Originally Posted by Odin

I'm reading a book right now called The Great Disruption, and according to the author Paul Gildas very little will happen with regards to creating a sustainable society until a crisis, a "climatic Pearl Harbor" or "Nazi invasion of Poland" that bursts the dam of denial and then people and governments will suddenly shift into a full-blown WW2-style mobilization of society. He compares the current global warming denial with the people that appeased Hitler and were in denial about the threat Hitler was.

Interestingly, his hypothesized timeline of the "Great Disruption" sounds very much like the consensus here on how 4Ts play themselves out. Gildas has 2008 as the start of the Crisis and predicts that the denial dam will burst around 2018, followed by the massive war-like mobilization he predicts. According to him there will be intensive government intervention in the economy similar to that of WW2 and that it will be out of necessity, opposition will simply be shoved aside.

The timing is consistent with some work that I'm involved with regarding when the impact of automation on the global economy and social structure will reach a point of mass recognition - all other issues will become secondary. From there, a necessary fundamental shift from valuing supply to valuing demand that in turn will require unprecedented government intervention.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Hmm ... ok ... but if you understand what Darwin was talking about (and maybe you don't) reasoning is secondary when it comes to morality.

sounds like rationalization to win an argument.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Wow. What "argument" do you think that Darwin was trying to win?
Besides the main one, where people back then thought his idea of evolution was heresy.

I was trying to be funny (I'm shocked at how easy it is for you to hurt my feelings! ), but yes, Darwin was trying to win -we all want to, it's only human - well at least according to the theory - those guys, not Darwin's - wait, I take that back, that was his theory too - well, if you're a gene (selfish or otherwise) - hmm, how did I get to this rambling - hmm, this is interesting - hmm, can I stop? - hmm, yes, I'd better - hmmm! Stop it! Stop! OMG, I can't stop! Please, someone help! Mom, Mom!!! .......


He's better now - P's mom

How Algae Biodiesel Works
http://science.howstuffworks.com/env...biodiesel1.htm

I'm reading a book right now called The Great Disruption...

@Odin - the premise of that book you're reading reminds me of this:

Originally Posted by jpatrick

America, the fragile empire

Here today, gone tomorrow -- could the United States fall that fast?
February 28, 2010|By Niall Ferguson

(I blatant relink, I know, sorry) arrhythmic or nonlinear departures from equilibrium due to sudden changes, which is not unlike punctuated equilibrium


And one more

Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments.

Evolutionary scientists are just not going to say things like that, with the word 'designed' and 'by evolution' put together, so obviously this was written as philosophy with a little jest.

Originally Posted by jpatrick

Evolutionary scientists are just not going to say things like that, with the word 'designed' and 'by evolution' put together, so obviously this was written as philosophy with a little jest.

Depends on what "evolutionary scientists" you talk to and how narrow your defintion.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

The peak of Boomer influence is already over...

Boomers are heading into retirement. You don't lead in old age. At best, you mentor. More often, you're ignored.

Most Boomers are still in their 50s or early 60s. That is the age of most leaders. Uh, including your hero, who was considerably older than that. And so was his successor.

4Ts are times of Boomer leadership. Our time has come. It is only 3 years old.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Most Boomers are still in their 50s or early 60s. That is the age of most leaders. Uh, including your hero, who was considerably older than that. And so was his successor.

4Ts are times of Boomer leadership. Our time has come. It is only 3 years old.

By definition, when a generation begins to enter retirement, its influence has peaked. There was a major shift toward Xers in Congress in 2010.

And of course, the 4T started 10 years ago. It's at least half over.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

By definition, when a generation begins to enter retirement, its influence has peaked. There was a major shift toward Xers in Congress in 2010.And of course, the 4T started 10 years ago. It's at least half over.

If I recall correctly, you suggested an alternative possibility - that this 4T may turn out to be longer than average. And there is reason to suspect that is how this 4T will play out, and that conditions will become much harsher.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

By definition, when a generation begins to enter retirement, its influence has peaked.

Not according to the theory we are discussing, anyway.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I do too, since it is not environmentalism.

The arrogant presumption is that we humans should have control of nature and that we have the right to wipe out other species for our own convenience. E'ism recognizes that we DON'T have that right. The changes we seek to stop are changes not in nature, but imposed on nature by humans.

Correct, but it is also the assumption that human beings are superior to the universe and that by interfering in that natural course of events (again) we will "save" our planet which is not in any danger (danger being a human concept). Barely evolved monkeys meddling with nature is what got us where we are. It's pretty silly to imagine that more meddling is the solution.

Environmentalism seeks to turn nature into the next great consumer product. Why you Eric, barely even know where your food comes from. When is the last time you ate something you killed and prepared with your own hands?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You are evading the issue by responding to the word I used instead of the obvious scientific fact that more species by far have been wiped out in the last few decades of human assault on our environment than any time in the past, ever. I think the word ridiculous degree sums up the situation just fine.

Not at all. As I said, "ridiculous" is a human emotional term. Nature does not find the extinction rate to be ridiculous at all. If it did we would expect far less species to be dying out wouldn't we.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No what we have now is monopolization of resources by one species.

Interesting. If you eventually die of disease Eric, on your deathbed, I want you to ponder the little, microscopic creatures monopolizing your resources. You might also ask them how ridiculous it all is.

And yet if our monopolization of resources depletes the earth enough (as sometimes happens with germs) then nature kicks in her beautiful balancing act and we end up with less people and less monopolization.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You already know that I and everybody else disagrees with your "natural" solution to human abuse of our planet.

And yet my "solution" as you call it, is likely the one you are going to get.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Which species do you think will take over after human dinosaurs become extinct?

Probably communal insects however mammals are very adaptive. It will take a lot more than human interference to kill off all of them. In fact I look at humans as the ultimate cockroaches. No matter what you do, some will always be surviving in the nooks and crannies.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Probably. But the human quest for justice is something that exists in nature, because we are part of nature, and evolution today (as opposed to 4 million years ago) also consists of human culture and society and human consciousness. Didn't you see Carl Sagan's program on genes, brains and books?

If you are referring to the book "The Dragons of Eden" then yes I have read it.

You still haven't shown how nature uses justice and I find the premise that "humans invented a concept so therefore becomes a part of the fabric of the universe" to be a bit silly. Do the stars and planets have to follow monetary policy advice now? What is nature’s feeling about the current state of the housing market? Does nature have an opinion on the NFL lockout?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

You lose the bet.

Really. So you don't pay state or Federal taxes of any kind. I bet the IRS would find that sort of information interesting.

The AP reports a UN climate panel to examine extreme events

No one single extreme weather event can be directly attributable to climate change, but we've had a bunch of them lately. It is thought that the more energy one puts into the atmosphere, there would be a trend to more or bigger storms.

The UN's IPCC is going to look into it...

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

By definition, when a generation begins to enter retirement, its influence has peaked. There was a major shift toward Xers in Congress in 2010.

And of course, the 4T started 10 years ago. It's at least half over.

Check Howe and Strauss. You will find that the peak authority for Idealists arrives later than is the norm for Reactive, Civic, or Adaptive generations. The replacement of a Boomer President with an ambiguous X President demonstrates how badly the unambiguous Boomer President (Dubya) bungled his role in history. The election of John McCain as President would have signaled much the same.

Sure, FDR wasn't Lincoln -- but if 9/11 or, earlier, the 2000 election were the start of a Crisis Era, then the behavior of Dubya would have contradicted any idea that 2001 was a Crisis year. FDR pushed for a virtual end of luxury spending -- fast. He established, with the consent of Congress, the most regimented economy in American history. Young men were largely expected to abandon civilian life for military life. Any building of real estate was in temporary (and spartan) housing for industrial workers in new defense plants.

Let's look at how Americans acted in the wake of 9/11. As we all know, such major-league baseball stars as Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, Michael Young, and Roy Halliday risked their lucrative baseball careers for military service in 2001. Whoops! That was Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Bob Feller in World War II! Americans socked their money into war bonds and war stamps for the duration instead of making a headlong dash into real estate that they could never afford. Whoops! That was in the 1940s. Americans established Victory Gardens, patched clothes that got holes or tears in them, and drastically cut back on recreational driving. Whoops! Previous Crisis era.

Many people were still around who had memories of the previous Crisis, which suggests that the Crisis that you thought happened in 2001 came at an awkward time, when some late-wave Silent were still in their late 50s and some GIs were still in their middle-to-late 70s. During the Civil War Crisis the Adaptive generation (the Compromise generation) was all turning 70 at the latest, and any remaining members of the Civic generation of the previous Crisis (the American Revolution and Constitutional Crisis) were extremely old -- in their middle 90s at the youngest. To be sure, life expectancies were much longer in the Great Depression and World War II -- but if you are to look at the time when the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor, the adult Adaptive generation of the time (Progressive) was in its eighties at the least and what passed for a Civic Generation in the late 19th century and early twentieth, the Gilded, was already approaching the century mark.

If the Civil War Crisis hit unusually early and hard, then your concept of the Crisis that began with 9/11 hit not unusually early but with severity that few people felt. 3T ways of doing things continued until the economic meltdown that began with real estate in 2005.

It's not that Americans failed to congeal behind a weak leader. The Germans, Japanese, and Russians congealed behind leaders far more pathological than Dubya in 1941, if not earlier.

In any event, an economic meltdown usually portends the Crisis. Look at what is now going on in Greece. Look at what can happen should the President and the House majority achieve an impasse over the debt ceiling as Republicans lay down their idea of the law to the President, who is to give the Hard Right everything it wants lest there be a risk of a second Great Depression.

As the saying goes in show business, "You ain't seen nothin' yet", But what follows isn't the delightful entertainment that some MC or bandleader promises. This time it can be the political equivalent of a snuff film. This time it could be democracy that is literally snuffed out in favor of something ugly, brutal, and destructive.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Check Howe and Strauss. You will find that the peak authority for Idealists arrives later than is the norm for Reactive, Civic, or Adaptive generations. The replacement of a Boomer President with an ambiguous X President demonstrates how badly the unambiguous Boomer President (Dubya) bungled his role in history. The election of John McCain as President would have signaled much the same.

Sure, FDR wasn't Lincoln -- but if 9/11 or, earlier, the 2000 election were the start of a Crisis Era, then the behavior of Dubya would have contradicted any idea that 2001 was a Crisis year. FDR pushed for a virtual end of luxury spending -- fast. He established, with the consent of Congress, the most regimented economy in American history. Young men were largely expected to abandon civilian life for military life. Any building of real estate was in temporary (and spartan) housing for industrial workers in new defense plants.

Let's look at how Americans acted in the wake of 9/11. As we all know, such major-league baseball stars as Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, Michael Young, and Roy Halliday risked their lucrative baseball careers for military service in 2001. Whoops! That was Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Bob Feller in World War II! Americans socked their money into war bonds and war stamps for the duration instead of making a headlong dash into real estate that they could never afford. Whoops! That was in the 1940s. Americans established Victory Gardens, patched clothes that got holes or tears in them, and drastically cut back on recreational driving. Whoops! Previous Crisis era.

Many people were still around who had memories of the previous Crisis, which suggests that the Crisis that you thought happened in 2001 came at an awkward time, when some late-wave Silent were still in their late 50s and some GIs were still in their middle-to-late 70s. During the Civil War Crisis the Adaptive generation (the Compromise generation) was all turning 70 at the latest, and any remaining members of the Civic generation of the previous Crisis (the American Revolution and Constitutional Crisis) were extremely old -- in their middle 90s at the youngest. To be sure, life expectancies were much longer in the Great Depression and World War II -- but if you are to look at the time when the Japanese Empire bombed Pearl Harbor, the adult Adaptive generation of the time (Progressive) was in its eighties at the least and what passed for a Civic Generation in the late 19th century and early twentieth, the Gilded, was already approaching the century mark.

If the Civil War Crisis hit unusually early and hard, then your concept of the Crisis that began with 9/11 hit not unusually early but with severity that few people felt. 3T ways of doing things continued until the economic meltdown that began with real estate in 2005.

It's not that Americans failed to congeal behind a weak leader. The Germans, Japanese, and Russians congealed behind leaders far more pathological than Dubya in 1941, if not earlier.

In any event, an economic meltdown usually portends the Crisis. Look at what is now going on in Greece. Look at what can happen should the President and the House majority achieve an impasse over the debt ceiling as Republicans lay down their idea of the law to the President, who is to give the Hard Right everything it wants lest there be a risk of a second Great Depression.

As the saying goes in show business, "You ain't seen nothin' yet", But what follows isn't the delightful entertainment that some MC or bandleader promises. This time it can be the political equivalent of a snuff film. This time it could be democracy that is literally snuffed out in favor of something ugly, brutal, and destructive.

Your politics aside, you are trying to compare this fourt turning with an older one. But 2001 was the start of this crisis while 1941 was the start of the climax of that crisis.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

-Your politics aside, you are trying to compare this fourth turning with an older one. But 2001 was the start of this crisis while 1941 was the start of the climax of that crisis.

There are multiple interpretations. I see this crisis and the last as double crises. Last time around the stock market crash initiated the economic phase, with something like a regeneracy starting with FDR's hundred days. There was a military crisis as well, which many will say started with Pearl Harbor for the US. Still, I'll put my 2 cents in for the London Blitz. Before the Blitz, isolationism pretty much dominated US foreign policy. Shortly after live coverage of the Blitz started playing on radio, FDR was able to push rearmament and Lend Lease.

I agree with you that 2001 was the start of a security phase of our current crisis, but a lot of folks on this forum tend to forget the intensity of the emotions and values shifts. As neither side's values triumphed, no one wants to acknowledge that a new set of values is present. Some also discount the importance of values shift in crisis, their view of the cycles being focused on other aspects of what's going on. I also see a good number of lesser catalysts present, including Katrina, the Iraq Surge and the housing market bubble burst.

But I don't see anything resembling a regeneracy on the economic half of the crisis yet, where the will is present for a significant values transformation.

With the Iraqi Surge, neither 'stay the course' nor 'cut and run' was a clear dominant winner in the primary values discussion. In the end, we discovered that we could stay the course, we could more or less kind of transform cultures at gunpoint, but the cost in blood and dollars was so great that we will be highly reluctant to try it again. Neither the Blue or Red values were wrong. Each was half right. Neither triumphed.

It's possible we'll see a similar values merge in the current economic crisis. I don't see us going back to the FDR / GI belief that it takes Big Government to solve Big Problems. Reagan killed tax and spend liberalism for good reason. We could sustain it when ours was the only industrial complex that hadn't been bombed to ruins in World War II, and when the remnants Colonial Imperialism policy had little industrial base in the Third World. These days, the policy isn't for nation states to keep their colonies pre industrial to guaranteed cheap resources and closed markets. The policy is for corporations to seek out cheap labor. The division of wealth between the developed and undeveloped parts of the globe is shrinking. Improved technology and productivity is fighting limited resources.

I don't see us sustaining the spendthrift American Dream, the idealized memories of the time of my youth. Limited resources and a need to share with the rest of the world are real, but a lot of us are in denial, Red and Blue alike.

From my perspective, there are problems that have to be fixed, and it will take government action to fix them. At the same time, the need for austerity is real. Our economic base is not strong enough, and our dominant generations not generous and hard working enough, to try to solve all problems through tax and spend. The Xers and Millenials are not the GIs, and are not looking like they will turn into GIs, willing to give up selfish desires in their youth in order to achieve a strong stable world in their middle age. They want it all, and they want it now! We might also have learned that there aren't free lunches, that borrow and spend is as bad or worse than tax and spend.

Or that's where we are drifting, all too slowly.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... It's possible we'll see a similar values merge in the current economic crisis. I don't see us going back to the FDR / GI belief that it takes Big Government to solve Big Problems. Reagan killed tax and spend liberalism for good reason. We could sustain it when ours was the only industrial complex that hadn't been bombed to ruins in World War II, and when the remnants Colonial Imperialism policy had little industrial base in the Third World. These days, the policy isn't for nation states to keep their colonies pre industrial to guaranteed cheap resources and closed markets. The policy is for corporations to seek out cheap labor. The division of wealth between the developed and undeveloped parts of the globe is shrinking. Improved technology and productivity is fighting limited resources.

I don't see us sustaining the spendthrift American Dream, the idealized memories of the time of my youth. Limited resources and a need to share with the rest of the world are real, but a lot of us are in denial, Red and Blue alike.

From my perspective, there are problems that have to be fixed, and it will take government action to fix them. At the same time, the need for austerity is real. Our economic base is not strong enough, and our dominant generations not generous and hard working enough, to try to solve all problems through tax and spend. The Xers and Millennials are not the GIs, and are not looking like they will turn into GIs, willing to give up selfish desires in their youth in order to achieve a strong stable world in their middle age. They want it all, and they want it now! We might also have learned that there aren't free lunches, that borrow and spend is as bad or worse than tax and spend.

Or that's where we are drifting, all too slowly.

So make an argument for tax less and spend less (austerity, for lack of a better word) that is better for the world than tax and spend (pump-priming or investment). I don't see it. Nowhere the austerity measures have been tried has benefitted, unless the underlying problem was corruption rather than profligacy. We're running the experiment in the UK right now. It isn't going too well. We also have two basket cases running opposite paradigms: Iceland defaulted and devalued, Ireland is going austere. Ireland is tanking. Iceland (originally in fare worse shape) has recovered and is starting to thrive.

I can't say what will happen in a country like Greece or Italy, which have a profound acceptance of tax cheating. Argentina was saved by default, and learned o take taxes ore seriously in the process. Maybe there's hope even there.

Huh. Digging back to the beginning of threads can really pay dividends:

Originally Posted by Odin

Unfortunatly the Denialists ignore the Hockey Stick Graph because (in thier deluded minds) "everyone knows the Medeival Warm Period was this huge climatic event." Thier circular reasoning is pathetic.

-Uh, you mean the Hockey Stick Graph, which turned out to be a fraud which the leftie GW types tried to cover up?

Ha ha ha!

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-Uh, you mean the Hockey Stick Graph, which turned out to be a fraud which the leftie GW types tried to cover up?

Ha ha ha!

Some denialists have tried to declare the hockey stick a fraud, but the temperature charts still show the basic shape. The temperatures did start going up. True, the lines aren't straight as a true hockey stick. Solar grand minimums, 11 year solar cycles, volcanoes and assorted other bits of noise make for all sorts of confusion.

OK. From here it looks like you have values lock. You laugh at the science without producing any science of your own. This looks like a smug certainty in your own values that proves your one ideas correct with the mighty power of ignorance. Would you care to be specific in what data you are quoting to show that temperatures didn't start going up starting with the first serious burning of fossil fuels?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Some denialists have tried to declare the hockey stick a fraud...

-The fact that East Anglia had to cover it up is a good indicator...

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... You laugh at the science without producing any science of your own...

-I'm laughing at anti-science. The GW humpers create models based on their theories. Then they make predictions based on their theories. Then the predicitons turn out to be wrong. To some people, that might be an indication that there's something wrong with their models, and in turn, that their something wrong with their theory. But admitting that would not give them an excuse to take over economic policy, would it?

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-The fact that East Anglia had to cover it up is a good indicator...

What specific item do you think had to be covered up? The denialists took some stuff out of context that made some publicity for a while, but all of the claims have been reviewed and none of the stuff that was questioned resulted in a significant change to the main line science. The East Anglia e-mail theft was a propaganda ploy to create a disruption at the Copenhagen conference, with no real substance behind it. That you are not aware of this indicates you haven't been following the issue.

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-I'm laughing at anti-science.

Again, it's still been getting warmer since serious fossil fuel use began. The hockey stick is real. What makes you think it isn't real? We can't have a discussion if all you do is repeat your base values loudly and often without presenting evidence to back it up.

Follow the money. People who take global warming seriously include such pinko commie groups as the insurance industry, the ski industry, and wine makers. To these industry groups, global warming is very real.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

We can't have a discussion if all you do is repeat your base values loudly and often without presenting evidence to back it up.

I think it's already well-established that we can't have a discussion with him *at all*

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

I think it's already well-established that we can't have a discussion with him *at all*

That's why I am sick of Playwright keeping on trying to argue with him. Ignore the troll and he goes away.

Originally Posted by Odin

That's why I am sick of Playwright keeping on trying to argue with him. Ignore the troll and he goes away.

There's one thread with no posts at all except Playwrite and Glick.

Originally Posted by Odin

That's why I am sick of Playwright keeping on trying to argue with him. Ignore the troll and he goes away.

Can you present any real evidence that he goes away?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Originally Posted by Odin

That's why I am sick of Playwright keeping on trying to argue with him. Ignore the troll and he goes away.

Can you present any real evidence that he goes away?

I have to wonder whether PW sees JDG in the same light that a well-fed cat sees a mouse. The cat isn't hungry, so the mouse is entertainment. I'm sure the mouse sees it differently.