nonetheless, they do form "complex, self-organizing
systems, capable of generating order out of chaos," as you describe.

Why do generational patterns have four "strokes" per cycle? It has
nothing to do with gears and bolts, and it has nothing to do with an
exogenous force like the moon's gravity.

The four "strokes" come from the fact that the time for a person to
come of age (20 years) is equal to about 1/4th of the maximum
lifespan (80 years). It's as a result of that simple arithmetic that
there are four generations per cycle.

To see this more clearly, suppose that intelligent life has evolved
on another planet, but the maximum lifespan is 90 years, and children
come of age when they're 15. I've proven that this species would
have to follow exactly the same generational paradigm as humans, but
it would be a "six stroke" engine, rather than four strokes.

Let's speculate about what this six-stroke generational pattern would
look like. To simplify things, let's call the six turnins 1T, 2T,
3T, 4T, 5T, 6T = crisis.

And let's call the six Archetypes 1A (Prophets), 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A
(Artists).

Now let's see what happens:

(*) A 6T crisis war occurs, launching a generational saeculum.

(*) During the 1T Austerity period, the generations that lived or
grew up during the war would impose austere rules and compromises
to guarantee that no such war will ever happen again. The 1A
Prophet generation grows up during this period.

(*) When the Prophets come of age, at the beginning of 2T, they
start torturing their parents by rebelling against the austere
rules and compromises, creating a generation gap. Thus, the 2T is
still an Awakening. However, it may take off a little more slowly
than a human awakening, because the Prophets are only 1/6th of
the population, rather than 1/4th.

(*) When the 3T arrives, the 2A Nomads would be just as screwed
up as ever, thanks to the social turmoil caused by the generation
gap. After that, I'm not sure which of two scenarios would be
followed.

(*) Scenario #1: 3T, 4T and 5T might be an extended Unraveling
period, with the unraveling going more slowly than for humans.
In this case, 2A and 3A would be like our Nomads, and 4A and 5A
would be like our heroes, and both generations would be soldiers
in the crisis war.

(*) Scenario #2: Instead, perhaps 4A might turn into a kind of
"social repair" generation, that tries to patch things up between
the generations in the generation gap. Then 5A would be the hero
generation, but probably both 4A and 5A would still be soldiers
in the crisis war.

(*) When the 6T comes, there's another crisis war, and the next
cycle is launched.

So as you can see, there's nothing magic or fixed about the four eras
in the generational paradigm. Four is simply the number of
generations in a human lifetime. As far as I can tell, it would
work similarly if that number were 3 or 5 or 6 or 7.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

...
And so, Richard, my question for you is this: If you're not a radical
constructionist, as you claim, then can you name one or two important
radical constructionist principles that you think are wrong?

Well, I'll admit to being a "Radical Obstructionist," or something like that. My father used to scold me for being a source of "constant aggitation." Maybe I should call myself a "Radical Aggitationist."

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

...
The motor vehicle example doesn't relate at all. Your motor vehicle
has a dozen or so components that operate in a certain way because
they're constrained by various gears and bolts. The four-cycle
engine is controlled exogenously.

The Generational Dynamics patterns apply to 6.5 billion components
(i.e., people), each of them acting in a separate, independent
manner.

If this true then I really don't see the "dynamics" of your GD model. What fuels your endogenously controlled system? What are the boundaries of control? How does your system communicate internally? If everybody is "acting in a separate, independent manner," as you say, then you seem to have ruled out the possibility that your model allows for "entanglements," like those of quantum-mechanical systems. I would think that 6.5 billion quanta should have some cohesive features that resemble the entangled communication of generational/cohort information. You seem fairly well set up for a quantum-mechanical argument.

I personally think it could be argued as a co-oscillating torus -- four stokes to the cycle -- involving the dynamics of entrainment and catastrophe to explain the saecular rotation. Perhaps these feature are actually there in your GD model, and that they need only a small shift of focus to bring them out. I liked your discussion of the 1:4 ratio of coming-of-age duration vs. life span. I agree with much of it, but I still have a few questions about what exactly is dynamical about your Generational Dynamics.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> John, let me take another track that veers away from the sharp
> criticism I may have applied too tediously, which I am wont to
> do. Maybe the principles I am looking for, regarding dynamical
> support for your GD infrastructure, can be argued sucessfully
> using those principles that operate in fluid dynamics, thus
> preserving your interest in surface waves. Those principles in a
> fluid-dynamics context are often seen to comprise the
> infrastructure of certain complex, self-organizing systems,
> capable of generating order out of chaos. And, in the context of
> dissipative structures (systems with high energy demands and high
> entropy production that operate "far from equilibrium"), I am
> wondering if co-oscillating harmonics might shed some light on
> your theory.
> http://www.baw.de/vip/en/departments...w/frqw-en.html

> Everything you seem to require is there: mathematical and
> statistical modeling, oscillating behavior, integrated time
> series, collapsing wave functions, Cartesian projections. I
> especially like the torus model for coupled oscillators, which
> allows you to identify key perturbations in your dynamical
> system. (I recommend trying to locate some of the visual modeling
> approaches used by Ralph Abraham and Christopher Shaw.) But there
> are other references that allow for embedded oscillations and
> perturbations in a torus metaphor.

This is actually very close to what's going on, but I can't think of
anything in Generational Dynamics that corresponds to the exogenous
force of the moon's gravity.

The Generational Dynamics oscillations are driven completely
endogenously by independent elements ("people") that can act in any
way they want. Nonetheless, they do form "complex, self-organizing
systems, capable of generating order out of chaos," as you describe.

Why do generational patterns have four "strokes" per cycle? It has
nothing to do with gears and bolts, and it has nothing to do with an
exogenous force like the moon's gravity.

The four "strokes" come from the fact that the time for a person to
come of age (20 years) is equal to about 1/4th of the maximum
lifespan (80 years). It's as a result of that simple arithmetic that
there are four generations per cycle.

To see this more clearly, suppose that intelligent life has evolved
on another planet, but the maximum lifespan is 90 years, and children
come of age when they're 15. I've proven that this species would
have to follow exactly the same generational paradigm as humans, but
it would be a "six stroke" engine, rather than four strokes.

Let's speculate about what this six-stroke generational pattern would
look like. To simplify things, let's call the six turnins 1T, 2T,
3T, 4T, 5T, 6T = crisis.

And let's call the six Archetypes 1A (Prophets), 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A
(Artists).

...

So as you can see, there's nothing magic or fixed about the four eras
in the generational paradigm. Four is simply the number of
generations in a human lifetime. As far as I can tell, it would
work similarly if that number were 3 or 5 or 6 or 7.

If your imaginary planet bearing intelligent, human-like creatures is embraced by seasons having rhythmic features of 3 or 5 or 7, then I'll agree to its first principle of dynamics: exogenously supplied conditional information. On Earth, that information is supplied by the combined periodic effects of: 1) Earth's rotation in space and time, 2) the moon's periodic revolution about Earth, and 3) Earth's periodic revolution about the sun. The fact that Earth's axis is tilted only serves to amplify the seasonal effect.

--Croakmore

Mr. (or is it Dr.?) Xenakis, I've got a serious question for you. I'm not going to insult you or defend you or get into ideological battles with anyone. I just want to pose a question to you.

I know that you believe that since the Russian/Ottoman Crisis was during WWII, Russia and most middle eastern nations are in an Awakening right now.

Do you believe that if neighboring countries or societies that are on different seacular timings collide, that one of them can have its saecular rhythm altered? In other words, is it possible that World War II was such a big, traumatic event world wide that most of the world got on more-or-less the US/UK saecular rhythm?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Mr. (or is it Dr.?) Xenakis, I've got a serious question for you. I'm not going to insult you or defend you or get into ideological battles with anyone. I just want to pose a question to you.

I know that you believe that since the Russian/Ottoman Crisis was during WWII, Russia and most middle eastern nations are in an Awakening right now.

Do you believe that if neighboring countries or societies that are on different seacular timings collide, that one of them can have its saecular rhythm altered? In other words, is it possible that World War II was such a big, traumatic event world wide that most of the world got on more-or-less the US/UK saecular rhythm?

IOW, what I've maintained for years.

I also wonder what his explanation is for the mechanism of the pre-industrial saeculum, which IMHO even the Authors never satisfactorily explained? That is to say, if people were coming of age at 20 how did we end up with a 100-year saeculum with four strokes rather than five?

My explanation is that there were only two phases of life that had any impact on society... pre-adulthood, and adulthood which was reached at about age 25 when the eldest male either took over the family business upon the death of his Dad at around 50, or completed his apprenticeship and could afford to start his own business and take a wife. So we had in effect two, two-stroke half-saeculi 50 years long with only two generational archetypes active at a given time.

Dear Bob,

This is a response to your message posted in another thread, "Too many
Silents still in government."
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...=153989#153989

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> I guess the notion of cognitive disconnect is at the core of what
> I have been trying to say for quite some time. People with
> different values, different world views, really do perceive things
> quite differently. The proposed solutions to problems are quite
> different to great degree because people from different cultures
> do not see the same problems. Living in the country as opposed to
> the city, or having a healthy income as opposed to a tight one,
> shows individuals different aspects of the world. The world as a
> whole is assumed to reflect the world one sees. ...

Yes, and these are the things that cause wars.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> But my interest in the cycles focuses on how values and world
> views change. This web site might be a fine illustration of
> cognitive disconnect. We have groups of people utterly incapable
> of comprehending each other, so busy trying to enlighten the
> other guys that they cannot sense their own blindness. A crisis is
> in part a punishment for this cognitive disconnect. If enough
> people cannot see the world as it is, the world will roll them
> over hard. The survivors might be able to see straight, at least
> for a time.

This is what bothers me too. There are two kinds of disconnects, and
we see both of them on this web site. There's the vertical fault
line, dividing different cultures, or dividing rich and poor, and so
forth, and we see that on this web site in red state / blue state
divisions, which seem to quickly turn many rational discussions into
irrational political arguments.

And there's the horizontal fault line, dividing the generations, and
we see that on this web site mostly between the Boomers and Xers.

So the result is that we have the worst of all possible worlds. Even
people of the same political persuasion can't get along if they're in
different generations, and people in the same generation can't get
along if they have different political views.

It's the crisis war, especially the genocidal crisis war climax, that
unifies the different generations and political views. But the next
generation (the Prophets) have enormous cognitive disconnects with the
previous generations (Heroes and Artists), so much so that only the
latter generations can get anything done, once the war is over.

The example that I always like to point to is the 1980s, when the
Republicans and the Democrats cooperated with each other to change the
Social Security system to make it a sounder system. After that, they
cooperated again to specify new rules to control the budget deficit.
And in 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying that "the era
of big government is over," cooperated with the Republican congress to
eliminate the welfare entitlement.

Nothing like that is even remotely possible today, as we can see in
this forum, or on the news any day. The Boomers are so bound up in
bureacracy that they're frozen into incompetence. The Xers are
anxious and motivated to get things done, but they're so bound up in
their hatred of Boomers that they'd rather make the wrong decision
than agree with a Boomer. And the Millies are too young to do much
of anything except be cannon fodder. That's why bad things happen in
crisis eras -- like losing our entire Pacific fleet in a single day in
1941.

And there doesn't seem to be any way to prevent it or avoid it. The
only good news is that the same thing is happening to the Chinese, so
they'll be just as incompetent as we are.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> I'd like to see more objective proofs that the cycles exist. In
> the process of collecting that proof, I expect anomalies to show
> up that will suggest further theories on the nature of the
> cycles. Good stuff.

I believe I've done that. I've believe I've proved, objectively and
beyond a reasonable doubt, using several different methodologies, the
validity of the crisis war pattern at all places and times in
history.

First, we have Strauss and Howe's work in TFT, identifying six cycles
in Anglo-American history. I've buttressed this by identifying over
100 crisis wars throughout history, showing that these patterns exist
at other places and times in history besides the Anglo-American
timeline. I've buttressed this further on my web site, where I'm
slowly but surely building a generational model of the entire world,
and using it to make predictions about where the current 4T is going.

But there's one more thing that shouldn't be overlooked.
I've given a kind of mathematical proof that, under certain
reasonable assumptions, any intelligent species must follow a crisis
war cycle as part of its evolutionary development.

This may seem pretty esoteric, but it's actually a very important
result for the earth as well. We can use historically analysis to
show generational cycles for things like Medieval England and the
Roman Empire, but what do we do when there are no written records?
How do we show that indigenous tribes on the island of Tahiti, prior
to the arrival of the Europeans, also followed the same generational
patterns?

You can't use historical analysis, because there's no history to
analyze. But thanks to the proof that any intelligent species must
follow the same generational model, we can be certain those
indigenous tribes also had their "Fourth Turnings."

I'm currently in the process of rewriting this proof, and I
particularly wanted to mention this to you because part of it
incorporates an idea that you gave me a couple of months ago. You
mentioned that the difference between humans and animals is that
animals rarely have wars. This lead me to do some further research
on the subject of "population dynamics," which studies the population
patterns of animals.

It turns out that many (and possibly most) animal species have cyclic
population patterns. One of the most famous of these is the lemmings
species. In some places of the world, lemmings follow a very
dramatic cycle. One year there'll be lemmings anywhere, and then a
couple of years later they'll be almost extinct. They follow a
population cycle that's 5-7 years long. This has given rise to the
(untrue) story that lemmings follow each off a cliff every seven
years.

What really happens is that lemmings interact with their predators,
owls. When there are lots of lemmings, then the owl population
grows. The owls gorge themselves on the lemmings, driving them close
to extinction, after which the owls starve to death. This creates a
cyclical pattern for both the lemmings and owls. This situation can
be modeled by a pair of differential equations whose solutions are
cyclic population functions.

For some animal species, the cyclic patterns can become quite
complex. It gets most complex for species which have predator
species and prey species, so that you have three different species
interacting (resulting in three simultaneous differential equations),
with potentially quite complex cyclical population patterns.

Now if you analyze humans the same way, you don't have predators and
prey, but you have something else. You might call the interaction
between owls and lemmings a kind of "crisis war," though it isn't
normally viewed that way. But since humans are (theoretically) all
the same, with no predators and prey, humans use their intelligence to
develop their own devices. They'll differentiate themselves by skin
color or other physical difference, or if all the humans in a region
look the same, they'll form identity groups based on religions or
beliefs. So now you have two or three different "identity groups,"
and you can set up the same kinds of sets of differential equations
with cyclic solutions representing cyclic population patterns.

The importance of all this is that it fits the generational cycle
into the standard kinds of cycles followed by other animals. This
approach shows that, far from being strange, population cycles among
humans are quite natural and even expected.

I've now come at the theory of Generational Dynamics from a dozen
different directions, and everything always comes out the same. The
generational cycles are always easily explained, and are always the
only possible explanation.

To me at least, there's no longer even any doubt. The generational
pattern has been proven objectively, and is true without question.

That doesn't mean that the subject is closed, of course. I've proven
that a crisis war cycle exists, and I can probably prove some weak
results about awakenings. But all the wealth of details about the
generational eras and the generational archetypes are still wide
open.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Richard,

I apologize that it's taken so long to get back to you. I've been
distracted by many things, one of which is some modeling that I
wanted to get done before answering you, but which keeps taking
longer than I hoped. Perhaps I'll have the modeling stuff done by
next time.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> If this true then I really don't see the "dynamics" of your GD
> model. What fuels your endogenously controlled system? What are
> the boundaries of control? How does your system communicate
> internally? If everybody is "acting in a separate, independent
> manner," as you say, then you seem to have ruled out the
> possibility that your model allows for "entanglements," like those
> of quantum-mechanical systems. I would think that 6.5 billion
> quanta should have some cohesive features that resemble the
> entangled communication of generational/cohort information. You
> seem fairly well set up for a quantum-mechanical argument.

I think that you really have to think a little bit more out of the
box here. We know from fluid dynamics that molecules form waves
because of exogenous forces -- like the gravity of the moon.

But now let's look at it completely differently. What happens if we
take away the exogenous forces, but we give the fluid molecules
intelligence. What would it take for those molecules to form waves
now?

That's what happens with 6.5 billion people. In another thread I
discussed a story from my web site that I use to try to explain why a
civil war in Iraq is impossible:

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

> "Let me try to explain this a different way. Suppose Ahmed, an
> angry young Iraqi man, tells his mom, "Mom, I'm going to fight
> the bad guys (Sunnis or Shiites). Allah be blessed!" Now, Mom is
> in her 30s or 40s. She survived the bloody Iran/Iraq war, and she
> still has nightmares about it. She says, "Ahmed, you're not going
> anywhere. I lost my father and husband in war, and you lost your
> father and your uncle. Your friend Mahmoud? His mother was raped
> repeatedly. Most of the people in our neighborhood were beaten,
> poisoned, killed, raped or tortured, or all of those. I need you
> right here, and you're going to stay here." So Ahmed stays there
> and there's no civil war."
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...060224#e060224

In this example, we see how moms, during an awakening period,
inhibit the movement toward war. During crisis periods, we
can imagine that moms encourage the movement toward war,
telling their sons go fight for the honor of family and country.

So that's an example of how moms "oscillate" during generational
changes. They're still independent elements, but they tend oscillate
in unison, and thus they form waves. And of course, all other people
tend to "oscillate" in some similar way, and so it's the interactions
of the people themselves that cause the oscillations, rather than
exogenous forces.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I personally think it could be argued as a co-oscillating torus --
> four stokes to the cycle -- involving the dynamics of entrainment
> and catastrophe to explain the saecular rotation. Perhaps these
> feature are actually there in your GD model, and that they need
> only a small shift of focus to bring them out. I liked your
> discussion of the 1:4 ratio of coming-of-age duration vs. life
> span. I agree with much of it, but I still have a few questions
> about what exactly is dynamical about your Generational Dynamics.

These are very interesting ideas. For example, when I talk about moms
first inhibiting and then encouraging the movment toward war,
entrainment certainly plays a part. Maybe this is the evolutionary
reason for why women share so much with each other. That kind of
sharing is needed to keep the generational waves going.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> If your imaginary planet bearing intelligent, human-like creatures
> is embraced by seasons having rhythmic features of 3 or 5 or 7,
> then I'll agree to its first principle of dynamics: exogenously
> supplied conditional information. On Earth, that information is
> supplied by the combined periodic effects of: 1) Earth's rotation
> in space and time, 2) the moon's periodic revolution about Earth,
> and 3) Earth's periodic revolution about the sun. The fact that
> Earth's axis is tilted only serves to amplify the seasonal
> effect.

I don't follow this. What's the "first principle of dynamics:
exogenously supplied conditional information" mean?

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Analogies are like ostriches; they hide from the truth. —Dorsel
> Hugbum

I don't know about that. How can we teach or learn things that are
beyond our abilities to see or hear if we can't use analogies?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Jenny,

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

> Mr. (or is it Dr.?) Xenakis, I've got a serious question for you.
> I'm not going to insult you or defend you or get into ideological
> battles with anyone. I just want to pose a question to you.

OK, I like serious questions. But I never completed my Ph.D. thesis,
so it's still OK to call me John.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

> I know that you believe that since the Russian/Ottoman Crisis was
> during WWII, Russia and most middle eastern nations are in an
> Awakening right now.

I assume that you mean WW I here. But there are a mix of situations.

Iran had its Constitutional Revolution crisis war in the late 1900s
decade, and then the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s, so Iran is in an
awakening period now.

Iraq had its crisis war with the Ottoman collapse, ending around
1922, and then the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, so Iraq is in an
awakening period now.

On the other hand, the Palestinians' last crisis war was the war
between Arabs and Jews following the partitioning of Palestine and
the creation of Israel in 1948, so the Palestinians and Israelis are
in a crisis period now.

Russia is a lot more complicated because it's so huge. There's no
way that the Bolshevik Revolution cannot have been anything other than
a crisis war, and WW II was an awakening war for Russia (for reasons
I've discussed before, but we can discuss further now if you want).
However, there's a lot more analysis to be done because parts of
Russia may be on different timelines. At any rate, Russia is clearly
in a crisis period now.

Saudi Arabia and Morocco are interesting cases, because Robert Pape's
recent research on suicide bombers show that they overwhelming come
from those two countries. This is fascinating because it turns out
that these two countries have had the longest times since their last
crisis wars. Saudi Arabia's last crisis war was the Ibn Saud
conquest, ending in 1925, and Morocco's was the Rif War, ending in
1927. This is the finding that led me to whole "fifth turning"
concept -- what happens to a country that goes through its entire
fourth turning era but no crisis war occurs. One of the things that
can happen is that the country can spawn suicide bombers.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

> Do you believe that if neighboring countries or societies that are
> on different seacular timings collide, that one of them can have
> its saecular rhythm altered? In other words, is it possible that
> World War II was such a big, traumatic event world wide that most
> of the world got on more-or-less the US/UK saecular rhythm?

It's possible for timelines to merge or diverge. The examples above
of Iran and Iraq show how divergent timelines can merge into a common
crisis war.

However, they don't always merge. For example, the Vietnam war was a
crisis war for the Vietnamese, but an awakening war for us.

This diagram shows several different combinations:



However, "traumatic events" don't change generational timelines.

Let's get back to basics here. This forum provides an example. How
often do people change their minds in this forum? Fairly seldom.
That's human nature.

Now, what kind of "traumatic event" would be required for everyone on
this forum to agree about a major political issue? How traumatic
would the event have to be? Pretty traumatic, I'm sure you'd agree.

If you look in TFT, you'll find one and only one kind of event that's
traumatic enough to have that effect, and that's the crisis war
climax:

Originally Posted by Strauss and Howe in TFT pp 258-59

> The Crisis climax is human history's equivalent to nature's
> raging typhoon, the kind that sucks all surrounding matter into a
> single swirl of ferocious energy. Anything not lashed down goes
> flying; anything standing in the way gets flattened. Normally
> occurring late in the Fourth Turning, the climax gathers energy
> from an accumulation of unmet needs, unpaid bills, and unresolved
> problems. It then spends that energy on an upheaval whose
> direction and dimension were beyond comprehension during the prior
> Unraveling era. The climax shakes a society to its roots,
> transforms its institutions, redirects its purposes, and marks
> its people (and its generations) for life. The climax can end in
> triumph, or tragedy, or some combination of both. Whatever the
> event and whatever the outcome, a society passes through a great
> gate of history, fundamentally altering the course of civilization.

> Soon thereafter, this great gate is sealed by the Crisis
> resolution, when victors are rewarded and enemies
> punished; when empires or nations are forged or destroyed; when
> treaties are signed and boundaries redrawn; and when peace is
> accepted, troops repatriated, and life begun anew.

> One large chapter of history ends, and another starts. In a very
> real sense, one society dies -- and another is born.

The basic concept is that the crisis war climax is the ONLY thing
that can launch a generational saeculum. Having it happen next door
generally won't count. For example, the Mexican Revolution didn't
generate a crisis for us.

So you ask, "Is it possible that World War II was such a big,
traumatic event world wide that most of the world got on more-or-less
the US/UK saecular rhythm?" The answer has to be almost always "no,"
as far as I know.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Kevin,

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

> I also wonder what his explanation is for the mechanism of the
> pre-industrial saeculum, which IMHO even the Authors never
> satisfactorily explained? That is to say, if people were coming of
> age at 20 how did we end up with a 100-year saeculum with four
> strokes rather than five?

This problem has caused a great deal of confusion to readers of TFT.
My own analysis indicates that a 100 year saeculum is possible,
though rare, and that there are indeed five "strokes." As I
mentioned in my last posting, I've done some work on "fifth
turnings," where a fifth turning is a distinctly different era that
comes about because there was no crisis war during the fourth
turning. This work was based on new research by Prof. Robert Pape on
suicide bombers that was published after the 7/7 London subway
bombings.
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...=145535#145535
http://fourthturning.com/forums/view...=145539#145539

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

> My explanation is that there were only two phases of life that had
> any impact on society... pre-adulthood, and adulthood which was
> reached at about age 25 when the eldest male either took over the
> family business upon the death of his Dad at around 50, or
> completed his apprenticeship and could afford to start his own
> business and take a wife. So we had in effect two, two-stroke
> half-saeculi 50 years long with only two generational archetypes
> active at a given time.

I don't think this really accords with what we've seen.

As I've mentioned, the generational cycle is generated by the crisis
war climax. This climax traumatizes everyone who lives through it,
and unifies their political views. They impose austere rules and
compromises so that their children will never have to go through what
they went through. Their children are unappreciative, however, and
the new Prophet generation starts rebelling when they come of age --
often as early as 15 years after the crisis war climax. (This is the
first example of what Bob Butler calls a "cognitive disconnect.")
That's when the Awakening era begins, and the austere rules and
compromises begin to unravel, eventually leading to another crisis
war.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Richard,
...

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> If this true then I really don't see the "dynamics" of your GD
> model. What fuels your endogenously controlled system? What are
> the boundaries of control? How does your system communicate
> internally? If everybody is "acting in a separate, independent
> manner," as you say, then you seem to have ruled out the
> possibility that your model allows for "entanglements," like those
> of quantum-mechanical systems. I would think that 6.5 billion
> quanta should have some cohesive features that resemble the
> entangled communication of generational/cohort information. You
> seem fairly well set up for a quantum-mechanical argument.

I think that you really have to think a little bit more out of the
box here. We know from fluid dynamics that molecules form waves
because of exogenous forces -- like the gravity of the moon.

But now let's look at it completely differently. What happens if we
take away the exogenous forces, but we give the fluid molecules
intelligence. What would it take for those molecules to form waves
now?

That's what happens with 6.5 billion people...

[http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...60224#e060224]

In this example, we see how moms, during an awakening period,
inhibit the movement toward war. During crisis periods, we
can imagine that moms encourage the movement toward war,
telling their sons go fight for the honor of family and country.

So that's an example of how moms "oscillate" during generational
changes. They're still independent elements, but they tend oscillate
in unison, and thus they form waves. And of course, all other people
tend to "oscillate" in some similar way, and so it's the interactions
of the people themselves that cause the oscillations, rather than
exogenous forces.

OK, John, I think I get it. And I agree with much of what you say, especially about thinking "outside the box." Indeed! After thinking it all over I've concluded that too much is asked of historians if you press them for any phyiscal principles supporting their proclaimed "dynamical" (or, in Mike Alexander's case, "mechanical") models. Perhaps I quibble too much over metaphors. My own predisposition, admittedly quixotic, draws me into the realms of gravitational physics and quantum mechanics, because I think there really are co-oscillating forces and rhythms that account for all biological activity. And so I see humans as biological quanta in a social milieu that needs to be modeled like mold growing on a falling rock.

I'm not actually sure if I am thinking inside or outside the box.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> I personally think it could be argued as a co-oscillating torus --
> four stokes to the cycle -- involving the dynamics of entrainment
> and catastrophe to explain the saecular rotation. Perhaps these
> feature are actually there in your GD model, and that they need
> only a small shift of focus to bring them out. I liked your
> discussion of the 1:4 ratio of coming-of-age duration vs. life
> span. I agree with much of it, but I still have a few questions
> about what exactly is dynamical about your Generational Dynamics.

These are very interesting ideas. For example, when I talk about moms
first inhibiting and then encouraging the movment toward war,
entrainment certainly plays a part. Maybe this is the evolutionary
reason for why women share so much with each other. That kind of
sharing is needed to keep the generational waves going.

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> If your imaginary planet bearing intelligent, human-like creatures
> is embraced by seasons having rhythmic features of 3 or 5 or 7,
> then I'll agree to its first principle of dynamics: exogenously
> supplied conditional information. On Earth, that information is
> supplied by the combined periodic effects of: 1) Earth's rotation
> in space and time, 2) the moon's periodic revolution about Earth,
> and 3) Earth's periodic revolution about the sun. The fact that
> Earth's axis is tilted only serves to amplify the seasonal
> effect.

I don't follow this. What's the "first principle of dynamics:
exogenously supplied conditional information" mean?

Good question. I take them to mean the laws of nature.

You know, I think you are proposing a "nurturing" model here. And this is interesting. It allows for a differentiation between nurture and nature, which seems important for interpreting the biological activity taking place. I have to agree with you that maternal nurturing is a true "force" in nature. (Try snatching a grizzly bear cub from its mother arms!) At times, I see your model as a kind of quantum-catastrophe-theory operation, with nurturing entanglements and a collapsing wave function.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Originally Posted by Croakmore

> Analogies are like ostriches; they hide from the truth. —Dorsel
> Hugbum

I don't know about that. How can we teach or learn things that are
beyond our abilities to see or hear if we can't use analogies?

Of course. I was just having fun with Epimenides Paradox.

Keep up the good work.

-- Croakmore