Turchin's instability index and crisis eras

[Nathan G]

Peter Turchin, the master of Cliodynamics, developed an extremely simple yet profound means of measuring political instability in history, mentioned in this article:
http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/PopInstab.pdf

Comparing instability charts developed by Turchin with Xenakis' crisis lists, the results are very profound. Almost every single spike in instability corresponds to either a crisis or awakening period, and every single crisis corresponds to some critical point, usually a local maximum.

The following attachment is a scanned copy of one of his charts, with my added notations indicating a crisis or awakening:

[John]

I went to meet Professor Turchin when I was first starting out in
2003. I told him what I was doing, and he told me that I wasn't
right. He gave as evidence Roman coin hoards spiking during 91-64 BC
and 55-35 BC, which were not 80 years apart.



At that time I was just starting out, but I finally figured out
that 91-64 was a crisis era, and 55-35 was an awakening era.

The interesting thing is that people bury their coin hoards in
crisis eras because there's a war going on, and in awakening
eras because they're AFRAID that there's a war going on.

What you've illuminated with your research is that that's generally
true, not just in Roman times. I agree that what you've discovered is
quite profound.

[Nathan G]

Thanks for the acknowledgment.
I actually made similar observations for about a dozen instability charts I've found in Turchin's works, including the Roman Republic. I only posted one because I didn't want to be spamming the forum with images. What I found most fascinating is that this vindicates your chronology for 17th century Britain.

This is what my observations were on Republican Rome:

Rome1.JPG (67.52 KiB) Viewed 8061 times

Of course, I haven't done nearly as much research as you, so it's entirely possible that the Civil War "overshadowed" the War with Egypt, but I have a difficult time seeing that.
Respectfully,
Nathan

[John]

> I actually made similar observations for about a dozen instability
> charts I've found in Turchin's works, including the Roman
> Republic. I only posted one because I didn't want to be spamming
> the forum with images. What I found most fascinating is that this
> vindicates your chronology for 17th century Britain.

> This is what my observations were on Republican Rome:

Rome1.JPG

> Of course, I haven't done nearly as much research as you, so it's
> entirely possible that the Civil War "overshadowed" the War with
> Egypt, but I have a difficult time seeing that.

The civil war that occurred in the -80s was apparently one of the
bloodiest wars in Roman history. The civil war that occurred in the
-40s fizzled quickly. Burying coin hoards would be a reflection not
of the size of a war, but of the size of the FEAR of a war. It stands
to reason that when a particularly bloody crisis war occurs, then it
would be reflected in the following Awakening era with an enormous
fear that there was a new bloody war coming, which would trigger
burying coin hoards. This was apparently the case when Caesar
"crossed the Rubicon," causing widespread panic in Rome that a renewal
of the -80s war would occur, triggering burying coin hoards. The war
fizzled quickly, but the coin hoards remained buried -- presumably,
just to be "safe."

[qudsia]

Crisis from 2005-Today: Central African Bush War starts around this time as Muslim from the Northeast fight the Central African Government. Although a peace treaty breaks out in 2007, low level violence between the two groups continued until 2013 when Djotodia and the Seleka march to the captial and are removed a year later. The Crisis facing the C.A.R is continuation of the Bush Wars and more.

[gerald]

Twilight zone ---
Maybe the horoscope has more validity the we thought, the horoscope is a joke - right?

Sun may determine lifespan at birth: study http://news.yahoo.com/sun-may-determine ... 45386.html

The team overlaid demographic data of Norwegians born between 1676 and 1878 with observations of the Sun.

In an unusual study published Wednesday, Norwegian scientists said people born during periods of solar calm may live longer, as much as five years on average, than those who enter the world when the Sun is feisty.

On top of lifespan, being born in a solar maximum period also "significantly reduced" fertility for women born into the poor category.

hmmm