Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

I suppose "Gray Champion" can be relative. We could have ours, someone else could have theirs.

I don't think so. The Gray Champion sees the problem and advocates a major transformation in the society. There is a vision of a new future. (One might argue that Lincoln had no such vision, but was forced to create a new future by forces beyond his control, and a stubborn clinging to certain principles.)

In a crisis, I would expect only two sides, the conservatives trying to cling to the status quo, and the progressives attempting to correct inequalities and injustices that have run their allotted time. In recent crises, it is the progressive leader that gets treated well in the history books, though I suppose one can argue that Jefferson Davis is still remembered fondly by some in the South.

Could Otto von Bismarck have been a conservative Gray Champion in the German Unification Crisis?

Furthermore, why can't there be more than one Gray Champion? America having one, Britain having one, Burkina Faso having one, etc . . . .

And yes, I'd see Davis as a GC for the South.

To some extent, we are disagreeing on the definition of 'Gray Champion.' I see 'The Gray Champion' as being the single leader personifying and enabling the key transformations resulting from crisis. For example, FDR personified government involvement in the economy, a switch from Isolationism to Great Power status, and the triumph of the Military Industrial Complex. If a crisis transforms the culture, the Gray Champion gets credit and blame for the transformation.

By this definition, Jeff Davis is not a Gray Champion. He is a loser. He attempted to preserve the old hierarchical agricultural aristocratic status quo, and failed.

Bismarck did better, and might well count as a Gray Champion. He is pegged as a conservative, but he was a pragmatic compromiser, rather than a stonewaller. He found a middle path between the old aristocracy and the new liberal movement. In doing this, he likely prevented his crisis from exploding to the level of violence Davis had to deal with. Gray champions are often like this. They are not rabid extremists, but people capable of listening, compromising, bridging their era's Red / Blue gap, and pragmatically bringing a people together to grow and transform a culture. With benefit of 20 20 hindsight, it might have been better had a liberal champion built the compromises of middle to late 1800s Germany. The world would have been better off with a more democratic less autocratic Germany. Still, Bismarck was a man of his time and his culture.

It is possible to water down the definition of Gray Champion such that every nation involved in a crisis might be given a champion. If each nation changes in a different way, and has a leader that personifies and enabled such changes, maybe. My concern, though, is that the upcoming crisis feels like a global crisis. The transformation is apt to be global. There is a need for a global leader. I am looking for such a leader, and not finding her.

And we need an entirely different name for leaders who resist change and transformation, who battle to continue privilege, injustice, and the status quo. That might be the difference between Bismarck and Davis. Bismarck knew how much ground to give. Davis clung too heavily to the past.

I guess Gray Champion could be taken in many ways. One, your definition. Two, Brian's definition. Three, any Prophet leader in a 4T. Four, any of the above.

Yes, Bismark has been called the "White Revolutionary" for ironically transforming a society under principles considered decidedly conservative by the progressives of Germany at that time. Whether he was a Gray Champion depends, I suppose.

Such a leader would have to appeal to nationas of many and very different cultural backgrounds. That would explain why Bob Butler isn't finding him.

The last 4T did establish a sort of precedent-cooperation between Gray Champions of different nations. Think of Churchil and Roosevelt.

(Please note that I do not expect our Crisis to closely resemble the last one, even though it was on a global scale).

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

The last 4T did establish a sort of precedent-cooperation between Gray Champions of different nations. Think of Churchil and Roosevelt.

It's actually more striking: add Stalin to that pair.

But I still say it's not necessarily right to think of the G.C. as a single person. There was no single G.C. in the American Revolution. George Washington was purely a military leader until the war was well over, as well as being the wrong generation.

This time around, America is not going to be able to have a single visionary leader all the way through the Crisis. The only reason we did last time is that FDR was elected four times in succession, and that's now unconstitutional.

It's more useful to think of the G.C. as an archetype rather than a person. That is the role that all Boomers need to assume, if we can: more focused, more long-sighted, holding to truly essential principles but willing to let quibbles rest. Above all, it's a more realistic role than the ones we played in the Second and Third Turnings.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I understand it, there's a whole generation of Gray Champions, not just one.

Well, you can define any phrase any way you like, I suppose, but you are way far from the context of S&H, the creators of the phrase. If you are describing an entire generation, the word 'prophet' would be appropriate. Saying FDR, Churchill and Stalin co-chaired the last crisis, each deserving a share of the title is plausible. Spreading it out among their entire generation makes the term meaningless, and would force us to invent a new word to describe people like FDR, Churchill and Stalin.

Let's not confuse the issue be radically redefining an insider's cant that might be hard enough for outsiders to follow, anyway.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

And we need an entirely different name for leaders who resist change and transformation, who battle to continue privilege, injustice, and the status quo. That might be the difference between Bismarck and Davis. Bismarck knew how much ground to give. Davis clung too heavily to the past.

The term I often use in my G/T discussions with Jenny is "Anti-GC", to describe strong but progress-resistant Crisis leaders like Jeff Davis, George III, Adolf Hitler....and maybe G.W. Bush.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I understand it, there's a whole generation of Gray Champions, not just one.

Be that as it may, I thought I'd post this here. It's from the prologue to my novel-in-progress, the which prologue outlines a history of the world from 2001 to 2156, which is when my story starts. I don't want to post too much of it for copyright considerations, but this should be OK.

The Great Crisis, 2001-2022. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, events moved deceptively slowly for several years, in view of the storm that approached. While the U.S. bogged down in President Bush's disastrous Iraq misadventure, world petroleum approached peak production, and the global economy teetered toward catastrophe. The collapse that followed caught most people by surprise. With petroleum prices skyrocketing, world food production went into a tailspin as farmers could no longer afford to work their fields with machinery or use petroleum-derived fertilizers. Famine followed over much of the world, together with opportunistic plagues. Wars broke out over scarce resources, especially water rights. China imploded into a chaos of civil war, anarchy, and cannibalism. In these two decades, world population declined from a height of over six billion people to just under four billion. The suffering inspired tales of woe for generations to come. The climax of the Great Crisis occurred in 2020, when the India-Pakistan war culminated in a brief but devastating nuclear exchange that left Pakistan all but depopulated and India severely crippled. To deal with all these problems, the remaining great powers met in New York in 2021 and agreed on a constitution for the Earth Union, which replaced the defunct United Nations and provided for the three crucial governing functions of peacekeeping, global economic regulation, and global environmental protection and resource management. The constitution was ratified a year later by popular referendum in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Russia, the Ukraine, Australia, India, and Japan. The remainder of the world would slowly be brought into the Union over the next several decades. The signatory nations had already by this time implemented economic changes that resulted in a high-efficiency, renewable-energy economy. As the exhausted world dug out of the rubble, as the plagues subsided and population stabilized, as the economy recovered and food production increased, hope resurfaced and the world entered a time of relative peace and stability. The election of the first Earth Union Parliament in 2022 marked, as many hoped at the time, the end of over 20 years of horror. In a fitting close of the ring, the session of the first EU Parliament met in January 2023 in the new Union Capitol, in New York City, at the site of what had been the World Trade Center.

Details like the India-Pakistan nuclear war and the building of the EU Parliament building at the WTC site are wholly fictional, but in broad outlines this is what I expect to happen. I agree with most people here that the mood doesn't feel wholly 4T yet, but I think that's because one of the Crisis issues struck us a bit early, and the rest of them are phasing in over time. When historians look back from the future on this Crisis era (which I do indeed believe will be called the Great Crisis or something similarly distinguishing), they will see 9/11 as the beginning of it, simply because of temporal proximity.

I felt at the time that it was early in terms of generational balance. However, I expected something to happen that year, something involving the Middle East, because that was the year the world minus the Persian Gulf region reached its Hubbard peak. While the global peak wasn't upon us yet, that fact increased dependence on Persian Gulf oil to near-totality, virtually guaranteeing something ugly transpiring.

Given time, and a return to normal conditions, I felt that mood shift would have returned to full-bore 3T mode for a while. But I knew that we wouldn't have the time or the leisure.

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

I'm no longer completely certain that 9/11 will be looked back upon as the beginning of Crisis. The further we get away from the WTC/Pentagon attacks in the time stream, the more likely it looks as if a Great Devaluation scenario will be the Catalyst. Picture hundreds of thousands of homeowners mortgaged to the hilt, then waking up one morning to find that the $400,000 house they can just barely afford with two incomes is suddenly worth half that...and then one of the breadwinners loses his/her job? The resulting mass mortgage defaults could cause a round of bank failures that bring on another Depression.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I understand it, there's a whole generation of Gray Champions, not just one.

Be that as it may, I thought I'd post this here. It's from the prologue to my novel-in-progress, the which prologue outlines a history of the world from 2001 to 2156, which is when my story starts. I don't want to post too much of it for copyright considerations, but this should be OK.

The Great Crisis, 2001-2022. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, events moved deceptively slowly for several years, in view of the storm that approached. While the U.S. bogged down in President Bush's disastrous Iraq misadventure, world petroleum approached peak production, and the global economy teetered toward catastrophe. The collapse that followed caught most people by surprise. With petroleum prices skyrocketing, world food production went into a tailspin as farmers could no longer afford to work their fields with machinery or use petroleum-derived fertilizers. Famine followed over much of the world, together with opportunistic plagues. Wars broke out over scarce resources, especially water rights. China imploded into a chaos of civil war, anarchy, and cannibalism. In these two decades, world population declined from a height of over six billion people to just under four billion. The suffering inspired tales of woe for generations to come. The climax of the Great Crisis occurred in 2020, when the India-Pakistan war culminated in a brief but devastating nuclear exchange that left Pakistan all but depopulated and India severely crippled. To deal with all these problems, the remaining great powers met in New York in 2021 and agreed on a constitution for the Earth Union, which replaced the defunct United Nations and provided for the three crucial governing functions of peacekeeping, global economic regulation, and global environmental protection and resource management. The constitution was ratified a year later by popular referendum in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Russia, the Ukraine, Australia, India, and Japan. The remainder of the world would slowly be brought into the Union over the next several decades. The signatory nations had already by this time implemented economic changes that resulted in a high-efficiency, renewable-energy economy. As the exhausted world dug out of the rubble, as the plagues subsided and population stabilized, as the economy recovered and food production increased, hope resurfaced and the world entered a time of relative peace and stability. The election of the first Earth Union Parliament in 2022 marked, as many hoped at the time, the end of over 20 years of horror. In a fitting close of the ring, the session of the first EU Parliament met in January 2023 in the new Union Capitol, in New York City, at the site of what had been the World Trade Center.

Details like the India-Pakistan nuclear war and the building of the EU Parliament building at the WTC site are wholly fictional, but in broad outlines this is what I expect to happen. I agree with most people here that the mood doesn't feel wholly 4T yet, but I think that's because one of the Crisis issues struck us a bit early, and the rest of them are phasing in over time. When historians look back from the future on this Crisis era (which I do indeed believe will be called the Great Crisis or something similarly distinguishing), they will see 9/11 as the beginning of it, simply because of temporal proximity.

I felt at the time that it was early in terms of generational balance. However, I expected something to happen that year, something involving the Middle East, because that was the year the world minus the Persian Gulf region reached its Hubbard peak. While the global peak wasn't upon us yet, that fact increased dependence on Persian Gulf oil to near-totality, virtually guaranteeing something ugly transpiring.

Given time, and a return to normal conditions, I felt that mood shift would have returned to full-bore 3T mode for a while. But I knew that we wouldn't have the time or the leisure.

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

I'm no longer completely certain that 9/11 will be looked back upon as the beginning of Crisis. The further we get away from the WTC/Pentagon attacks in the time stream, the more likely it looks as if a Great Devaluation scenario will be the Catalyst. Picture hundreds of thousands of homeowners mortgaged to the hilt, then waking up one morning to find that the $400,000 house they can just barely afford with two incomes is suddenly worth half that...and then one of the breadwinners loses his/her job? The resulting mass mortgage defaults could cause a round of bank failures that bring on another Depression.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

As I understand it, there's a whole generation of Gray Champions, not just one.

Be that as it may, I thought I'd post this here. It's from the prologue to my novel-in-progress, the which prologue outlines a history of the world from 2001 to 2156, which is when my story starts. I don't want to post too much of it for copyright considerations, but this should be OK.

The Great Crisis, 2001-2022. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, events moved deceptively slowly for several years, in view of the storm that approached. While the U.S. bogged down in President Bush's disastrous Iraq misadventure, world petroleum approached peak production, and the global economy teetered toward catastrophe. The collapse that followed caught most people by surprise. With petroleum prices skyrocketing, world food production went into a tailspin as farmers could no longer afford to work their fields with machinery or use petroleum-derived fertilizers. Famine followed over much of the world, together with opportunistic plagues. Wars broke out over scarce resources, especially water rights. China imploded into a chaos of civil war, anarchy, and cannibalism. In these two decades, world population declined from a height of over six billion people to just under four billion. The suffering inspired tales of woe for generations to come. The climax of the Great Crisis occurred in 2020, when the India-Pakistan war culminated in a brief but devastating nuclear exchange that left Pakistan all but depopulated and India severely crippled. To deal with all these problems, the remaining great powers met in New York in 2021 and agreed on a constitution for the Earth Union, which replaced the defunct United Nations and provided for the three crucial governing functions of peacekeeping, global economic regulation, and global environmental protection and resource management. The constitution was ratified a year later by popular referendum in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Russia, the Ukraine, Australia, India, and Japan. The remainder of the world would slowly be brought into the Union over the next several decades. The signatory nations had already by this time implemented economic changes that resulted in a high-efficiency, renewable-energy economy. As the exhausted world dug out of the rubble, as the plagues subsided and population stabilized, as the economy recovered and food production increased, hope resurfaced and the world entered a time of relative peace and stability. The election of the first Earth Union Parliament in 2022 marked, as many hoped at the time, the end of over 20 years of horror. In a fitting close of the ring, the session of the first EU Parliament met in January 2023 in the new Union Capitol, in New York City, at the site of what had been the World Trade Center.

Details like the India-Pakistan nuclear war and the building of the EU Parliament building at the WTC site are wholly fictional, but in broad outlines this is what I expect to happen. I agree with most people here that the mood doesn't feel wholly 4T yet, but I think that's because one of the Crisis issues struck us a bit early, and the rest of them are phasing in over time. When historians look back from the future on this Crisis era (which I do indeed believe will be called the Great Crisis or something similarly distinguishing), they will see 9/11 as the beginning of it, simply because of temporal proximity.

I felt at the time that it was early in terms of generational balance. However, I expected something to happen that year, something involving the Middle East, because that was the year the world minus the Persian Gulf region reached its Hubbard peak. While the global peak wasn't upon us yet, that fact increased dependence on Persian Gulf oil to near-totality, virtually guaranteeing something ugly transpiring.

Given time, and a return to normal conditions, I felt that mood shift would have returned to full-bore 3T mode for a while. But I knew that we wouldn't have the time or the leisure.

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

I'm no longer completely certain that 9/11 will be looked back upon as the beginning of Crisis. The further we get away from the WTC/Pentagon attacks in the time stream, the more likely it looks as if a Great Devaluation scenario will be the Catalyst. Picture hundreds of thousands of homeowners mortgaged to the hilt, then waking up one morning to find that the $400,000 house they can just barely afford with two incomes is suddenly worth half that...and then one of the breadwinners loses his/her job? The resulting mass mortgage defaults could cause a round of bank failures that bring on another Depression.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

Such a leader would have to appeal to nationals of many and very different cultural backgrounds. That would explain why Bob Butler isn't finding him.

About the time I first read Strauss and Howe, I was playing in a high fantasy role playing game, set on modern Earth, played on an epic scale. The person running the game was a history major and a lover of epic fantasy and myth. As a basic theme for his campaign, his background included "Keys" which were forged and released every hundred years or so. A Key involved three things: a great artifact such as the Arc of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, or Excalibur, a hero worthy of wielding such an artifact, and an idea. Together, the three could transform the world, but but the new artifact / person / idea was often opposed by those who had released prior Keys. The struggle between the advocates of the new Key and those favoring the old Keys was called a "Crisis."

Thus, when I read Strauss and Howe, their theory was really familiar. I had seen it all before, with a twist, in both history and myth. In an very complex fantasy world, I had spent five year walking through a simulated crisis.

No, I do not think we should build a forge in the heart of a volcano, and create One Ring to Rule them All. The push that changes society comes not from hidden masters forging great magic artifacts, but from technology. The reality is manpower efficient farming, computer networks, depleting oil resources and weapons of mass destruction. No politician or political theorist can alter the reality that changing technology implies changing society. The world cannot stay still. The material aspect of the Key has already been forged. The crisis is coming.

That leaves the idea, and the person. The idea comes first. It is generally expressed first in the extreme. Street protests in Boston had to escalate into violence before folk like Washington, Franklin and Jefferson became Great. John Brown had to come before Abe Lincoln. The idea first appears in the raw, proclaimed in anger and destruction, before a Gray Champion merges the new idea with the old culture. The Gray Champion is not the originator of the idea. The Champion is the moderating influence that integrates the new and the old to create a new whole.

The idea has been best expressed in Amy Chua's World on Fire. The press reports ethnic strife and hatred. Beneath the hatred, one often finds poverty and 'market dominant minorities.' Broadly, a few members of one ethnic group control a large portion of the wealth, leaving another group in poverty. In theory, the West has advocated capitalism to solve economic problems, and democracy to resolve political problems. This approach has flaws. Small minorities tend to gather economic power, and seek ways to transform this to political power. Democracy gives power to majorities, who are often impoverished. Thus, a nigh on inevitable struggle between a wealthy elite and impoverished many.

In many ways, this idea is not new. Marx covered the basics centuries ago. But Marx advocated the wrong solution with his idealistic assumption that the state would fade away after the revolution. Instead, the revolutionaries became the new ruling class. The Communist Party became a market dominant minority, monopolizing and exploiting the means of production.

Amy's perspective might begin to unify the many ethnic wars of hatred into a single war of ideas. One might decide it is wrong for one ethnic, religious or political group to monopolize political and economic power. One might decide that it is a proper roll for democracy to check ever widening divisions of wealth. One might decide that genocide, organized rape, mass starvation and ethnic cleansing are not to be tolerated. To date, the various ethnic groups -- oppressors and oppressed -- have had advocates for their own group's self interests. We have not had much in the way of leaders backing the interests of the oppressed on principle. To some extent Kofi Annan, but he is hardly leading a tidal wave of transformation.

Again, the idea has to come before the man. The nature of the transformation must be accepted before the transformation can begin in earnest. Alas, the idea is a complex one, this time around. If a crisis begins with rocks being thrown in the streets, the ideas required are too complex for the thugs throwing the rocks, or firing the AK47s, or building the car bombs. At this point in the crisis, people are working for the benefit of their own group, not for the benefit of the world.

I don't see this continuing forever. At some point, people might perceive common threads in the many hot spots around the world. With the perception of what is wrong, folk might start proposing how to make it right. With the opportunity to make things right, comes an opportunity for power. I trust in man's instinct to seek transcendent power. Given a need to transform the world, the world will be transformed. Given a transcendent moment, someone will seize it.

But for the moment, we have not gone beyond rabble throwing rocks and a hated establishment which shrugs them off, seeing no reason to change old patterns. Thus far, no idea, no regeneracy, no champion. I know not where the next step will take us. Will enough people gather to throw enough rocks to force real change? Will the establishment change preemptively, just to avoid annoying little rocks? Will somebody throw a nuke, instead of a rock?

As my magic 8 ball says, answer hazy, try again later.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

It will be a while, I'm afraid. As with most long things I write, this one keeps going through mutations that require revisions and new growth.

Actually, the novel is set way in the future, in the 22nd century, and isn't really about megadeath and destruction, except in potential. There are two Awakenings and two Crises (counting the one we are currently in or about to enter) between it and the present, and it's about the start of the next Crisis after that. In the intervening years, we get widespread human genetic manipulation, uplift of chimpanzees and African Gray parrots, and the development of true artificial intelligence. The machines take over the exploration and exploitation of space, being better suited to it than humans, and build a culture of their own in the rest of the Solar System while humans continue to dominate on Earth. The Crisis of the next saeculum I call the Species War, and involves mainly a secession war between the humans and the machines, although there's also a genocidal backlash against the uplifted animals. And all that's just the background.

Main characters include a humanoid machine (pure computer program, designed to mimic a human personality) who is the machine ambassador to the Earth Union, a machine spy infiltrating rebel machines who want to restart the Species War, a teenage girl who is a powerful psi adept and a genius, and an uplifted parrot who's a private investigator. But I'm really only about halfway done writing it.

As for the present Crisis -- I'm too cognizant of the problems we face with ecological limits to believe things will wait until a financial collapse not brought on by non-financial factors. The next event should be the oil peak, unless it's another big terrorist attack.

"Anti-GC" is a good term. "False Prophet" is too.

Pathleader, from Sheehy's book Pathfinders, is an excellent term. Referring to an exceptional leader who would lead his society on to a different, better path. Martin Luther King, I believe, was...perhaps uniquely...a non-Crisis-era Pathleader. The Gray Champion would be a Crisis-era Pathleader.

I've been working on a space opera satire which features an African Gray parrot. A library book described this species as perhaps the best at imitating human speech. It also described this species as the most eccentric-as an example the book mentioned one individual that sleeps upside down like a bat.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

It will be a while, I'm afraid. As with most long things I write, this one keeps going through mutations that require revisions and new growth.

Actually, the novel is set way in the future, in the 22nd century, and isn't really about megadeath and destruction, except in potential. There are two Awakenings and two Crises (counting the one we are currently in or about to enter) between it and the present, and it's about the start of the next Crisis after that. In the intervening years, we get widespread human genetic manipulation, uplift of chimpanzees and African Gray parrots, and the development of true artificial intelligence. The machines take over the exploration and exploitation of space, being better suited to it than humans, and build a culture of their own in the rest of the Solar System while humans continue to dominate on Earth. The Crisis of the next saeculum I call the Species War, and involves mainly a secession war between the humans and the machines, although there's also a genocidal backlash against the uplifted animals. And all that's just the background.

Main characters include a humanoid machine (pure computer program, designed to mimic a human personality) who is the machine ambassador to the Earth Union, a machine spy infiltrating rebel machines who want to restart the Species War, a teenage girl who is a powerful psi adept and a genius, and an uplifted parrot who's a private investigator. But I'm really only about halfway done writing it.

As for the present Crisis -- I'm too cognizant of the problems we face with ecological limits to believe things will wait until a financial collapse not brought on by non-financial factors. The next event should be the oil peak, unless it's another big terrorist attack.

I think Jim Goulding has written something similar about "Mammaloids" (kind of a Planet of the Apes scenario).

I was goofing around with a story about life in Oort's Cloud in 2076 with 2T-founded communities trying to stay separate from 3T Earth civilization. It would also be a reflection on America's "Tricentennial". The main protagonist is a Nomad, b. 2048 during the "Sophian Awakening".

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

"Anti-GC" is a good term. "False Prophet" is too.

Pathleader, from Sheehy's book Pathfinders, is an excellent term. Referring to an exceptional leader who would lead his society on to a different, better path. Martin Luther King, I believe, was...perhaps uniquely...a non-Crisis-era Pathleader. The Gray Champion would be a Crisis-era Pathleader.

I love all of these names. Lincoln being a GC and Davis being an anti-GC or "False Prophet".

And if GC's are the Prophet "Pathfinders" of 4T's, what are the Pathfinders of other gen's in other turnings? What would be the secondary archetypal name for an Artist Pathfinder in a 2T like King for example?

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

I've been working on a space opera satire which features an African Gray parrot. A library book described this species as perhaps the best at imitating human speech. It also described this species as the most eccentric-as an example the book mentioned one individual that sleeps upside down like a bat.

Siren likes to sleep in a little tube.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Wow, Brian...that's pretty cool. When do we get to read it? (I have a morbid fascination with megadeath and destruction :-).

It will be a while, I'm afraid. As with most long things I write, this one keeps going through mutations that require revisions and new growth.

Actually, the novel is set way in the future, in the 22nd century, and isn't really about megadeath and destruction, except in potential. There are two Awakenings and two Crises (counting the one we are currently in or about to enter) between it and the present, and it's about the start of the next Crisis after that. In the intervening years, we get widespread human genetic manipulation, uplift of chimpanzees and African Gray parrots, and the development of true artificial intelligence. The machines take over the exploration and exploitation of space, being better suited to it than humans, and build a culture of their own in the rest of the Solar System while humans continue to dominate on Earth. The Crisis of the next saeculum I call the Species War, and involves mainly a secession war between the humans and the machines, although there's also a genocidal backlash against the uplifted animals. And all that's just the background.

Main characters include a humanoid machine (pure computer program, designed to mimic a human personality) who is the machine ambassador to the Earth Union, a machine spy infiltrating rebel machines who want to restart the Species War, a teenage girl who is a powerful psi adept and a genius, and an uplifted parrot who's a private investigator. But I'm really only about halfway done writing it.

As for the present Crisis -- I'm too cognizant of the problems we face with ecological limits to believe things will wait until a financial collapse not brought on by non-financial factors. The next event should be the oil peak, unless it's another big terrorist attack.

OK, so it sounds a bit like Terminator meets Planet Of The Apes. Should make interesting reading.

No, the GD won't be caused by non-financial factors. Interest rates are already rising, home values will level off and begin to drop when the number of available buyers consequently dries up, and they'll out-and-out crash when either a deepening recession forces the default of all those overmortgaged homeowners, when the core Boomers begin retiring en masse, or both. This could happen as early as next year (more likely in three or four), and yes it could be Peak Oil or a terrorist attack that causes that recession, but needn't be. Greatly escalated outsourcing and a widening war in the Middle East could do it too.

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

"Anti-GC" is a good term. "False Prophet" is too.

Pathleader, from Sheehy's book Pathfinders, is an excellent term. Referring to an exceptional leader who would lead his society on to a different, better path. Martin Luther King, I believe, was...perhaps uniquely...a non-Crisis-era Pathleader. The Gray Champion would be a Crisis-era Pathleader.

I love all of these names. Lincoln being a GC and Davis being an anti-GC or "False Prophet".

And if GC's are the Prophet "Pathfinders" of 4T's, what are the Pathfinders of other gen's in other turnings? What would be the secondary archetypal name for an Artist Pathfinder in a 2T like King for example?

This is a bit nitpicky, Sean, but wouldn't MLK be considered mainly a First Turning Pathleader? The two seminal events associated with him, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March On Washington, occurred in 1955 and 1963 respectively, both during the High. In fact, King's assassination, along with that of Robert Kennedy, arguably formed the 2T Social Moment in 1968.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

"Anti-GC" is a good term. "False Prophet" is too.

Pathleader, from Sheehy's book Pathfinders, is an excellent term. Referring to an exceptional leader who would lead his society on to a different, better path. Martin Luther King, I believe, was...perhaps uniquely...a non-Crisis-era Pathleader. The Gray Champion would be a Crisis-era Pathleader.

I love all of these names. Lincoln being a GC and Davis being an anti-GC or "False Prophet".

And if GC's are the Prophet "Pathfinders" of 4T's, what are the Pathfinders of other gen's in other turnings? What would be the secondary archetypal name for an Artist Pathfinder in a 2T like King for example?

This is a bit nitpicky, Sean, but wouldn't MLK be considered mainly a First Turning Pathleader? The two seminal events associated with him, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March On Washington, occurred in 1955 and 1963 respectively, both during the High. In fact, King's assassination, along with that of Robert Kennedy, arguably formed the 2T Social Moment in 1968.

Nit conceded. :oops:

I have noticed that guinea pigs like to crawl inside decapitated milk cartons, under blankets, under bushes. I think this is their way of avoiding predators.

Sheehy made a distinction between "Pathfinder" and "Pathleader." Pathfinders seek better ways in their own lives. A Pathleader finds a better way for the society as a whole. Sheehy offered an example of a Pathfinder who was not a Pathleader-Jimmy Carter.

Speaking of writing . . .

Seems like quite a few people are being creative with S&H theory.

One of my ideas that is development is a mundane fantasy taking place in a relatively modern 3T with the character (an early Civic) trying to discover secrets of a 1T and the end of a 4T that occured some centuries ago.

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

I have noticed that guinea pigs like to crawl inside decapitated milk cartons, under blankets, under bushes. I think this is their way of avoiding predators.

Sheehy made a distinction between "Pathfinder" and "Pathleader." Pathfinders seek better ways in their own lives. A Pathleader finds a better way for the society as a whole. Sheehy offered an example of a Pathfinder who was not a Pathleader-Jimmy Carter.

That makes sense. Carter was a good man but a weak and ineffective President...on the other hand, he is one of the better EX-Presidents the Nation has had.

I brought this one over from the Religion and Spirituality thread as empirical evidence of a 4T:



Man, if Saint John The Divine could see us now! He'd be saying: I told ye so! I told ye so!

--Croakmore

Millennial motoring

The State Patrol officer arrested the faster rider, 20-year-old Stillwater resident Samuel Armstrong Tilley, for reckless driving, driving without a motorcycle license ? and driving 140 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 65 mph.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

The State Patrol officer arrested the faster rider, 20-year-old Stillwater resident Samuel Armstrong Tilley, for reckless driving, driving without a motorcycle license ? and driving 140 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 65 mph.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

You can buy motorcycles that can go that fast? :shock: :!: Perhaps, he should move to the salt flats in Utah.

Originally Posted by Shemsu Heru

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

The State Patrol officer arrested the faster rider, 20-year-old Stillwater resident Samuel Armstrong Tilley, for reckless driving, driving without a motorcycle license ? and driving 140 miles per hour over the posted speed limit of 65 mph.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

You can buy motorcycles that can go that fast?

Not quite. The cop almost certainly overstated. The fastest bike of which I am aware is the '99 Suzuki Hayabusa, which maxes out at just about 190 mph. At those speeds, even being 'on a downhill' isn't going to add much.