Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

While I'm into S&H style cycle theory, I would not assume it is the dominant mechanism in human history.

IMO the saeculum is an epiphenomenon of civilizations. In primitive societies society is essentially backward looking, towards traditions and long dead ancestors; in such societies social change is based on cultural "mutations". In civilizations society is forward-looking, geared towards creative personalities that consciously drive social change. The saeculum is a emergent feature that keeps civilizations from being pulled dangerously far in one direction by a particular person or group of "creative minorities", an Awakening or Crisis will come along and pull things back.

Originally Posted by Odin

Woe is he who tries to pigeonhole history into a mechanistic straitjacket.

Generational theory is about the moods and actions of large masses of people. Most major events (and plenty of minor ones) in human history can be tied directly to generational theory. Not to mention the four turnings. I don't consider that a straitjacket.

Originally Posted by The Pervert

You probably wouldn't have been impressed with England's 4T during the 1860s, either, but it still happened. At least one professional historian has found the Hero, Artist, and Prophet generations that resulted from it.

FWIW, I interpret the events differently than you do. The economic rough patch and southern rebellion--social moment. Allowing effective multiparty elections--regeneracy. Collapse of the PRI and replacement by PAN--climax. The results may be a disappointment to you, but they're still results and still interpretable as 4T events.

I did consider this, but frankly, I have family in Mexico (Durango and Sinaloa), and they are not happy with the PAN. Even though they have money (a lot of money by Mexican standards, middle-class by American standards), they were supporting the PRD in 2006 because they saw that nothing had been accomplished for the poor. Not under the PRI, not under Fox. Really, this doesn't sound like a country recently gone 1T that feels all its civic and institutional problems were "resolved" in the 4T. It sounds like a country that is still 3T waiting for a regeneracy and some real action.

Now, maybe there was an extremely mild and boring 4T in Mexico starting around 1988 and either just ended or soon to end. But then, why are things still tense and eerily quiet in this country? Why isn't the furor peaking as one would expect in a climaxed 4T country? And why is there still so much division? Look at the election map for 2006. This country is the epitome of red-state/blue-state culture war division: the north went for Calderon, the south for Lopez Obrador. The water hasn't come to a boil yet, it's still simmering. That means the 4T hasn't come yet.

Was England still tense, divided, and eerily calm after its 1860s 4T was over?

Originally Posted by 1990

Was England still tense, divided, and eerily calm after its 1860s 4T was over?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

Originally Posted by 1990

I did consider this, but frankly, I have family in Mexico (Durango and Sinaloa), and they are not happy with the PAN. Even though they have money (a lot of money by Mexican standards, middle-class by American standards), they were supporting the PRD in 2006 because they saw that nothing had been accomplished for the poor. Not under the PRI, not under Fox. Really, this doesn't sound like a country recently gone 1T that feels all its civic and institutional problems were "resolved" in the 4T. It sounds like a country that is still 3T waiting for a regeneracy and some real action.

I'm wondering if you go to Mexico to visit your relations 1990?

I used to think Mexico was now in a 4T, however I do have my doubts, I get a feeling Latin America in general is currently in a late 3T, maybe a very early 4T, I am not very informed of current events there.

Well I get a feeling Argentina and especially Chile were in an awakening in the 70's, time of the Juntas in Argentina and Andelle and Pichonet in Chile. I remember the 60's being an era in Mexico where similar youth upheavals were occuring to those in the USA.

Also heard in the 60's young people across Latin America were coming of age and ralling aganist the injustices of their society.

Another couple of things there has something of a religious revival in Latin America occuring in recent decades, especially with large numbers of people converting to various Protestant sects. Kind of similar to what has been happening in the West and especially the USA since the Boomers came of age.

I know online a young guy from Venezuela, what he describes about his country sounds a lot like a country currently in a third turning, complete with a demogue midlife prophert leader (Hugo Chavez)

I could be wrong although.

If I am right in Latin America being on roughly the same saeculum as us, that only leaves The Middle East (midway through a 3T), Japan (Early 3T maybe) and maybe Korea (same as Japan probably) which is not roughly on our saeculum.

This would make the 4T to come a nearly global event.

Originally Posted by 1990

According to Mr. Xenakis' most recent posting on GD, Japan and China are drifting further and further apart. Shinzo Abe seems to be a tough post-War baby, like the Boomers here, and will probably be a more hawkish ally of the United States than some of his predecessors have been.

Ironically, if Japan and China end up on opposite sides of the World War, it will probably be a total reversal of WWII (in WWII, we were with China and against Japan; this time Japan will almost surely be our friend and China our enemy).

Wild times we're headed for.

Much to Xenakis credit China is going to head for an economic collapse soon, which will most likely trigger the 4T. The ruining of the Chinese economy will release all hell in China. Revolution or maybe Civil War could be likely.

However I feel Japan is nowhere near a 4T, I've researched Japanese history to some extent and they are either now at the end of an awakening or beginning of an unraveling. The current Japanese Prime Minister is a member of an Artist generation.

Japan does have a prophet generation, but they fill more or less the cohorts where the X'ers are, the name for their generation is the 'New Humans'. Interestingly they have rejected the conformist salaryman lifestyle which was a part of Japanese society in the 70's and 80's, questioned established values, experimenting with new lifestyles and spirituality (many of that generation say their childhoods were a spiritual void.

Originally Posted by Tristan

Much to Xenakis credit China is going to head for an economic collapse soon...

Dear Mr. Jones,
I do not think that even Mr. Xenakis would claim that he is destroying the economic structure of the Celestial Middle Kingdom. Mr. Xenakis is weird; that is, he foretells the future. But, I don't think he is so wicked as to plunge a billion Eurasians into civil strife just to raise his % of accuracy!

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Dear Mr. Jones,
I do not think that even Mr. Xenakis would claim that he is destroying the economic structure of the Celestial Middle Kingdom. Mr. Xenakis is weird; that is, he foretells the future. But, I don't think he is so wicked as to plunge a billion Eurasians into civil strife just to raise his % of accuracy!

Sorry my bad, I was meant to say I give Mr. Xenakis credit for predicting China's forthcoming economic collpase.

After my discussion with John about my event density methods, I decided to return to the basic task and collect a fresh set of data. It is much easier to find stuff on the net today than in 2000 and so I felt I could probably find more info. The gold standard of the type of data is a long list of relevant events that spans many centuries all obtained from a single source whose reason for compliing the list has nothing to do with cyclical history. THe best database I had found was a list of classical composer birthdates. I used it to answer the question, is there a saecular pattern to the frequency of composer births. That is, are some turnigns more conducive to the study of music and so some periods would feature more activity than others? It was easy to analyze the composer data and find no regular cycles in composer births and no correlation with turnings.

When I did this analysis with the birth dates of relgious or spiritual people (mostly founders of relgious groups like Joseph Smith or Roman Catholic saints like St. Francis of Assisi) I did find a correlation with the saeculum. There was a statistically significant correlation between spirtual people and prophet generations.

I repeated this analysis with a new set of spiritual people. Its contains almost all of the previous people plus hundreds of new ones, almost all RC saints. My data base now has over 600 names and aproaches the size and quality of the composer database. Alas, I found no regular cycles and no correlation with the saeculum. It is just like the composers. This forces me to take out all the saints in my second database of religious spiritual events, that I use to identify awakenings. The cycles in this data base no longer show the regular cycle nor do they show statistically-significant correlation with the saeculum.

I also re-examined the unrest data I use for social moment identification. I assembled a brand new data set taking advantage of a few exhaustive sources that list many events of a particular type over along period of time. One such resource lists all peasant uprisings, broken down by country in Europe over 1300-1800. Another source lists important US strikes with hundreds of entries. Another lists of slave uprisings, a fourth race riots and a fifth list US civil disurbances since the 18th century. This data still shows a cyclical structure, but the significance level is in the 90% range, it does not exceed the 95% level.

I now feel very confident of the quality of my event-based data--but no longer have any statistically signficant results. The results I had obtained with other data sets (alcohol use, crime, prices, etc) was always suggestive rather than definitive. With the loss of the multicentury religious and unrest correlations I am left with a set of correlations over realtively short periods of time, none of which rise to 95% condience level, that are weakly correlated with each other--but not to the 95% level.

The joint probability of all these factors lining up the way they do is still 99% significant. But cycles and alignment between prices, economic output, and unrest can be considered as evidence for a Kondratiev cycle, not the saeculum per se. It was the saeculum-aligned religious cycle, which would not be expected to correlate with economic cycles that created the compelling connection between the two cycles. It was the religious data that made the crime data cycle relevant, which now it is not.

Without the religious cycle, most everything I have can be considered a K-cycle thing just as easily as a saeculum thing. And I don't have to do an inversion of the relation and deal with a civil war anomaly if I just drop the saeculum altogther as a useful concept. The only benefit to the saeculum has been to allow for high stock market values (and kept me in the market longer). A purely K-cycle approach would have me much more bearish than I actually am. Being bullish has been the right view.

Having fooled myself into seeing saeculum where there weren't any, I wonder whether there is anything to this stuff. Like for example, our inability to "see" the 4T. Why is it so hard to see? Unless, maybe, there is nothing to see?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

When I did this analysis with the birth dates of relgious or spiritual people (mostly founders of relgious groups like Joseph Smith or Roman Catholic saints like St. Francis of Assisi) I did find a correlation with the saeculum. There was a statistically significant correlation between spirtual people and prophet generations.

I repeated this analysis with a new set of spiritual people. Its contains almost all of the previous people plus hundreds of new ones, almost all RC saints. My data base now has over 600 names and aproaches the size and quality of the composer database. Alas, I found no regular cycles and no correlation with the saeculum. It is just like the composers. This forces me to take out all the saints in my second database of religious spiritual events, that I use to identify awakenings. The cycles in this data base no longer show the regular cycle nor do they show statistically-significant correlation with the saeculum.

Maybe adding in "lesser" RC saints just muddies the water. What I mean is that there are good, saintly people in each generation, but perhaps Prophets are more likely to be founders of religions or major religious leaders. Adding the saints, who probably were founders of monestaries or martyrs, detracts from what makes the Prophet religious leaders significant.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Maybe adding in "lesser" RC saints just muddies the water. What I mean is that there are good, saintly people in each generation, but perhaps Prophets are more likely to be founders of religions or major religious leaders. Adding the saints, who probably were founders of monestaries or martyrs, detracts from what makes the Prophet religious leaders significant.

Unfortunately that's not the case. In the original analysis the saint data were critical to producing the cyclical effect. I have also compiled a new event-based database that leaves out the saints and it doesn't work either.

What happened is exactly what I was afraid off, unconscious cherry picking. For example John accused me of cherry picking event in the early 17th century that gave an awakening in the 1630's. In a way I did exactly what John said I did because I used some American timelines. When do these timelines start? In the early 17th century. What would be the first events that would strike me as religious or spiritual in nature? It wouldn't be the founding ogf Jamestown in 1607 (that was a business proposition). It would be the founding of the early settlements by religious groups seeking religious freedom like the Pilgrims. Then there were other colonies founded for religious purposes like Boston 1630 and Rhode Island in 1636. And a number of religious "firsts" in American like Anne Hutchinson being the first one banned from the Boston colony appear in the timelines and gets noted by me, but the second or third or fourth person to suffer the same fate (no longer being a first) don't get listed in the timeline. The result, a bias towards 1630's events.

John asked why the 1620 Plymouth date goes into the database, but not the 1607 date when the Pilgrims fled to Holland. The reason is I was using a American timeline, the 1607 event wasn't listed. Now I also used generic religious timelines. None of these mentioned the 1607 event nor did they mention the petition to King James to produce the KJB. But they also did not mention all the American events about religious colonies in the 1630's. So while they missed some events from the 1600-1620 period (which is why they don't appear in my database) they alsomissed a bunch of 1630's events that do appear in my database because I also used American timelines that would miss pre-Mayflower events.

This is why using extensive single sources that span many centuries (like the saints) is so useful. I get even-handed sampling of all turnings because the constructors of the data (e.g. the canonizers of saints or the religious scholar constructing a timeline) are not doing so with the saeculum in mind. Thus, there is no reason to assume that they have biased their data towards one turning (or generation) type over another. But when you use data from lots of sources that extend over short periods you can get bias from "oversampling" of some periods (lots of sources with events at this time) and under-sampling of events from other periods (few sources cover this period), that is, what I call "overlap bias".

None of these biases exist with the saints. If Awakenings exist then the extraordinarily religious people who get canonized would be more commonly "doing their saintly thing" during Awakenings. The saint data don't have the bias I mentioned above because all their "firsts" would have been more than a 1000 years ago. Besides the popes don't have the saeculum in mind when they choose people to canonize. John Paul II canonized a huge number of people, probably more than any other pope (his choices weren't in the database in 2000). I rather doubt he he would "cherry pick" Prophets by canonizing them preferentially over the other archetypes just to make the saeculum come out right. The fact appears to be that saints fall more or less equally into all kinds of generations. Prophets aren't any more likely to be saints over the long stretch of history

Japan's recent turnings seem to have been as follows:

3T: 1920-1939
4T: 1940-1960
1T: 1960-1983
2T: 1983-2002
3T: 2002-Present.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Japan's recent turnings seem to have been as follows:

3T: 1920-1939
4T: 1940-1960
1T: 1960-1983
2T: 1983-2002
3T: 2002-Present.

That's absolutely ridiculous. 1960 is the beginning of an awakening era with student protests and riots across the country. The social upheaval in Japan during that decade mirrors the US. I refuse to discuss Japan any further.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

That's absolutely ridiculous. 1960 is the beginning of an awakening era with student protests and riots across the country. The social upheaval in Japan during that decade mirrors the US. I refuse to discuss Japan any further.

Japan in 50's had a lot of student activism and protests (these died off in the 70's and 80's), 4T student activism is aimed towards changing the world (we will see that kind of activism soon enough), 2T student activism is more towards change your head. Idealists are actually more disclined to be involved in politics than Civics are, if it wasn't for Vietnam the Boomers would have just "Turn on, tune in, drop out".

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

A model for coming World War scenarios

Dear Bob,

Now let me turn to your arguments about GGs:



It's true that I see the threat from terrorism -- alone -- as being
less serious than you do, but that's a relative concept. Compared to
a real 4T war, the "war on terror" is nothing. A few trade centers
knocked down, a few night clubs and subways blown up -- those are
horrible acts, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, but
they're nothing compared to the coming world war that will kill
BILLIONS of people. Relatively speaking, the threat from terrorism
alone is minuscule compared to what's coming.

The fact is that I can't even imagine a scenario that leads to a 4T
war without nations being at war with nations. Certainly nothing
like that is going to happen in Iraq, as you seem to be implying.
The Iraqis simply want to expel al-Qaeda and then expel America.
They do not want a war.

In the case of China, as I discussed at length in my last posting,
any number of events might trigger a national panic in China right
now. The mood is right, and conditions are right. Some kind of
chaotic event on the part of America or Japan or Taiwan or Tibet or
India or al-Qaeda could be the trigger that historians will "blame"
as the "cause" of the war.

A war could also be triggered any day now in the Mideast. I
mentioned in my last posting that if last summer's Israeli war had
occurred with Lebanon in a Crisis Era instead of an Awakening Era,
then Lebanon would have retaliated, and the world war would probably
have begun already.

But Gaza IS in a Crisis era, and the level of violence has been
escalating every day recently. This could spiral out of control any
day now.

We already have a crisis civil war going on in Darfur, and the Sri
Lanka civil war is escalating into a crisis war.

But there's another important point that you're overlooking, and it's
something that few people are even aware of.

As world population has continued to increase, and since the gains
from the 1960s "green revolution" petered out in the 1990s, food per
capita has been decreasing, and the price of food has been increasing
dramatically around the world.

Around the world there are "megacities," each containing tens of
millions of people with no access to farmland. Families in poverty in
those cities often survive by foraging in large garbage dumps for
scraps of food left over by people who can afford to buy food. As
population continues to increase, this problem of megacities will
multiply. These problems have occurred in cycles throughout human
history, and have gotten many times worse in the last two centuries
because medical discoveries have lowered the infant mortality rate
from 40-50% to 1-2%. That's why, for example, the death rate (as
percentage of population) was ten times higher in WW II than it was in
the Napoleonic wars.

We're approaching the Clash of Civilizations world war, at a time
when infant mortality has fallen far, leading to masses of people who
are packed by the millions into large megacities, in a fragile world
where any economic dislocation can cause mass starvation, creating
huge pools of young men ready for war.

Here's where you see the real power of GGs and terrorists. Terrorist
acts can inflame populations, and when you have a huge mass of young
men who can't feed their families and have to forage for food in
garbage dumps, then they have nothing to lose by spontaneous riots,
civil wars, or external wars. At least when you're in an army, you
get fed and you get paid with money you can send back to your family.

And one of the largest megacities in the world is Mexico City, the
capital of Mexico, with some 20 million people. A major financial
crisis will strike Mexico very hard (as well as many other countries
with poverty-stricken megacities). Generational Dynamics predicts that
Mexico is headed soon for a new civil war along the
European/indigenous fault line, and that this civil war will spill
over into the southwestern U.S., especially in California where 1/3 of
the population is Mexican.

It's impossible to predict the precise scenario that will lead to the
coming world war, but I do have a model that I've never posted before
that provides a framework for generating possible scenarios.

Let's start with the following hierarchy of world events:

• Level 5 - World War. The Clash of Civilizations world war.
  
• Level 4 - One or two regional wars. A civil war, or a
  nation vs nation war, but confined to a single region.
  
• Level 3 - Sustained low-level violence. Guerrilla warfare,
  a series of terrorist attacks.
  
• Level 2 - Occasional violence or terrorism. A riot in
  Watts, or bomb in a college science lab.
  
• Level 1 - Political conflict. This is typical of Awakening
  eras across generational (horizontal) lines. We're seeing it today
  as well, but across fault (vertical) lines. Also, larges masses of
  population in poverty versus a fault line separating them from
  élite well-fed market-dominant people, usually of a different
  religion or ethnicity.
  
• Level 0 - Era of good feeling. Everyone gets along with
  everyone.

Now, the things you're talking about with GGs are around Level 2 or
Level 3.

Here's the point you're missing: During Crisis Eras (fourth
turnings), chaotic surprises push events UP to higher levels. This
is the opposite of an Awakening era, for example, where chaotic
surprises push events DOWN to lower levels.

The reason that most people don't realize or understand that chaotic
surprise push events UP to higher levels is because they haven't seen
it in their lifetimes. This is exactly the point that Strauss and
Howe made when they say that "some sparks flare and then vanish, while
others touch off firestorms out of any proportion to the sparks
themselves." This is precisely the argument that sparks are chaotic
events (in the sense of Chaos Theory), and these chaotic events can,
during a Crisis Era, move events up to higher levels during a Crisis
Era.

So if we want to develop a scenario leading to the Clash of
Civilizations world war, we can select from menu of events at each of
the six levels, and show how that escalation might occur.

Let's look at the menu of some of the elements:

• Level 1 - Political conflict. America, UK, Israel,
  Palestinians, France, Turkey, China, and other countries that fought
  in WW II as a crisis war are politically paralyzed today, as the
  Artist generation has disappeared. Leaders in these countries can no
  longer govern, but can only whine and complain.
  
• Level 2 - Occasional violence or terrorism. America 9/11,
  UK 7/7, Madrid 3/7, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Russia and other
  countries have had occasional terrorist acts. France had riots in
  2005 by Muslim youth, and then in 2006 by ethnic French youth
  responding to the Muslims. China has tens of thousands of regional
  riots each year.
  
• Level 3 - Sustained low-level violence. This is mainly
  al-Qaeda and, to a lesser extent, Hizbollah, in countries around the
  world. Other guerrilla wars are occurring in Africa and Latin
  America.
  
• Level 4 - One or two regional wars. Darfur is the only
  regional crisis war going on in the world today, though the Sri Lanka
  civil war is getting close.

Now, this list provides a model for coming up with scenarios for the
coming world war. All you have to do is select an event from one of
the levels, and then imagine a chaotic "spark" that might escalate
the event up to higher levels.

For example, start with the political conflict (Level 1) in
Venezuela. Hugo Chávez is shutting down a popular TV station, and
yesterday there were huge anti-government demonstrations in Caracas.
http://voanews.com/english/2007-05-27-voa2.cfm

Let's imagine that these demonstrations begin to involve violence
(Level 2). This leads to a clash between al-Qaeda cells and
Hizbollah cells in Caracas. This leads to a sympathy conflict
between Sunni and Shia group within Iran. These conflicts die out,
because Iran is in an Awakening era, but they spread to Pakistan,
which is in a Crisis Era. The level of violence continues to
increase in Pakistan, leading to an increased level of terrorist
attacks (Level 3). The government of Pakistan becomes increasingly
unstable, causing a civil war between different ethnic groups in
Pakistan. The civil war between these ethnic groups spreads to the
same ethnic groups in India, destabilizing the government there. The
conflict spreads to Kashmir, leading to a ground war between India and
Pakistan (Level 4). China threatens to come in on the side of
Pakistan, causing Russia to threaten to come in on the side of India.
Either Pakistan or India uses a nuclear weapon, bringing China and
Russia into the war (Level 4.5). Other countries in the region are
forced to choose sides, and eventually the U.S. is pulled into the war
(Level 5).

Now of course that scenario is far-fetched, but so is every scenario,
and one of these far-fetched scenarios will lead to world war. You
can come up with other possible scenarios just mixing and matching
events, just like the word magnet game.
http://www.worldvillage.com/kidz/puzzles/scramble.htm

The crisis civil war in Darfur has not spread to other regions
because there are no relevant interlocking treaties. (I'm ignoring
Chad and Central African Republic in this statement.) As far as I
know, the same is true of the escalating Sri Lanka civil war.

I've identified six regions on my web site where interlocking
treaties will cause a regional war to spread to a world war. These
are: Western Europe, Mideast (Arab/Israeli), Russia Caucasus, Kashmir
(India/Pakistan), China, North Korea. In addition, I've identifed
two major non-war events that could trigger world war: a global
financial crisis and a bird flu epidemic.

Acts of terror alone, as horrible as they are, do not constitute a 4T
war in any sense that I'm aware of. However, they're an important
part of almost any scenario leading to the Clash of Civilizations
world war.

Sincerely,

John

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

John -

Sorry for not responding earlier. I sort of lost the thread and other threads had an emotional hold over me (i.e., see crosswalk vigilante justice under Plame/Treasongate). However, it looks like you got some very good responses from others to your thoughtful presentations.

It seems that there is general agreement that internal strife is a growing threat within those nation-states nearing or within their 4T. Further, there seems to be agreement that these internal conflict have or will have significant likelihood of 'bleedover' into other nation-states (e.g. Pakistan strife bleeding over into India).

Historically, such bleedover can lead to nation-on-nation conflict due to either (1) the perception (real or not) that the other nation is supporting the internal strife within the other (e.g. Iran's purported support of the Iraqi insurgency) or (2) the nation's leadership needing an external enemy to rally unity amongst its internal conflicting elements (e.g. China attacking Taiwan to unite its population in a common cause).

As Michael Easton so elegantly stated elsewhere, I too don't count on cool heads always prevailing in a 4T, and I do expect that both (1) and (2) will more than likely occur. However, I think the trend will be an increasing awareness and eventual clear understanding that these strategies will be ineffective in quailing the internal strife from continuing towards a failed or hollowed-out nation-state. We are learning that now in Iraq.

It is one thing to risk nuclear exchange (with its consequences ranging from a failed world economic system to nuclear winter) to use these two strategies when they are viewed as helpful, it would be something else to use them if they are clearly known to have become ineffective.

Why they will increasingly be seen as ineffective is that the nature of the bleedover is not nationalistic, it comes from non-state entities driven by religious, tribal or criminal motivations. To attack another nation-state for the bleedover will be like using the wrong dimensions to solve a problem (sorry, I've been helping my son study the balancing of chemical equations).

Sure China's current desire for Taiwan is nationalistic but the internal conflicting forces currently expanding within China are not; and the nation-state's charging of Taiwan while it may be attempted will not appease those growing internal conflicts.

What is likely to rip apart Pakistan, religious and tribal fever, does not provide any nationalistic basis for attacking India; it is driven by a religious hatred of the Hindu that exceeds even that toward the West. Would that Muslim hatred of the Hindu be eradicated by turning all of Pakistan and much of India into radioactive glass? I think not.

The growing Mexican 5GW that we so far have only seen a mere trickle of what is to come is not going to be solved by us attacking Mexico. At best, we will need to work with the Mexican government to slow the hollowing-out of our nation-states' credibility on both sides of the border.

The coming 5GW that will eventually make Venezuela the next Nigeria will have Chavez screaming that it is a Yankee plot (and at least initially, it might be ;-), but even if he could do something to attack us (and he may foster 5GW in our homeland), it won't quail his nation-state from being hollowed out. We, in fact, with our huge dependency, will likely try to rescue him.

Where I see the difference between this 4T and the last is that in the last one it was the nation-on-nation conflict that was the prime; in this 4T, it will only be relegated to an occasional tactic used by non-state entities to hallow-out or eliminate the nation-states involved.

In one of your posts above, you said it doesn't matter if-Bush-or-not or what-he-does-or-does-not-in-Iraq. This reminds me of the old nature-vs- environment argument where the inevitability of the 4T is our nature, our inevitability fate. But let's not forget our "environment" influences. Perhaps the 4T is inevitable, but certainly its scope, magnitude and most importantly, its outcome will be dictated in large measure by the actors on the stage.

It is hard to imagine the intensity of WW2 without being driven at least initially by the charismatic personal appeal of Hitler to the German people. It is hard to imagine the staying power of the Union forces without the personal will of Lincoln, and the same is true of George Washington. And the inevitability of the 4T doesn't mean it all goes well, just ask King George or Jeff Davis.

I would prefer, for my inevitable 4T, the best and the brightest. Unfortunately ....

Sincerely,

Bob S.

Xenakis' writings are not only generally simplistic and sometimes glaringly inaccurate but generally also have apocalyptic religious overtones in my opinion. If anyone remembers the newprophecy.net site I posted several months ago there seems to be very little difference between GD and newprophecy asofar the themes of the sites are concerned. John also seems to overestimate the military capabilities of countries such as China, and Iran, while understimating those of the US india, israel and Europe. In constrast he MASSIVELY overestimates the diplomatic and cultural hold of the US in world affairs and the significance of relations with the US in other countries.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Xenakis' writings are not only generally simplistic and sometimes glaringly inaccurate but generally also have apocalyptic religious overtones in my opinion. If anyone remembers the newprophecy.net site I posted several months ago there seems to be very little difference between GD and newprophecy asofar the themes of the sites are concerned. John also seems to overestimate the military capabilities of countries such as China, and Iran, while understimating those of the US india, israel and Europe. In constrast he MASSIVELY overestimates the diplomatic and cultural hold of the US in world affairs and the significance of relations with the US in other countries.

Perhaps apocalyptic, but I think the simplistic charge is unfair. I think John is trying to reach the power brokers and get them thinking about cyclical history and all its ramifications. I myself would think it beneficial for our power brokers to give more thought to history's lessons, whether cyclical or not.

But, if you accept this as a useful objective, then given that the intended audience of power brokers are those in the current Administration and in Congress, it is important for John to be as simplistic as possible and still get his message across. Further, if he does get their attention, he should plan to talk reeeaaallll sslllowwww.....

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Unfortunately that's not the case. In the original analysis the saint data were critical to producing the cyclical effect. I have also compiled a new event-based database that leaves out the saints and it doesn't work either.

What happened is exactly what I was afraid off, unconscious cherry picking. For example John accused me of cherry picking event in the early 17th century that gave an awakening in the 1630's. In a way I did exactly what John said I did because I used some American timelines. When do these timelines start? In the early 17th century. What would be the first events that would strike me as religious or spiritual in nature? It wouldn't be the founding ogf Jamestown in 1607 (that was a business proposition). It would be the founding of the early settlements by religious groups seeking religious freedom like the Pilgrims. Then there were other colonies founded for religious purposes like Boston 1630 and Rhode Island in 1636. And a number of religious "firsts" in American like Anne Hutchinson being the first one banned from the Boston colony appear in the timelines and gets noted by me, but the second or third or fourth person to suffer the same fate (no longer being a first) don't get listed in the timeline. The result, a bias towards 1630's events.

John asked why the 1620 Plymouth date goes into the database, but not the 1607 date when the Pilgrims fled to Holland. The reason is I was using a American timeline, the 1607 event wasn't listed. Now I also used generic religious timelines. None of these mentioned the 1607 event nor did they mention the petition to King James to produce the KJB. But they also did not mention all the American events about religious colonies in the 1630's. So while they missed some events from the 1600-1620 period (which is why they don't appear in my database) they alsomissed a bunch of 1630's events that do appear in my database because I also used American timelines that would miss pre-Mayflower events.

This is why using extensive single sources that span many centuries (like the saints) is so useful. I get even-handed sampling of all turnings because the constructors of the data (e.g. the canonizers of saints or the religious scholar constructing a timeline) are not doing so with the saeculum in mind. Thus, there is no reason to assume that they have biased their data towards one turning (or generation) type over another. But when you use data from lots of sources that extend over short periods you can get bias from "oversampling" of some periods (lots of sources with events at this time) and under-sampling of events from other periods (few sources cover this period), that is, what I call "overlap bias".

None of these biases exist with the saints. If Awakenings exist then the extraordinarily religious people who get canonized would be more commonly "doing their saintly thing" during Awakenings. The saint data don't have the bias I mentioned above because all their "firsts" would have been more than a 1000 years ago. Besides the popes don't have the saeculum in mind when they choose people to canonize. John Paul II canonized a huge number of people, probably more than any other pope (his choices weren't in the database in 2000). I rather doubt he he would "cherry pick" Prophets by canonizing them preferentially over the other archetypes just to make the saeculum come out right. The fact appears to be that saints fall more or less equally into all kinds of generations. Prophets aren't any more likely to be saints over the long stretch of history

A suggestion, perhaps there is a generational pattern in what most saints did to get sainthood. A civic gen saint would be more likely to be sainted for some church-related institution building or for doing "good works", while an idealist (or maybe adaptive) gen saint would have been canonized for more intensely spiritual stuff.

Originally Posted by Odin

A suggestion, perhaps there is a generational pattern in what most saints did to get sainthood. A civic gen saint would be more likely to be sainted for some church-related institution building or for doing "good works", while an idealist (or maybe adaptive) gen saint would have been canonized for more intensely spiritual stuff.

LOL, only a Civic would refer to religion as "more intensely spiritual stuff".

Dear Justin,

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> Oh, you followed the trial, did you? Then you know that
> Khordokovsky never even tried to deny the charges against him --
> that he instead retained a lawyer who didn't even speak Russian to
> harangue and threaten the presiding judge about the consequences
> of "going against world opinion"? Or the fact that the only
> particularly unfair thing about his conviction is the number of
> equally-crooked so-called "businessmen" who are still walking
> around free. Or that, aside from his threats and theatrics, the
> trial itself was fairly cut-and-dry; evidence was presented, not
> rebutted, and the decision following from it handed down. The
> decision to prosecute was almost certainly politically-motivated;
> but the facts of his guilt are hardly in dispute.

As I said, this might be credible if the trial had had any appearance
of transparence, or if Yukos had remained in private hands.
And you don't defend the fairness of the trial either. Instead of
explaining why the trial was transparent, you make a lot of
transparent excuses -- you don't like his lawyer, etc.

The fact that Khordokovsky was the only one prosecuted in this way --
and just happened to be Putin's political opponent -- is exactly the
point -- it was a political trial, selective prosecution of Putin's
political opponent.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> (And parenthetically, a 'KGB job' generally ended in a 'control
> shot' to the head; Khordorkovsky's tale of woe hardly rises to
> that level)

> [Re Estonia] He might be. What I fail to see is any compelling --
> or even plausible, frankly -- evidence that he might be the one
> doing it. There are lots of players who would stand to benefit
> from such a thing, and nothing at all points particularly towards
> any one of them... It is a scuzzy thing to do, but Putin's hardly
> the only scuzzball in the world.

The fact that I have to explain this obvious thing to you indicates
that you may be prevaricating.

Putin's message is: Don't cross me, or I'll smash your knuckles, blow
your head off, poison you with polonium, or put you in jail for life.
If you're a country, we'll shut down your imports and cripple your web
sites. If you're a continent, we'll point our missiles at you.

In other words, the motivation is intimidation. Even Garry Kasparov
was sent to jail.

According to multiple analysts I've heard, the cyber attack on
Estonia was so large that it required a lot of resources -- more than
an ordinary hacker or group of hackers could muster. According to
other analysts, polonium can only be obtained from government nuclear
institutions. And once again, the Khordokovsky trial was obviously a
sham. All of these things strongly give the appearance of KGB
involvement, and therefore Putin's involvement.

Now, you can argue -- quite correctly -- that no proof exists for
these claims, but the circumstantial evidence is enormous, especially
when you have Putin threatening Europe with missiles.

Sincerely,

John

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

To all:

I apologize for the length of time it's taken me to respond. I'm
just really overwhelmed with work these days. Not that I'm unhappy
about that -- it's good to have a steady income again, and I really
like being a systems programmer again. And I like what's happening
with my web site as well. But it does mean that I can't respond to
some things as fast as I'd like. I haven't read all the threads, but
if there's something I missed, let me know. (Though I really can't
say that I'm sorry that I missed / am missing PlameFlame.)

I'd like to make some general comments before responding to
individual posts.

First, a lot of people believe -- and this has been reported in the
press as well -- that any war will be a video game war, fought with
technology.

That's why, on my web site, I keep emphasizing the huge masses of
people. That's why I say things like: "Infant mortality has fallen
far, leading to masses of people who are packed by the millions into
large megacities, in a fragile world where any economic dislocation
can cause mass starvation, creating huge pools of young men ready for
war. Many of these megacities are already megaslums around the world,
filled with hundreds of millions of people squatting on marginal or
toxic land, drinking filthy water filled with excrement, just barely
surviving on the garbage left by others."

You have to understand that none of these megacities will survive in
anything like this form. Every one of the megaslums will become a
refugee crisis, with neighbor fighting neighbor for the little food
and water that's available. I can't predict that scenario -- you
tell me -- but history tells us that a couple of billion people are
going to die before this war is over.

Here's something to think about: A couple of years ago I did a little
research on nuclear weapons, something I know relatively little about.
What I found is that even large (10 megaton) nuclear weapons have a
kill radius of only 5-10 miles. Most nuclear weapons around today are
a lot smaller. If you assume that there are, say 20-30,000 of these
in the world, and assuming that every single one of them gets used,
then you'll still hardly make a dent in the world's population.

This coming war is going to be no different from other wars, in these
sense that most deaths will occur the old-fashioned way -- close
combat, hand to hand violence, starvation, disease, and so forth.
There'll be spectacular acts of genocide -- millions of people killed
with a single bomb or firebombing -- which already happened in WW II
-- but the great mass of deaths will be similar to all the previous
wars in history.

For those who still have doubts, it's probably because you have the
romantic notion that human beings always treat each other decently,
and just couldn't possibly kill each other in the ways and kinds of
numbers that I've been describing.

And yet everyone knows in their hearts that history doesn't support
that notion. When the time comes, people kill each other in the
greatest numbers possible by whatever means are available to them.
Think of the 1994 Rwanda, where a man would go next door, torture,
kill and dismember his neighbor, rape his wife, and kill and
dismember his wife and children.

If a country holds back at all, it's for political or legacy reasons
-- and politics is part of any war. But outside of political
considerations, when the time comes, no one holds back.

When does the time come? Strauss and Howe answered that question:
After the regeneracy, when the survival of a nation and its way of
life becomes the ONLY important thing, and the value of an individual
human life approaches zero.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> > Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

> > But we actually have an excellent example to look at last
> > summer: Israel's war against Hizbollah in Lebanon. This is
> > almost a textbook example of what can happen.

> > The "sparks" were, first, the abduction of an Israeli soldier
> > by Hamas, and then the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by
> > Hizbollah near the Lebanon border.

> > Now, Israeli soldiers had been abducted before; it was nothing
> > new. But Israel's response this time was entirely new. Israel
> > panicked and went to full-scale war against Hizbollah within
> > FOUR HOURS, with no plan and no achievable objective.

> I read that one entirely differently. From the short time to kick
> off to the way Bush backed Israel right from the start, Israel's
> attack was pre-planned, in the can, waiting for an excuse to
> launch.

I really don't think so, Bob. I followed the Israeli/Hizbollah war
very closely, and wrote numerous articles about it. I can't recall
any analysis that blames the war on Bush or the United States. Every
analysis I've seen, especially the definitive Winograd Commission
report, clearly places the blame on Prime Minister Olmert and Defense
Minister Peretz. And if it had been really "pre-planned," that would
be even worse, because it was such a disaster that I'd hate to think
that they screwed it up despite advance planning.

Here are three of the articles that I wrote in the aftermath of the
war:

Israeli governnment in crisis after report on war with Hizbollah
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...070504#e070504

Israel's Olmert blames the army for being unprepared for Lebanon war
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...070511#e070511

How Israel panicked in pursuing the summer Lebanon war with Hizbollah
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...061223#e061223

My articles also provide links to other sources. Or, if you prefer,
just google the words "winograd report," and you'll find plenty of
information on what happened.

Sincerely,

John

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

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> I don't think even a nuclear world war will kill billions a
> chinese exchange with india, japan or the US will only kill
> hundreds of millions at most, mostly in china or india. The
> chinese pakistani and indian nuclear arsenals are simply too
> small. In order for such a death toll a war would have to include
> a US-russian nuclear exchange (highly unlikely, more likely US,
> and russia would be allies).

I agree with you that nuclear weapons will not cause more than a few
hundred million deaths. In the end, it'll be starvation and disease
and close combat that kills the billions of people.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> 9) Nuclear war if it does occur would most likely occur when one
> side percieves that defeat is inevitable and unavoidable.

But that isn't the way it happens in a crisis era. In a crisis era,
countries do REALLY STUPID things -- they become anxious, they panic,
and they trigger a war. Once the regeneration occurs, the value of
an individual human life drops to near-zero, and the only thing that
matters any more -- the ONLY thing -- is winning.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> Also if a catastrophic world war does occur. I don't think that
> whats left of the participants will suddenly decide "lets be
> friends" when it ends like you do. Most likely would be mashalling
> of the remainder of resources in order to prepare for round 2
> (most likely 30 or 40 years after the end of the first war).

I'm not sure what you mean by this. After the war is over, then the
crisis war participants enter their First Turning (Recovery Era, High
Era), and go on from there. There isn't a round 2. If you're
thinking of WW I and WW II, remember that WW I was a crisis war for
East Europe, Russia and the Mideast, while WW II was a crisis war for
Western Europe. In the upcoming war, all these timelines merge, so
there's no two-part world war, as there was last century.

Also, remember that the Singularity is coming around 2030, and
there's no way to have any idea what's coming after that, or whether
the human race will survive at all.

Sincerely,

John

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

Dear Nathaniel,

Originally Posted by 1990

> I'm sure you've addressed this question before, but shouldn't
> Mexico have had this civil war about 10 years ago? Certainly all
> the ingredients were there: no 4T since the Revolution, which had
> ended >70 years earlier, increasing economic divide, decay of old
> PRI political order, mounting unrest in the South...it was all
> there, and yet all that happened was the party in power imploded.
> The scariest event was the Zapatista Rebellion, whose casualties
> were few and whose political effect was only one to confirm
> national dissatisfaction with the political structure. Mexico run
> by the PAN is no less racially divided, no less economically
> unsound, and only slightly less corrupt than it was run by the
> PRI.

> So where was Mexico's crisis war in the 1990s, and if it was
> simply delayed and is still coming, why is President Calderon so
> popular? (Check the polls) Every 4T country I look at is getting
> antsy and impatient with its leaders, from the U.S. to Britain to
> Italy to Israel to Japan to Turkey...

> I did a research paper about Mexico in late March, in which I
> learned a lot about Mexican history, and I am still bothered by
> this inconsistency. Before the 1980s, Mexican history followed
> very clear turnings.

So there's really no inconsistency in Mexico.

Here's the table that I've posted several times before:

Code:

    LENGTH OF INTER-CRISIS PERIOD
             Fraction
    # years  of total  Turning
    -------  --------  ------------------
      0- 40      0%    1T, 2T
     41- 49     11%    first half of 3T
     50- 59     33%    second half of 3T
     60- 69     25%    first half of 4T
     70- 79     16%    second half of 4T
     80- 89      4%    fifth turning
     90- 99      6%
    100-117      5%

As you can see, 15% of all inter-crisis periods are 80 years or more.

I've discussed possible reasons before. There are several major
countries in this category today -- Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Morocco -- and they all have something in common: Unexpected money
from oil. Mexico also has the remittances from America.

I wrote about Mexico before:
http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...9&postcount=11

The thing is that there are many factors that can trigger a crisis
war. These factors include the time since the end if the last
crisis war, availability of a suitable enemy, unrest from poverty,
political issues, and so forth. If the country has enough money to
feed everyone decently, then one of the major motivators of a crisis
war is postponed.

Sincerely,

John

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