Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I think the simple => precise is more a matter of how defined or undefined we want our world. That's the way I read it, but I may be wrong; I'm learning this too. Precise doesn't have to be complex, just exacting. In fact, complex often means muddled. Simple, on the other hand, can be Precise, so that's the one that may need a different term ... assuming I know what I'm talking about of course.

Exact labeling of the axes is a bit difficult. I would encourage everyone to re-read the edge conditions I described at the top of the thread since those do (I think) the best job of describing the conflicts on both axes.

Perhaps the vertical axis should be concise vs. precise rather than simple vs. precise. Also, for the horizontal axis, perhaps it should say "skeptical of authority" rather than "challenge to authority."

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The different speeds have to do with movement along the Arc of Acceptability. If I understand this, the constellation remains static between social moments, so just prior to a 2T or a 4T, the constellation moves to its next position by rotating 45 degree CW.

Actually, I'm arguing that this 45 degree rotation occurs over the course of the social moment and reaches the new position at the end of the turning. So, in the last Crisis, influence swung from true top to lower left and the center of the arc rotated from true right to bottom right:



Here is the last High:



and the last Awakening:



and the recently completed Unraveling:

And here would be the path for the current Crisis:



Leftward movement has begun, but upward movement still has time to develop. In addition, we won't actually be back into the left side of the chart until roughly 2013.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

*cough* Transhuman Space. *cough*

In the Year 2525... if man is still alive... if woman can survive... they may find...

In the Year 3535 ain't gonna need to tell the truth or tell no lies. Everything you think do and say, is in the pill you took today.

In the Year 4545 ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes. You won't find a thing to chew, nobody's gonna look at you.

In the Year 5555 your arms are hanging limp at your side. Your legs got nothing to do, some machine is doing that for you.

In the year 6565 you won't need no wife. You'll pick your son and pick your daughter too, from the bottom of a long glass tube whoa...

*key change*

In the year 7510, if God's a coming, he ought to make it by then. Maybe he could look around himself and say: Guess it's time for the judgment day.

In the year 8510, God is gonna shake his mighty head. He'll either say: " I'm pleased where man has been", or tear it down and start again, whoa...

*key change*

In the year 9595, I'm kinda wondering if man is gonna be alive. He's taken everything this old earth can give, and ain't put back nothing, whoa...

For a thousand years, man has cried a billion tears, for what he never knew, now man's reign is through, but through eternal night the twinkling of starlight, so very far away, maybe it was only yesterday...

In the year 2525, if man is still alive... if woman can survive...

*fades*

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

And here would be the path for the current Crisis:



Leftward movement has begun, but upward movement still has time to develop. In addition, we won't actually be back into the left side of the chart until roughly 2013.

@ Mr. Horner, is it possible for society to resist the swing of the arch of respectability and go in a contrary motion? Thank you for the additional graphics, they are most illuminating.

~Chas'88

Kurt, thanks. The last few graphics cleared up some of the issues I would have taken with your thesis. I'll still need to digest it. BTW, I actually saw your Newsvine articles on this subject a while ago.

Thread jumping:

Originally Posted by Odin

If Kurt Horner is correct in his prediction of a Left-Libertarian climax to the 4T then the nation-wide legalization of same-sex unions seems almost inevitable.

Sorry JPT, your side lost the culture wars. Be prepared to spend the rest of your life on the political fringe.

With the point of dominant influence passing through the 'Radical' and 'Individualist' phases near the CLIMAX of a CRISIS, you can expect a ton of drastic structural changes with an anti-authoritarian bent. Why not 'no state marriage'?

Originally Posted by Matt1989

With the point of dominant influence passing through the 'Radical' and 'Individualist' phases near the CLIMAX of a CRISIS, you can expect a ton of drastic structural changes with an anti-authoritarian bent. Why not 'no state marriage'?

Good point. IIRC (I think somebody, maybe Chas, pointed it out) in Europe people go to the courthouse and get a legally-recognized civil union then, if religious, get married the next day at a house of worship.

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

Could this 4T end up giving us the worst of both of the above scenarios?

Boomers are still trying to wage their culture wars, as furiously as ever, and right now look like being rendered irrelevant by GenX too early - with nobody to blame but themselves, for forcing GenX (and Millies) to act thus.

First, Barack Obama is an iffy cusper, and he has some very well-marked Idealist features as a leader. FDR fit that pattern too. He isn't so much anti-Boom as anti-(GW) Bush. His rhetoric is not specifically anti-Boom. Hitler was anti-Idealist.

Second, Boomers have not been cast aside. Many Boomers have joined the Obama bandwagon. It could be that the Obama administration is the time in which one Boom agenda (one that has more of the virtues that Howe and Staruss attribute to Idealist generations and fewer of the vices, which would be a better Boom agenda for meeting a Crisis Era. Did anyone think that Dubya was the right sort of leader for meeting a Crisis?)

Third, the Culture Wars will likely die -- especially should Obama cut into the votes of poor white Southerners. The Culture Wars of recent years manifest themselves in political polarization between "Red" states and "Blue" states. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia haven't voted for a GOP candidate for President since at least 1988 -- and in 2008 not one of them was even close to voting for John McCain. Obama also lost some states by as much as 30%. and several by 20%. Recent approval polls suggest that such has been evening out even in six months. We are 4T.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Leftward movement has begun, but upward movement still has time to develop. In addition, we won't actually be back into the left side of the chart until roughly 2013.

I'm pretty sure the 4T started on 9/11. That would mean the swing away from authoritarianism would have started...right about now. Tea Party?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I'm pretty sure the 4T started on 9/11. That would mean the swing away from authoritarianism would have started...right about now. Tea Party?

Keep deluding yourself and you'll be in for a rude awakening. The Teabaggers are mostly Theo-Con nuts. The Upper-Left = folks like Rag and Ska and Arkham, NOT YOU!!!

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Depends. Consider George Washington and good queen Bess. If this 4T should play out as a "house cleaning", perhaps mature nomads will provide adequate leadership.

I think there is a strong argument to be made that Prophets push the world into escalating chaos throughout the 4T, until the Climax is reached. Then, when everything is about to completely fall apart, Nomads take over, solve the Crisis the Prophets have created, end it, and establish a much more stable environment (1T).

In short, Prophets cause the Crisis, Nomads solve it.

Washington, Grant, Eisenhower, Truman...I think there are analogies to be made between all of them.

Originally Posted by Odin

Keep deluding yourself and you'll be in for a rude awakening. The Teabaggers are mostly Theo-Con nuts.

Wrong...they're mostly "Ron Paul nuts".

Different variety.

The Upper-Left = folks like Rag and Ska and Arkham, NOT YOU!!!

Your assessment of my ideological POV is incorrect, if you think I am a "theo-con", meaning someone who wants theocracy. I am relatively socially conservative, but I don't think you can change society by taking over the government and forcing things. I want to see government authority weakened.

I believe social issues should be decided by the people at the ballot box, not by judicial fiat. Given the chance to vote, I will vote in the conservative direction. That about sums it up. If America wants to destroy itself, it will. Dictatorship is no solution.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Wrong...they're mostly "Ron Paul nuts".

Different variety.

Ron-Paulites go in the "Curmudgeon" category and will be in the gray "Fringe" zome come the 1T. Most of the teabaggers are racist True-Right Glenn Beck lovers. They weren't protesting Bush, they are coming out of the woodwork now because a [insert racist epithet] is in the White House.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I believe social issues should be decided by the people at the ballot box, not by judicial fiat. Given the chance to vote, I will vote in the conservative direction. That about sums it up. If America wants to destroy itself, it will. Dictatorship is no solution.

That IS authoritarian, a populist authoritarianism described by the phrase "Tyranny of the Majority". Making Blacks, Jews, Gays, etc. second class citizens is still tyranny even if it is by majority vote.

Originally Posted by Odin

That IS authoritarian, a populist authoritarianism described by the phrase "Tyranny of the Majority". Making Blacks, Jews, Gays, etc. second class citizens is still tyranny even if it is by majority vote.

Prop 8 in California demonstrated that sometimes the people are an ass.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Prop 8 in California demonstrated that sometimes the people are an ass.

Perfect example of what I am talking about. Fitting that Initiative, Recall, and Referendum were popularized my the Missionary Generation, ardent devotees of the "Authority" of "The People".

Originally Posted by Odin

Ron-Paulites go in the "Curmudgeon" category and will be in the gray "Fringe" zone come the 1T. Most of the teabaggers are racist True-Right Glenn Beck lovers. They weren't protesting Bush, they are coming out of the woodwork now because a [insert racist epithet] is in the White House.

Taking cues from Miss Garofalo now?

There are sources outside the net-roots and MSNBC that could present interpretation that don't simply confirm your personal lens.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Prop 8 in California demonstrated that sometimes the people are an ass.

That seems to have been demonstrated by the entire California Proposition system. This idea of governance by popular vote really started in earnest with Prop 13. That one basically destroyed one of the best, if not the best, school systems in the country. California education hasn't recovered since.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

That seems to have been demonstrated by the entire California Proposition system. This idea of governance by popular vote really started in earnest with Prop 13. That one basically destroyed one of the best, if not the best, school systems in the country. California education hasn't recovered since.

This one sucked, too.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Actually, why stop there? I think bio engineered humans who can live in the oceans would be a good thing (TM).

The future history of the Transhuman Space setting explicitly references the saeculum and generational theory. It posits a Transhuman Awakening beginning in the 2040s, during which radical youths experiment wildly with cybernetic enhancements, genetic therapies, and designer drugs. These Transhumanists are opposed by the Preservationists, heirs to the environmental and green movements of the 20th century, who argue that the technological reconfiguration of man and his environment threatens to destabilize naturally-evolved ecological relationships.

Interestingly, the Awakening is followed in the 2070s by the Overturn, an Unraveling during which the fragmentation of the human race into dozens of engineered "parahuman" species and the emergence of sapient artificial intelligences throws into question the universality of the human condition. The result is political, economic, and social balkanization and a diaspora of fringe elements into space.

In the 2080s, there is a conflict known as the Pacific War, fought between the Transpacific Socialist Alliance (an ideological bloc united by shared nanosocialist principles) on the one hand and China on the other. The war is essentially a hamfisted attempt by China (now thoroughly corporatist) to enforce international copyright and patent law in the face of widespread and flagrant IP piracy. Although China manages to topple the nanosocialist government of Thailand (leader of the Alliance), it fails to break the Transpacific bloc entirely, and the war is widely perceived as a costly and futile episode presaging an even larger conflict -- rather like the First World War.

As of 2100 ("present day" for the setting), a major geopolitical upheaval seems imminent, as India leans strongly nanosocialist and threatens to throw in with the TSA, totally upsetting the balance of power on Earth. It is hinted in the source material that a 4T has been delayed somewhat by the lengthening of the saeculum due to life-extension technology, so the Transhuman Space setting is not yet in full-blown Crisis mode, but everyone in the world knows it's only a matter of time before the ideological rift between capitalism/corporatism and nanosocialism leads to a global conflagration.

Originally Posted by Odin

Perfect example of what I am talking about. Fitting that Initiative, Recall, and Referendum were popularized my the Missionary Generation, ardent devotees of the "Authority" of "The People".

Would you rather have a "Tyranny of the Minority"? Where only the elite and knowledgeable govern the rest of us "know-nothings"? In other words Plato's Philosopher-King led Republic.

Let us not return to a Monarchy of minorities, for the minorities' sake: it didn't work out too well in the end for the minorities who got overthrown.

Protect the minorities, allow them to exist, live and let live, but don't put them on a pedestal. They're not the end all and be all of culture. They're just as good, bad, and ugly as all the rest of us "mere mortals".

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

The future history of the Transhuman Space setting explicitly references the saeculum and generational theory. It posits a Transhuman Awakening beginning in the 2040s, during which radical youths experiment wildly with cybernetic enhancements, genetic therapies, and designer drugs. These Transhumanists are opposed by the Preservationists, heirs to the environmental and green movements of the 20th century, who argue that the technological reconfiguration of man and his environment threatens to destabilize naturally-evolved ecological relationships.

Interestingly, the Awakening is followed in the 2070s by the Overturn, an Unraveling during which the fragmentation of the human race into dozens of engineered "parahuman" species and the emergence of sapient artificial intelligences throws into question the universality of the human condition. The result is political, economic, and social balkanization and a diaspora of fringe elements into space.

In the 2080s, there is a conflict known as the Pacific War, fought between the Transpacific Socialist Alliance (an ideological bloc united by shared nanosocialist principles) on the one hand and China on the other. The war is essentially a hamfisted attempt by China (now thoroughly corporatist) to enforce international copyright and patent law in the face of widespread and flagrant IP piracy. Although China manages to topple the nanosocialist government of Thailand (leader of the Alliance), it fails to break the Transpacific bloc entirely, and the war is widely perceived as a costly and futile episode presaging an even larger conflict -- rather like the First World War.

As of 2100 ("present day" for the setting), a major geopolitical upheaval seems imminent, as India leans strongly nanosocialist and threatens to throw in with the TSA, totally upsetting the balance of power on Earth. It is hinted in the source material that a 4T has been delayed somewhat by the lengthening of the saeculum due to life-extension technology, so the Transhuman Space setting is not yet in full-blown Crisis mode, but everyone in the world knows it's only a matter of time before the ideological rift between capitalism/corporatism and nanosocialism leads to a global conflagration.

That might explain why some of my Conservative friends visiting China recently have come back saying they love the place. And here I just thought they'd been brainwashed...

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

The future history of the Transhuman Space setting explicitly references the saeculum and generational theory. It posits a Transhuman Awakening beginning in the 2040s, during which radical youths experiment wildly with cybernetic enhancements, genetic therapies, and designer drugs. These Transhumanists are opposed by the Preservationists, heirs to the environmental and green movements of the 20th century, who argue that the technological reconfiguration of man and his environment threatens to destabilize naturally-evolved ecological relationships.

Interestingly, the Awakening is followed in the 2070s by the Overturn, an Unraveling during which the fragmentation of the human race into dozens of engineered "parahuman" species and the emergence of sapient artificial intelligences throws into question the universality of the human condition. The result is political, economic, and social balkanization and a diaspora of fringe elements into space.

In the 2080s, there is a conflict known as the Pacific War, fought between the Transpacific Socialist Alliance (an ideological bloc united by shared nanosocialist principles) on the one hand and China on the other. The war is essentially a hamfisted attempt by China (now thoroughly corporatist) to enforce international copyright and patent law in the face of widespread and flagrant IP piracy. Although China manages to topple the nanosocialist government of Thailand (leader of the Alliance), it fails to break the Transpacific bloc entirely, and the war is widely perceived as a costly and futile episode presaging an even larger conflict -- rather like the First World War.

As of 2100 ("present day" for the setting), a major geopolitical upheaval seems imminent, as India leans strongly nanosocialist and threatens to throw in with the TSA, totally upsetting the balance of power on Earth. It is hinted in the source material that a 4T has been delayed somewhat by the lengthening of the saeculum due to life-extension technology, so the Transhuman Space setting is not yet in full-blown Crisis mode, but everyone in the world knows it's only a matter of time before the ideological rift between capitalism/corporatism and nanosocialism leads to a global conflagration.

That is very interesting!

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Would you rather have a "Tyranny of the Minority"? Where only the elite and knowledgeable govern the rest of us "know-nothings"? In other words Plato's Philosopher-King led Republic.

Let us not return to a Monarchy of minorities, for the minorities' sake: it didn't work out too well in the end for the minorities who got overthrown.

Protect the minorities, allow them to exist, live and let live, but don't put them on a pedestal. They're not the end all and be all of culture. They're just as good, bad, and ugly as all the rest of us "mere mortals".

~Chas'88

Oh, of course. I'm just suspicious (for reasons I gave by PM) of desires by the majority to denigrate, assimilate, or mistreat the oddballs of society.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Would you rather have a "Tyranny of the Minority"? Where only the elite and knowledgeable govern the rest of us "know-nothings"? In other words Plato's Philosopher-King led Republic.

Let us not return to a Monarchy of minorities, for the minorities' sake: it didn't work out too well in the end for the minorities who got overthrown.

Protect the minorities, allow them to exist, live and let live, but don't put them on a pedestal. They're not the end all and be all of culture. They're just as good, bad, and ugly as all the rest of us "mere mortals".

~Chas'88

"The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127

"And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?" --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:44

"Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them." --Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis Citizens, 1809. ME 16:337

"[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the Citizens of Adams County, Pa., 1808. ME 12:18

"If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform." --Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:51

Here's one that's particularly interesting in light of a variety of recent events:

"Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority." --Thomas Jefferson to John Armstrong, 1808. ME 12:42

Originally Posted by Andy '85

Taking cues from Miss Garofalo now?

There are sources outside the net-roots and MSNBC that could present interpretation that don't simply confirm your personal lens.

Here's one tea party website

We’re a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government. This website is specifically dedicated to the Washington, D.C. effort specifically sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, and the Young Conservatives Coalition.

Fiscal recklessness!! Haw!! Where was this gang when Bush was running up deficits, taking the Reform of Eurasia off-budget, and pushing through the Medicare drug benefit for Big Pharma?

Nah. Get real. It's because the man in the White House has a (D) after his name.