Expanding certain crisis lists

[John]

That's what I've been doing, but the data base is in the form of a web site.

[Nathan G]

That's what I've been doing, but the data base is in the form of a web site.

Then I suppose all that you lack is a) human resources to fill in the blank spots and b) organization.

You have your priorities and I have mine, but if it were up to me, I would think the crisis lists would be more important to manage than the web blog.

[John]

> Then I suppose all that you lack is a) human resources to fill in
> the blank spots and b) organization.

> You have your priorities and I have mine, but if it were up to me,
> I would think the crisis lists would be more important to manage
> than the web blog.

I couldn't do that. I need the daily excitement of seeing
Generational Dynamics forecasts and analyses turning out to be right
to keep me going.

But look, if you have some free time and you're willing, then take up
the task of organizing the crisis war lists. I'll help if I can.

[Trevor]

Yeah, this would really be a project that would need dozens of people and some years in order to do completely. It's amazing enough what he's done alone, even if I occasionally disagree on some points. Maybe after WWIII is over, some of us could contribute to that, assuming anyone's still alive.

I know this is a little off topic, but... is it possible to have a nuclear war in a non-crisis period? I know there were times we came very close during the Cold War, so I was wondering about its plausibility.

[Nathan G]

I have some ideas that might reduce the amount of effort needed:

First of all, tracing a generational timeline for every tribe, state, and culture is impractical at best, impossible at worst. Most tribal peoples that have existed had no written language, and even the best archaeologists have difficulty discerning one from another. On the off chance a unique tribe is identified, (such as the Hopewell) information on them is so vague that it is impossible to create a reasonable crisis list, let alone a generational timeline. Even civilized states such as the Teotihuacan have similar problems. There are other nations, such as the Confederate States of America, that lasted such a brief time that creating a generational history for them would be useless. I estimate that there might as little as 2000 states that we can actually create a generational timeline for.

Second, not every state that we can trace needs an individual timeline. Take the Balkans for example. Since their creation in the 1990s, the states of Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Slovenia have only had one crisis: the Bosnian War, which affected them all. Will there ever be a crisis that affects some of these Balkan states and not others? Unlikely. Therefore, instead of creating a timeline for each country, it would be more efficient to group them together into a single, Yugoslavian unit. There are many other examples of nations so small that they act as one unit: the city states of Greece, the warring states of China, and the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. Of course, it is possible for there to be a crisis so small that it affects some of these states and not others; however, such a crisis would be so minor that it is not worth considering.

Therefore, I propose grouping all historical nations into a series of zones. The borders of these zones should be arranged such that, at every time in history, one of the following is true:

• A group of small state exists entirely within that zone (such as Greece in the Classical Period)
• The entire zone is part of a larger nation that includes multiple other zones (such as Greece in the Roman Period)

The divisions of these zones should be arranged such that the above statements are always true throughout history. Today, there are many large nations that include multiple zones (such as the US, UK, and China), as well as many zones that are composed of multiple nations (such as former Yugoslavia and Greater Palestine). I estimate there might be about 200-300 zones out there.

Having completely mapped out these zones, then creating the generational timelines is very simple: every zone only needs one crisis list. This list, of course, would be interrupted every time the zone is invaded by a foreign power, but it would still be a single list. This is would be made even easier considering wars that involve multiple zones (such as World War II). The only real difficulty would be identifying where these zones are located, which would require a survey of every historical state that has ever existed.

In other words, focusing on making crisis lists for regional zones instead of tribes and states can reduce the number of needed timelines from over 10,000 to less than 500.

Nathan G

[Nathan G]

Given only a dozen people, and just the resources of the internet and the public library, I could generate a complete generational timeline of the world in 14 weeks. Five weeks to map out the zones described above, and nine weeks to map out the saeculums.

[John]

> Given only a dozen people, and just the resources of the internet
> and the public library, I could generate a complete generational
> timeline of the world in 14 weeks. Five weeks to map out the zones
> described above, and nine weeks to map out the saeculums.

Wow! That's amazing! How accurate have your time estimates been in
the past?

[Nathan G]

Wow! That's amazing! How accurate have your time estimates been in
the past?

I assume that's a rhetorical question playing off of my inexperience. The 14-week time is my estimate, take it or leave it.
As I said before, there are probably less than 2000 historical states that we can actually work with. Assuming that it takes a few minutes to catalog each state, then it should take two weeks to enter all the states into a database, and another two weeks to group them into geographical zones. Assuming an extra week for preliminary organization, that makes five weeks to create a complete list of zones.
At that point, every zone should require only one crisis list, and I estimate there are less than 500 zones. All zones being worked on simultaneously, I expect 400 years to be mapped out each week. Working backwards in time from the present day, nine weeks should map out the history of the world from 1600 BC-2000 AD.
This can be simplified even more for two reason: 1) many saeculums span multiple zones (like WWII), especially when many zones are within one nation (like the Roman Empire). 2) Some crisis lists would be a lot shorter than others, such as American history vs Egyptian history. In fact, by the time saeculums have been traced back to 1500 BC, only Egypt and Mesopotamia will have recorded history.

My estimate is different from yours for one main reason: I only intend to trace the past, not predict the future, so I do not see any need to implement any superfluous algorithms. No government records, no public polls, and no complex software of any kind will be needed. What do you intend to spend millions of dollars on? What do you intend to spend all that extra time on?

Maybe it's just because I'm a millennial, so I'm gifted with optimism.
Respectfully,
Nathan G

[John]

> I assume that's a rhetorical question playing off of my
> inexperience.

Actually, that isn't true. When you posted your estimate, with such
specific numbers but no explanation, I assumed that that you had
obtained some experience in estimating software projects, perhaps in a
summer job, and that you had some kind of specific project plan in
mind.

Now that you've fleshed out your proposal a little more, I have some
comments.

• A dozen people don't just pop up out of nowhere. You have to have
  a staffing plan. What skills will people? What skill levels? What
  past experience? What education levels? What political views? What
  salaries will you pay? What benefits will you provide? What about
  holidays and vacations? What are your Human Relations policies, with
  regard to such things as age or sex discrimination, reviews, firing
  policies, security, confidentiality, etc.
• To hire a dozen people, you'd have to interview something like 100
  people. If you're lucky, you could hire a dozen people within 3-4
  months.
• Having hired someone, you have to train him. How are you going to
  train the first person you hire? As new people come on board, how are
  you going to train them?
• Where are people going to work? Will you rent office space, or
  will people work in their homes? How will you provide computers?
  Will you set up a network? What about the database servers, and an IT
  department?
• What will you do about the fact that some of the people working
  for you will think you're an idiot, or that you're crazy, or that you
  don't know what you're talking about, or that you're a left-wing
  ideologue, or that you're a right-wing ideologue, or that they don't
  like you ordering them around, or that they don't like you
  micromanaging them, or that they think you haven't really told them
  what to do, or that you're playing favorites, or that you're an evil
  person, or that you're trying to start a war, or ...?
• "As I said before, there are probably less than 2000 historical
  states that we can actually work with. Assuming that it takes a few
  minutes to catalog each state ..." What information are you going
  to capture for each historical state? If you look in the CIA fact
  book, you'll see what information is catalogued for each of the 240 or
  so modern states. What information will you collect for historical
  states? Where will you get it, given that it's scattered around
  thousands, or perhaps millions of history books in multiple languages?
  And how will collect this information about each historical state "in
  just a few minutes"?
• What generational information are you going to collect about each
  state? Crisis wars? Recovery eras? Awakening eras? Unraveling eras?
  Regeneracy dates? Will you just collect dates, or will you collect
  textual information describing what happened?
• What rules will you use to identify eras? Have you developed some
  numerical formulas that always work? Or do you expect to have
  opinions and judgments enter into the evaluations? If the latter,
  then how can you be sure that your 12 employees will be consistent
  with each other? Will left-leaning employees have different
  evaluations than right-leaning employees? Will you have peer reviews
  of evaluations? Who is going to mediate and resolve disputes? How
  will you resolve situations where an evaluation of one country
  contradicts the evaluation of the country next door?
• I've given examples that you're aware of that there's wide
  variability in making generational analyses. The 1994 Rwanda genocide
  is easy to identify as a crisis war. But the War of the Spanish
  Succession took me a week of reading history books in the Barnes and
  Nobles bookstore history section before I understood it. Then I
  received vitriolic disagreement in the Fourth Turning forum because
  identifying the War of the Spanish Succession as a crisis war rejects
  much of the 17th century chronology of England in the Fourth Turning
  book. You claim to be able to do these analyses in a few minutes.
  How are you going to do that, when nobody else can, and there are so
  many disputes?
• "My estimate is different from yours for one main reason: I
  only intend to trace the past, not predict the future, so I do not see
  any need to implement any superfluous algorithms." This doesn't
  make sense to me. Generational Dynamics forecasts the future, but the
  only way to do that is to have a great deal of information about the
  past. Once the past data has been collected, forecasting the future
  is usually easy. So your project collects exactly the same
  information that I've been collecting for the past 12 years.
• My web site contains about 4,000 articles, about 3-4 million
  words. In addition, I have millions more words in the texts of
  posting on the Generational Dynamics forum, the Fourth Turning forum,
  in responses to e-mail questions, and in responses to comments on
  other web sites. In addition, I have texts of historical analyses
  done by other people. That information took me 12 years to collect,
  and contains hundreds of historical analyses of the kind that you
  claim to be able to do. What makes you think you could duplicate that
  effort in 14 weeks? A much more modest project than you've described
  -- namely, to index and catalogue all the information on the web site
  and in the other textual information -- would take more than 14 weeks.
• What do you think a database is? My web site is a database. It
  has articles sorted by date, and indexed by google.
• "I do not see any need to implement any superfluous
  algorithms." Once you have your database, what use will it be? If
  all you've done is dumped a lot of information willy-nilly into
  database tables, then it will be completely useless. You need
  "superfluous algorithms" for the database to be useful -- to perform
  intelligent analyses of the data, and to drill down and correlate
  various collections of data. These algorithms will be very
  sophisticated, but without them, your database is just a collection of
  random garbage.

All in all, you're proposing exactly the same project I've proposed.
You're just leaving off a small piece at the end that uses the
historical data to make forecasts. It would not take 14 weeks. It
would take several years, and would cost several million dollars.

[Nathan G]

Thank you for your suggestions. As you probably know, my proposal is not meant to be any more logistically-complete than yours. It's merely an outline for how to complete the crisis lists given that resources are already provided (hence why I said "given a dozen people..." not "how to get a dozen people...").
I can understand you point some details that I have not addressed; that's very helpful. When your estimate is an entire order of magnitude different, however, I would think that requires more explanation. What exactly do you spend millions of dollars and years of time on? We're talking about researching history, not splitting the atom. I can only assume that you must be working on something totally different than what I'm thinking about, but you insist that we want the same goal.

What information are you going
to capture for each historical state? If you look in the CIA fact
book, you'll see what information is catalogued for each of the 240 or
so modern states. What information will you collect for historical
states? Where will you get it, given that it's scattered around
thousands, or perhaps millions of history books in multiple languages?
And how will collect this information about each historical state "in
just a few minutes"?

Not much information is necessary, in my opinion. Just enough to help group the state geographically:
Uniquely-identifying name: (example: Byzantium)
Date of origin: (example: 395)
Date of termination: (example: 1453)
Nation of origin: (example: Rome)
Nation of termination: (example: Turkey)
Approximate location: (example: Mediterranean)

Unless the nation is particularly obscure, there shouldn't be any trouble acquiring this information.

What generational information are you going to collect about each
state? Crisis wars? Recovery eras? Awakening eras? Unraveling eras?
Regeneracy dates? Will you just collect dates, or will you collect
textual information describing what happened?

Only a crisis list for each zone. Asking for any more information would take too much time. Each entry will be a uniquely-identifying name, a list of regions involved, and dates for the crisis era.

What rules will you use to identify eras? Have you developed some
numerical formulas that always work? Or do you expect to have
opinions and judgments enter into the evaluations? If the latter,
then how can you be sure that your 12 employees will be consistent
with each other? Will left-leaning employees have different
evaluations than right-leaning employees? Will you have peer reviews
of evaluations? Who is going to mediate and resolve disputes? How
will you resolve situations where an evaluation of one country
contradicts the evaluation of the country next door?

Crisis eras are supposed to come at particular intervals, and any student of Generational Theory will be familiar with that. If the crisis comes early (which should be rare), then there should also be a fairly good explanation why it came early. The number of early crises and other anomalies should be monitored so that it continues to reflect the demographics of your crisis lists. If there is any dispute, I would not hesitate to consult actual experts like you. If that fails (in the sense that not everyone agrees), then I am perfectly fine with sectioning off areas of history as "disputed" and moving on. Debates can be held after the database is complete.

I've given examples that you're aware of that there's wide
variability in making generational analyses. The 1994 Rwanda genocide
is easy to identify as a crisis war. But the War of the Spanish
Succession took me a week of reading history books in the Barnes and
Nobles bookstore history section before I understood it. Then I
received vitriolic disagreement in the Fourth Turning forum because
identifying the War of the Spanish Succession as a crisis war rejects
much of the 17th century chronology of England in the Fourth Turning
book. You claim to be able to do these analyses in a few minutes.
How are you going to do that, when nobody else can, and there are so
many disputes?

I never said that. I said that it takes a few minutes to catalog each state. Each crisis may take several hours to identify on average, not counting the disputes afterward. That's why I propose identifying 400 years per week. Because that's 4-5 saeculums, over a few hundred geographical regions, divided among a dozen or so people, a week makes sense to me. Remember also that many regions (like America or Australia) have only had a couple of saeculums in recorded history.

Additionally, I expect that issues like the Spanish Succession to be rare. By definition, every crisis is the pivotal moment in a nation's history, and therefor should be very famous. After all, if you ask any English man, he would tell you that the most important moments in English history include the War of the Roses, The Armada, the Civil War, Napoleon, and World War II. The Spanish Succession is therefore the most major conflict halfway between the Civil War and Napoleon. Of course, there are disputes with people who have alternate chronologies, but again I am fine with labeling an era as "unidentified" and saving the debates for later.

What do you think a database is? My web site is a database. It
has articles sorted by date, and indexed by google.

If you expect people to use your website as a quick reference for generational eras at any time in history, then I'm sorry but you failed in that regard.

Once you have your database, what use will it be? If
all you've done is dumped a lot of information willy-nilly into
database tables, then it will be completely useless. You need
"superfluous algorithms" for the database to be useful -- to perform
intelligent analyses of the data, and to drill down and correlate
various collections of data. These algorithms will be very
sophisticated, but without them, your database is just a collection of
random garbage.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse. Yes, I do intend to "dump a lot of information willy-nilly into database tables", because that's the most logical first step. It makes most sense (to me, at least) to develop ways of manipulating data only after I have data to manipulate. Imagine if a dictionary had only a few entries and was mostly filled with articles on "how to use a dictionary".

Of course, because you have spent 12 years and millions of words detailing what those methods and algorithms are, I don't have to worry about that part. Thank you.

Respectfully,
Nathan G