Generational Dynamics World View News

Discussion of Web Log and Analysis topics from the Generational Dynamics web site.
John
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 31-Oct-2019 World View: Merging timelines
Tim Randal Walker wrote: > Duct tape and rubber bands....interesting metaphor.

> One thing that we might see confirmed-that Great Depression/World
> War II crisis synchronized (roughly) the cycles of most countries.

> Implying that most of the world will be in Crisis at the same
> time.

> BTW, Peter Zeihan predicted that famine will be returning to parts
> of the world.
This is the Generational Dynamics theory of "merging timelines."

If you go back 8000 years, then all the wars were between villages,
and a major war in southern Italy would be completely independent of a
major war in northern Italy, and in fact each population would not
even know about the other war. So the generational timelines of the
two areas would be completely unrelated.

As the centuries go by, the villages coalesce into larger tribes and
regions and eventually into nations. Furthermore, continuing
technology developments in communication, trade and transportation
mean that different regions are more aware of wars that are going on
in other regions. The result is that two regions that were previously
too far apart to have a war are suddenly very close, thanks to
technology. And when two separated regions have a major war, then
their timelines merge. By the 1700s, there were only five or ten
independent timelines in Europe, but those timelines would be
independent of the timelines in Africa or Asia.

By the 1900s, almost all the timelines has coalesced into two major
ones, the World War I timeline and the World War II timeline, with
African timelines being the biggest exception.

But now, those two timelines are coalescing into the grandest war of
all, a war that really will encompass the entire world, and kill four
or five billion people.

zzazz

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by zzazz »

As you probably know, the Turing Test was devised by Alan Turing years
ago. You ask a computer questions and get answers, and the test is
whether you can tell whether the answers you're getting are from a
human being or computer. If you can't tell the difference, the the
computer is intelligent.
No, that is the freshman caricature of the Turing test. Anyone wanting to find out about the real Turing test can read all about it at Wikipedia.

John
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 31-Oct-2019 Turing Test
zzazz wrote: > No, that is the freshman caricature of the Turing test. Anyone
> wanting to find out about the real Turing test can read all about
> it at Wikipedia.
As it turns out, in grad school at MIT I specialized in mathematical
logic, recursive function theory, and philosophy of mathematics, and I
spent a very great deal of time studying the mathematics of Turing
Machines and their significance, as well as related subjects. So
there's a tiny but real possibility that I know a great deal more
about this subject than you do.

It's good that you've been practicing your internet skills, and you've
been learning how to use Wikipedia. However, the Wikipedia
description of Turing Test is extremely long and convoluted, much
longer than I would want to give in a one-sentence summary. I often
try to write things so that people can actually understand them, but
of course I never realized that they would be read by a genius like
yourself. Thank you as usual for deigning to visit us, and provide us
with your infinite wisdom, as you do oh so frequently.

Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

zzazz wrote:
As you probably know, the Turing Test was devised by Alan Turing years
ago. You ask a computer questions and get answers, and the test is
whether you can tell whether the answers you're getting are from a
human being or computer. If you can't tell the difference, the the
computer is intelligent.
No, that is the freshman caricature of the Turing test. Anyone wanting to find out about the real Turing test can read all about it at Wikipedia.
Wikipedia? So that's where you get your information from?

shoshin
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by shoshin »


John
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 01-Nov-2019 World View: Jamestown Eurasia Daily Monitor
shoshin wrote: > Russia and Trump, etc....

> https://mailchi.mp/jamestown.org/eurasi ... 75b248c579
This article is from the Jamestown Eurasia Daily Monitor.

https://jamestown.org/programs/edm/
https://jamestown.org/program/russias-p ... ts-a-snag/

This is the best site around for analysis on what's really going on in
Russia and Central Asia. I've been on their newsletter mailing lists
for many years, and they provide better information than anyone else.
(There are other sections of the Jamestown web site on Terrorism and
on China.)

Most so-called "experts" in Washington are too dumb to know what's
actually going on in these countries, and probably couldn't find
them on a map.

The Jamestown writers not only can find these countries on a map, but
they actually know what's going on since they can read the foreign
language media and report on it. So instead of repeating some the
idiotic opinions of some Washington journalist, politician or analyst,
who know nothing about the countries they're talking about, they
report on the opinions of journalists, politicians or analysts who
actually live and work in those countries. This makes them the best
source of information around.

John
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 01-Nov-2019 World View: Democide and crisis war deaths
mps92 wrote: > John, that's one of the most brilliant arguments I've ever
> heard. Is that an original argument that you came up with
> yourself?
I stand on the shoulders of giants.
mps92 wrote: > There is a tacit understanding among people who've studied history
> or biology - that disease is one of the natural mechanisms to
> avoid overpopulation. That's why there was no disease in America
> until the Euros arrived - the population density on this continent
> was too low to support an epidemic. Therefore, vaccinating and
> attempting to defeat disease is going against mother nature, and
> perhaps letting disease kill people is actually the moral
> solution. Frankly, I'm surprised that the first world hasn't had
> another epidemic (I guess the last one was HIV?). It's badly
> needed.
mps92 wrote: > And perhaps mass suicide is necessary for the same
> reason. Although, I would add that wild animals do not commit
> suicide. Suicide hasn't always been one of nature's "tools" to
> reduce the population, just something that has emerged
> recently. But for every person that chooses to commit suicide,
> perhaps that saves one person from starving to death in the next
> famine. So in a way, suicide is actually the most reasonable way
> to reduce the population.
I'm sympathetic to this argument, though I'm not aware of any evidence
of human mass suicide like the lemmings.

Whether lemmings commit mass suicide is debated. Those who say that
they don't commit suicide claim that their migratory patterns just
happen to require them to jump off a cliff en masse and kill
themselves. I don't know how that differs in any significant way from
mass suicide, so decide for yourself.

http://www.animalplanet.com/wild-animals/do-lemmings-commit-suicide/

But in a generational Crisis era, like today, even if there are no
human mass suicides ...err... was the Normandy landing a mass suicide?
Don't a lot of armies go into battle, knowing that most of them will
be killed? Isn't that mass suicide? I don't know.

Anyway, even if there aren't mass suicides today, there are plenty of
individual suicides in America, as the suicide rates are going up. A
lot of suicides are, of course, related to the economy. According to
reports, teens are increasingly committing suicide because they don't
want to be a financial burden on their parents, and Boomers are
committing suicide because they don't have enough money to live on, or
because they're terminally ill, or because young people consider them
more worthless than garbage. I don't see any reason why an older
person would want to stay alive today.
Tom Mazanec wrote: > AFAIK, only the War of the Triple Alliance and the Thirty Years
> War significantly reduced population on even a national
> scale.
This highlights a puzzle that I've had for years. Generational
Dynamics theory clearly implies that generational crisis wars reduce
the population, but every time I mention this online, someone points
out that it's not true. This conflict has been puzzling me for years.

However, a month ago, Aeden posted something that actually solved
the problem:
aeden wrote: > The often quoted University of Hawaii Democide Project makes is
> very clear that when the government goes after the guns of its
> citizens, genocide happens and has happened 16 times in the 20th
> century.

> http://hawaii.edu/powerkills

> In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5
> million Armenians, unable to defend themselves against their
> ethnic-cleansing government, were arrested and exterminated.

> 2. In 1929, the former Soviet Union established gun control as a
> means of controlling the “more difficult” of their citizens. From
> 1929 to the death of Stalin, 40 million Soviets met an untimely
> end at the hand of various governmental agencies as they were
> arrested and exterminated.

> 3. After the rise of the Nazi’s, Germany established their version
> of gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews,
> gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others, who were
> unable to defend themselves against the “Brown Shirts”, were
> arrested and exterminated. Interestingly, the Brown Shirts were
> eventually targeted for extermination themselves following their
> blind acts of allegiance to Hitler. Any American military and
> police would be wise to grasp the historical significance of the
> Brown Shirts’ fate.

> 4. After Communist China established gun control in 1935, an
> estimated 50 million political dissidents, unable to defend
> themselves against their fascist leaders, were arrested and
> exterminated.

> 5. Closer to home, Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From
> 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayans, unable to defend themselves against
> their ruthless dictatorship, were arrested and exterminated.

> 6. Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979,
> 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves from their
> dictatorial government, were arrested and exterminated.

> 7. Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977,
> one million of the “educated” people, unable to defend themselves
> against their fascist government, were arrested and exterminated.

> 8. In 1994, Rwanda disarmed the Tutsi people and being unable to
> defend themselves from their totalitarian government, nearly one
> million were summarily executed. The total numbers of victims who
> lost their lives because of gun control is approximately 70
> million people in the 20th century. The historical voices from 70
> million corpses speak loudly and clearly to those Americans who
> are advocating for a de facto gun ban. Governments murdered four
> times as many civilians as were killed in all the international
> and domestic wars combined. Governments murdered millions more
> people than were killed by common criminals and it all followed
> gun control. Historically, American gun control legislation has
> been imitating Hitler’s Nazi Germany gun control legislation for
> quite some time. Consider the key provisions of the Nazi Weapons
> Act of 1938 and compare it with the United States Gun Control Act
> of 1968. The parallels of both the provisions and the legal
> language are eerily similar.

> Only fools and corpses follow -them-.
The "democide" concept resolves the issue because it makes clear that
the majority of war-related deaths do not occur during the war, but
occur because of government action after the war.

This is like a jigsaw puzzle piece that completes the puzzle, because
it ties together so many other theoretical issues.

The web site claims that higher democide rates occur in societies that
are "not free," but that falls apart in many cases.

For example, in one place the web site is clearly puzzled why France,
which is a free society and did not have large massacres after WW II,
but then massacred tens of thousands of Algerians. The reason for the
difference is that for France, WW II was an external war, fought
between armies, while the Algerian war was a civil war.

As I've written many times, the behavior of a society is very
different from "normal" behavior when the generational crisis war was
an ethnic, racial, tribal or class civil war, rather than an
"external" war. The reason is that when an external war ends, the
invading armies leave, and there's no interactions between the two
populations. But after a civil war, the two populations have to
continue to live with each other, in the same country, in the same
cities, and sometimes on the same streets. It's not a pleasant
situation when you know that you're neighbor down the street raped and
killed your wife, then killed your children.

In the latter case, when the war ends and a member of the winning
tribe and his tribal cronies take control of the government, they
discriminate against people of the losing tribe in many ways,
sometimes simple economic depravation, and sometimes democide.

Aeden points out that there is also evidence that guns are confiscated
in societies where democide occurs, and that makes sense when you
realize that the tribe that won the civil war doesn't want the losing
tribe to have guns.

To sort out the democide categories, you don't separate them into
free/non-free. You separate them into three groups:
  • Democide deaths after a generational crisis war which is an
    external war.
  • Democide deaths during a generational crisis war which is an
    ethnic, tribal or class civil war.
  • Democide deaths during the Awakening and Unraveling eras following
    a generational crisis war which is an ethnic, tribal or class civil
    war.
Whether a society is free or non-free, or whether a society
confiscates guns, depends on whether the preceding crisis war was a
civil war. Once those distinctions are made, then much of the web
site narrative falls into place.

Returning now to the original theoretical point, that theory implies
that generational crisis wars reduce the population, that might
actually be true when you include democide deaths related to
generational crisis civil wars. This is a good subject for more
research.

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Tom Mazanec
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Tom Mazanec »

Then why has the human population grown every decade since about 1400?
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

Guest

Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by Guest »

Tom Mazanec wrote:Then why has the human population grown every decade since about 1400?
Because most wars fought since 1400 have not been world wars; they are relatively localized conflicts. Also, the firepower involved was much less. Yes, you could butcher a lot of people with swords and knives, but you had to catch them first. With carpet bombing it's much easier to kill huge numbers of people. Countries at peace could see populations grow, as opposed to countries at war. Improvements in medical care and diet (especially food production) play a huge role. Infant mortality was sky high in the past, and now it is rock bottom. WW 3 will play out differently.

John
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Re: Generational Dynamics World View News

Post by John »

** 02-Nov-2019 World View: Population growth
Tom Mazanec wrote: > Then why has the human population grown every decade since about
> 1400?
Guest wrote: > Because most wars fought since 1400 have not been world wars; they
> are relatively localized conflicts. Also, the firepower involved
> was much less. Yes, you could butcher a lot of people with swords
> and knives, but you had to catch them first. With carpet bombing
> it's much easier to kill huge numbers of people. Countries at
> peace could see populations grow, as opposed to countries at
> war. Improvements in medical care and diet (especially food
> production) play a huge role. Infant mortality was sky high in the
> past, and now it is rock bottom. WW 3 will play out
> differently.
That's a really good analysis. You've obviously thought about this
a lot more than most people have.

The population grows faster than the food supply for humans, as it
does for pretty much all animal species. That means that it's necessary
to reduce the population every now and then -- through war, disease
and famine -- so that the survivors have enough to eat.

But actually that's not true. It's only necessary to reduce the
rate of population growth every now and then, so that it's lower
than the rate of growth for the food supply (and other resources).

Even that's only true regionally, as you point out. If you look at
the population of the world as a whole, then at any given time
population continues to grow as usual in most of the world, while
population (growth) falls in other regions, so that world population
growth averages out to low level that's still positive.

Here's a graph that I've always found fascinating:

Image
  • Population of China -- 200 BC to 1700 AD


If we speculate and apply some of these concepts to interpreting this
graph, then historically, China was always very insular. Since
ancient times, the Chinese viewed themselves as the Middle Kingdom --
there was the Kingdom of heaven, there was China (the Middle Kingdom),
and there were the barbarians (the rest of the world). The Great Wall
of China was begun in the Qin Dynasty around 200 BC, and they
considered the South China Sea to be a "natural great wall" that they
stayed completely away from, until recent times when they've been
illegal annexing it for Lebensraum.

So the Chinese mostly fought wars among themselves, and you can see
from the graph that the population rose and fell quite dramatically.

Then in 1206 the Mongols conquered China, and so there began to
develop multiple generational timelines within China's population. By
1400, there were probably still huge dramatic rises and falls in the
population -- on a regional level -- but the population of China as a
whole continued to grow, generally matching the trend line. China
then started having wars not only with the Mongols, but also with the
Russians and with the Turks in Central Asia and with the Tibetans.

The trend line, incidentally, could be thought of as a proxy for
growth in food production, with population rising and falling
depending on the availability of food.

As I said, this is speculation. I've had that graph on file for 15
years. I got these figures in 2003 from a book called Historical
Dynamics by Peter Turchin, but today I have no idea where the numbers
came from, or what parts of China, Mongolia, Central Asia, Tibet and
Russia they include.

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