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Mathematician Predicts Wave of Violence In 2020

ananyo writes "In a feature that recalls Asimov's Foundation series and 'psychohistory', Nature profiles mathematician Peter Turchin, who says he can see meaningful cycles in history. Worryingly, Turchin predicts a wave of violence in the United States in 2020. Quoting from the piece: 'To Peter Turchin, who studies population dynamics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, the appearance of three peaks of political instability at roughly 50-year intervals is not a coincidence. For the past 15 years, Turchin has been taking the mathematical techniques that once allowed him to track predator-prey cycles in forest ecosystems, and applying them to human history. He has analyzed historical records on economic activity, demographic trends and outbursts of violence in the United States, and has come to the conclusion that a new wave of internal strife is already on its way. The peak should occur in about 2020, he says, and will probably be at least as high as the one in around 1970. 'I hope it won't be as bad as 1870,' he adds." We recently discussed similar research into predicting violence in the short term.

397 comments

  1. It won't happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We already know the world ends on December 21, 2012, so why is he speculating about a future that won't even happen?

    1. Re:It won't happen by stevegee58 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Didn't the world already end? I coulda sworn...

    2. Re:It won't happen by I(rispee_I(reme · · Score: 4, Informative
    3. Re:It won't happen by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Didn't the world already end? I coulda sworn...

      Don't worry, you're not the only one who hasn't noticed yet.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:It won't happen by darkiblis · · Score: 1

      calm down man..fil doesnt understand that it will happen in the real world but the virtual world will live on...enough cat blasphemy..whaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

      --
      nil desperandum illigitimi
    5. Re:It won't happen by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      He is applying Fourier analysis to plotted wave forms, and that is how he gets to make his prediction. (Thats how I would do it)

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    6. Re:It won't happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok, the world will not end this year... but we will not be able to avoid the "Heat death of the universe" one.

      z\m/

    7. Re:It won't happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. It is not FUNNY. The fallacy is that you think of World as meaning the whole planet. And never think of prophecies as PLANS. Say, if you lose all your music albums and in the absence of online downloading, you lose your whole world too... Add quotes where needed to get semantic levels differentiated.

  2. Always be wary of extrapolating by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obligatory xkcd.

    1. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by DeadDecoy · · Score: 3, Informative

      On that note, his sample size seems a bit small...

    2. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Opyros · · Score: 5, Informative

      Forget XKCD, here is the obligatory Mark Twain quote!

    3. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Funny

      One can learn a great deal about Statistics by having multiple Statisticians perform multiple predictions based on a series of datasets with reduced sample sizes, all the way down to one sample.

      (un)Surprisingly, the prediction accuracy is only very weakly related to the dataset accuracy, and varies wildly between predictioneers. One can thus conclude that Statistics are Statistically worthless.

    4. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I just wish people would apply the same skepticism with the climate change extrapolations.

      The guy in TFA is seeing some fluctuations, and despite having no idea what is causing the pattern, he is predicting the pattern will repeat.

      With climate change the warming was predicted, and climate scientists have models that explain the underlying cause for the trend. So the situation is not the same.

    5. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by gishzida · · Score: 1

      Yes, Just because the Petroleum Institute believes tomorrow will be just like yesterday does not make it so... [note I say 'believes' for without any corresponding proof or research it is belief not science -- see http://berkeleyearth.org/ for a skeptic's results]...

    6. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by bth · · Score: 1

      The right story to cite is Robert Heinlein's "The year of the jackpot". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Jackpot

    7. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by drkstr1 · · Score: 1

      It doesn't take a super genius to figure this one out. Without looking at any statistics, i could make the claim there will be political strife every 50 years or so, or the time it takes the current youngins to come to power.

      --
      Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
    8. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by cpu6502 · · Score: 1

      Yes.
      I don't recall anything major happening in U.S. 1820, so I guess that shoots his "50 year cycle" theory. Or 1720.

      --
      My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
    9. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Not only that but looking at his graph he seems to have completely missed the second world war. Or was 50 million dead not violent enough to qualify?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    10. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the violence he's talking about will happen because of the climate change extrapolations?

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    11. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Statistics isn't a pure science, it doesn't always get things right, but it's by no means worthless. Take ECC memory, for instance. It can recover from a single bitflip, more than that and you're screwed. But, statistically, the chances of two or more bitflips occurring are low enough that often it isn't worth the cost to correct more than one bit error. Without statistics there'd be no way to tell how much money you should spend on safeguards. In the real world things don't always work right, you need to manage risks, and, like it or not, your best bet for that is to use statistics.

    12. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming he only tracked internal strife, not external. WWI didn't make it in, but post-WWI tensions did.

    13. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by nightcats · · Score: 1

      Oh I wouldn't worry, that place is full of those Type A characters. Just look at their basketball coach...

      --
      Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
    14. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      Because the new USA was still reeling from the War of 1812 with Britain. In 1720 we weren't the "USA" yet.

    15. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by hey! · · Score: 2

      Sounds like a badly designed experiment. If the statisticians were required to make extrapolations from many inadequate samples, of course their agreement with each other would be drastically reduced. However, given that accuracy increased with dataset size (and with that, agreement necessarily too), statistics seems to be vindicated within its claimed scope of utility.

      It would be more correct to say statisticians without data are statistically worthless.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    16. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by dontmakemethink · · Score: 2

      Actually, 47.28462943298517% of all statistics are just made up

      --

      War as we knew it was obsolete
      Nothing could beat complete denial
      - Emily Haines
    17. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      children are only born every 50 years? that seems very odd.

    18. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Dunbal · · Score: 0

      So things like systematic extermination of "sub humans" in Nazi Germany isn't "internal strife" either? Even if we leave aside the extermination of the weak, the sick, and those of the wrong color or religion for a moment: how about the various assasinations when Hitler decided to get rid of his SA brown-shirts. There's some good german fanatic on german fanatic slaughtering. Not internal strife? I'd like to say it would be interesting to say exactly what his metric was, but frankly I don't think it's worth my time.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    19. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by ethergear · · Score: 2

      It isn't internal to the USA.

    20. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1
      It is possible to find excuses for any event happening or not when it doesn't fit the theory.

      Because the new USA was still reeling from the War of 1812 with Britain

      In 1870 we were still reeling from the Civil War, much more dramatically than any consequences of the War of 1812. And in 1920 WWI was recent history.

      In 1720 we weren't the "USA" yet.

      Completely irrelevant.

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      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    21. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Did you not read TFA? The point was that it takes about 2 generations for political and historical lessons to be forgotten or discarded as irrelevant. For periods shorter than that, influential people can see a Jesse Jackson and say "rabble rouser", they can see George Soros and say "rich man bent on universal destruction", and be understood by enough people to prevent the troublemakers from gaining traction.

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    22. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by philgp · · Score: 2

      In AD 2101, war was beginning....

    23. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by travisco_nabisco · · Score: 1

      What is the standard deviation of that percentage?

    24. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Statistics are useful indicators for real science, but they are not science in and of themselves.

    25. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by yndrd1984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The next time you get really, really upset over something while other people aren't, you might want to check your assumptions.

    26. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

      I'm assuming he only tracked internal strife, not external. WWI didn't make it in, but post-WWI tensions did.

      Tell that to the Japanese US citizens of 1942. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

    27. Re:Always be wary of extrapolating by yndrd1984 · · Score: 1

      Responses to military attacks (even stupid and/or immoral ones aimed at your own people) don't count as internal strife.

  3. completely idiotic by slashmydots · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the stupidest made up bullshit I've ever heard. At 50 year intervals, the sample size is like 3 or something. That's well within the range of coincidence! Since people going totally apeshit doesn't happen for no reason, I'd say it's more reason based than some natural recurring phenomenon based on time.

    1. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It just makes me so angry! If they keep up this nonsense for another 8 years, I think it might push me over the top!

    2. Re:completely idiotic by musicalmicah · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also, where's the peak at 1820? I suppose there was the War of 1812 (lasted until 1815) but he's already excluded war from his chart.

    3. Re:completely idiotic by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 2

      Patterns! Patterns everywhere! Ahhhhhhh!

    4. Re:completely idiotic by mikael · · Score: 2

      Past explanations were due to crop productivity related to long-period oscillations in ocean currents (El Nino / La Nina).

      Major ENSO events were recorded in the years 1790–93, 1828, 1876–78, 1891, 1925–26, 1972–73, 1982–83, 1997–98 and 2009–2010,[50] with 1997-1998 being one of the strongest ever.

      Going by the wiki page, 2020-2025 should also be a El Nino period

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    5. Re:completely idiotic by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      Yup, probably 'cause his degrees are in bioscience, not math. . .

    6. Re:completely idiotic by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      His graph shows the Napoleonic wars and World War II as points of relatively low violence, so the solution is obvious: you can avoid the next wave of violence by going to war with China.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    7. Re:completely idiotic by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think his "50 year" number is a bit odd, as it's based on absolutely no foundation, other than a few loose correlations.

      Instead, he should model it like you do for animal patterns: generational trends.

      It makes a lot of sense that violence would peak every two generations... which these days, is about every 50 years. If people start having children later, I'd expect that number to get larger... and if people start having children younger, I'd expect it to be shorter.

      Added to that, he tossed out war, but war will have an extremely powerful influence on this pattern -- it probably won't distort it too much in the long-term, but it will definitely affect the surrounding periods of incidence.

    8. Re:completely idiotic by yanom · · Score: 1

      The danger here, of course, is that this type of thing will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

      --
      "That's either incredibly asinine or the most brilliant troll I've ever read. Not sure which." -Anonymous Coward
    9. Re:completely idiotic by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

      The 1970 spike was more violence against fashion. Did you see those bell bottoms and sideburns?!?!

    10. Re:completely idiotic by timeOday · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is the stupidest made up bullshit I've ever heard.

      And yet you haven't even heard it, because you haven't read the article. Same with the people who ignorantly modded you up. The idea is not that there will be a bump in a graph every 50 years and therefore we are due in 10 more.

      In a nutshell, to me the theory sounds basically like marxism. It is the view that history is driven by a recurring cycle of inequality and revolution:

      In their analysis of long-term social trends, advocates of cliodynamics focus on four main variables: population numbers, social structure, state strength and political instability. Each variable is measured in several ways. Social structure, for example, relies on factors such as health inequality â" measured using proxies including quantitative data on life expectancies â" and wealth inequality, measured by the ratio of the largest fortune to the median wage....

      the researchers found that two trends dominate the data on political instability. The first, which they call the secular cycle, extends over two to three centuries. It starts with a relatively egalitarian society, in which supply and demand for labour roughly balance out. In time, the population grows, labour supply outstrips demand, elites form and the living standards of the poorest fall. At a certain point, the society becomes top-heavy with elites, who start fighting for power. Political instability ensues and leads to collapse, and the cycle begins again.

      Superimposed on that secular trend, the researchers observe a shorter cycle that spans 50 years â" roughly two generations. Turchin calls this the fathers-and-sons cycle: the father responds violently to a perceived social injustice; the son lives with the miserable legacy of the resulting conflict and abstains; the third generation begins again...

      Elites have been known to give power back to the majority, he says, but only under duress, to help restore order after a period of turmoil. âoeI'm not afraid of uprisings,â he says. âoeThat's why we are where we are.â

    11. Re:completely idiotic by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      If you only count peaks, yes, you have a sample size of 3. If you have a full predictive model, however, you not only predict peaks but also intermediate variations.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    12. Re:completely idiotic by ultranova · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Since people going totally apeshit doesn't happen for no reason, I'd say it's more reason based than some natural recurring phenomenon based on time.

      It's called "mortality". Given enough time, the memory of the previous time a bad idea was tried fades, and the new generation does it all over again. How long it takes depends on the depth of the trauma and how fast the nasty effects take hold: for example, the recent rise of Western police states is due to the memory of Nazism finally fading, while it was Reagan who began ignoring the lessons of the Great Depression, yet it took until now for deregulation to finally lead to a new economic collapse.

      Basically, you get a new Great War as soon as those who survived the previous one are too frail to prevent it anymore. Or earlier, if enough charisma and stupidity are involved.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    13. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      His graph shows the Napoleonic wars and World War II as points of relatively low violence, so the solution is obvious: you can avoid the next wave of violence by going to war with China.

      If we're going to go to war with China, I guess I'd better start hoarding bottle caps.
      (This is Slashdot... someone will get that joke.)

    14. Re:completely idiotic by guises · · Score: 3, Interesting

      His graph is of violent political upheaval within the United States. World War II was a point of very low violence and the Napoleonic Wars were just as the nation was starting out. Yes, war with China would probably reduce the internal strife that we're going through right now provided that it was them who attacked us and that they did so without provocation (or at least without provocation that was known to the public at large).

    15. Re:completely idiotic by tomhath · · Score: 1

      Even more significant is the peak of violence about 5 years after a war, when the the post war recession peaks. it's the economy, stupid.

    16. Re:completely idiotic by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that he actually has 1820 on the plot, and it was almost zero. So he has 4 data points, of which 3 fit the "trend", and one completely blows it up. Worse - and this is the part that separates science from bullshit - he seems to claim absolutely no mechanism of any kind.

      The problem is that such terrible science could taint better work with the same stink of shit, when there are better studies that attempt to predict future instability. Things like male/female ratio, baby booms, and other demographic have been linked to future violence in much better studies than this.

      Honestly, if I were teaching a senior level college math course and a student turned this in as a term paper, I'd give it a C. It's pathetic for a professor.

    17. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you get a new Great War as soon as those who survived the previous one are too frail to prevent it anymore

      Let's hope that does not happen because then the war following the next great war will be fought with stick and stones.

    18. Re:completely idiotic by Friggo · · Score: 1

      Don't forget to get a spare Water Chip :)

    19. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Since people going totally apeshit doesn't happen for no reason.

      Studies with orphan elephants released to the wild show that immature males ungoverned by larger males will go apeshit.

      One can imagine the regular framework of failed politics resulting immense death rates since the invention of mechanised warfare leaving a generation of little bastards running riot.

      1875 seems a good median for the 2@s born few years before the USA's second civil war.
      What other statistic were involved?

       

    20. Re:completely idiotic by Hentes · · Score: 1

      But unlike most futurist pseudoscience this is a concrete prediction that's easily testable.

    21. Re:completely idiotic by Anachragnome · · Score: 1

      "Basically, you get a new Great War as soon as those who survived the previous one are too frail to prevent it anymore."

      I think you can refine that some.

      If you take the lives of Grandma, her daughter, and her grand-daughter, overlap them in a time-line taking into consideration age before giving birth, life expectancy and the time grand-daughter and grandma can spend time with each other, you'd end up with something that may also effect the equation--how much information can be passed directly from one generation to another. It is much easier to forget if nobody tells you in the first place.

      All that being said, going by averaging the stats for the last three generations (haphazardly gleaned from Wikipedia), arranging them in a time-line and locating the point at which Grandma dies, I come up with roughly 110 years, including 10 years to get things properly fucked up.

      But, the point is moot, to quote Jesse Jackson--we live in times unlike any other--and always will--and thus shit like this is pointless.

    22. Re:completely idiotic by aurispector · · Score: 1

      I wonder if he completely ignored demographics - 1970 was a year the baby boomer hit their twenties. Do we have a similar demographic trend occurring?

      --
      I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
    23. Re:completely idiotic by Darby · · Score: 0

      is the stupidest made up bullshit I've ever heard. At 50 year intervals, the sample size is like 3 or something. That's well within the range of coincidence

      Once is chance, twice is a coincidence, third time is enemy action.

    24. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      perhaps t=1820 is close enough to the starting conditions of the system being plotted that violençe at that time is close to the initial condition.

    25. Re:completely idiotic by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

      That would make sense if he was missing a peak, but in this case the fault is with reality. Meaning the effect simply didn't happen that year. You're being too kind.

    26. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      patterns all around you
      patterns everywhere
      patterns of behavior
      sometimes seem unfair
      can you recognize the patterns that
      you find?
      patterns unfamiliar
      patterns lead you through (to)
      patterns of discovery
      tracing out the clues
      can you recognize the patterns that
      you find?
      stuck in your mind
      in this land where stability is hard
      to find
      you can rearrange the patterns
      so unkind
      don't bother asking why a pattern
      never cries
      old patterns never die they just go on
      and on

      patterns multiplying
      re-direct our view
      endless variations
      make it all seem new

    27. Re:completely idiotic by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The author, while making some reasonable points, does show himself to be a prime fool. Citing violence as a result of political instability is circular.

      The worst is "I'm not afraid of uprisings, he says. That's why we are where we are." How like an academic to believe that an uprising poses no risk of him ending up dead.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    28. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      contrarian economists were predicting global civil disturbances within 10 years from 2007-08

    29. Re:completely idiotic by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 1

      In a sense, demographics are central to the explanation of the cycle that is proposed in the article. 50 years is about the time it takes for lessons to become lost because the people who experienced them personally are dead or too old to affect the course of events.

    30. Re:completely idiotic by bar-agent · · Score: 1

      I think his "50 year" number is a bit odd, as it's based on absolutely no foundation, other than a few loose correlations. Instead, he should model it like you do for animal patterns: generational trends. It makes a lot of sense that violence would peak every two generations... which these days, is about every 50 years.

      Did you even read what you wrote? The "50 year" number is from generational trends. He called it the "father-son" cycle.

      --
      i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    31. Re:completely idiotic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a pattern, and it is predictable, but you are right in that this guy totally did it obviously wrong. There are cycles. Think of it as additive waves on a graph. One such wave which has changed in the last 150 years is the reproductive cycle. We have recently gone back to an age of majority families with 3 generations in 60 years. This wasn't as common (not the majority), 60 years ago, and therefore has huge effects on tradition and politics, which MODULATE the other cycles he is discussing.

    32. Re:completely idiotic by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Added to that, he tossed out war, but war will have an extremely powerful influence on this pattern -- it probably won't distort it too much in the long-term, but it will definitely affect the surrounding periods of incidence.

      Indeed - as his 1970 peak or political was driven partly by the Vietnam war. Nor, as he claims, was WWII quiescent... his own graph shows an increase of political violence across the war years.

    33. Re:completely idiotic by formfeed · · Score: 1

      No, It actually makes sense.
      By 2020 Mittens will have completed his second term and the only way to stay in power is to have the Senate declare him Arch-Washington for life. This will cause uprisings in the blue quarantine zones. In order to deal with the protesters, TSA units will have to be deployed. But since this would leave the castles vulnerable to the peasants, guard units need to be withdrawn from the war on terror. And with fewer units on the ground, the liberation of Ottawa and with it operation "Free at Last" will ultimately fail.
      See, it makes sense.

    34. Re:completely idiotic by unitron · · Score: 1

      "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."

      Auric Goldfinger

      (I think it sounds better with "happenstance")

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  4. Predicting violence is easy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It will happen.

    If you're vague enough about your predictions... you won't be wrong often.

    1. Re:Predicting violence is easy. by sgt_doom · · Score: 1

      We predict that the United States of America will become balkanized beginning around 2017, rendering his prediction null and void. This will be aggravated by those economically crippling interest rate swaps/derivatives perpetrated on cities and munipalities by the bankster class.

    2. Re:Predicting violence is easy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I predict that somebody in a town within the Continental United States will get in a car wreck today and be horribly injured. Now, if only I knew who it was, I could save some lives.

    3. Re:Predicting violence is easy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A former coworker was an army meterologist during WWII. He had among the best forecast record. He once told me his secret:

      "I usually said, 'No change for the next 4 hours.' This meant that if it went from sunny to almost rain, I was correct. And if I said, the same about the next 4 hours, and it went from almost rain to rain, well, I was correct again. Keep repeating the process, and you'll be right more often than not. Just try to be as unspecific as possible."

    4. Re:Predicting violence is easy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely. You just need to have someone paint the target over where you previously where guessing.

    5. Re:Predicting violence is easy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truer words could never be spoken.

      A great example is Nostradamus. Vague in nearly every vector of translation...

  5. Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's see:

    1. "Extrajudicial" killing of US citizens
    2. Use of drones against US citizens
    3. Cameras recording activities
    4. Government snooping into private conversations

    Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

    1. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let's see:

      1. "Extrajudicial" killing of US citizens
      2. Use of drones against US citizens
      3. Cameras recording activities
      4. Government snooping into private conversations

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

      I don't know why you were modded down. Maybe because your list left out too many other reasons why the Govt needs to be slapped down.

    2. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      2. Use of drones against US citizens

      This is fodder for some good discussion right here, and Id like to get something cleared up.

      I understand the importance of jury trial and the dangers of an unchecked government. I understand that the last thing you want is an executive that can freely ignore the judicial branch.

      But if a US citizen in 1942 were to go and fight for the Nazi's, and lets say he became a high-up officer-- would we not be justified in going after his life "extrajudicially"? What if a US citizen went to Mexico and became a higher up in the militarized drug cartels (lets not turn this into a discussion on drug politics)-- would we be justified in assisting in his death if capture were not an easy option? What if in those situations the choice was between his death, and him going free?

      It seems to me there IS some line for when someone takes up arms in a foreign theatre against US forces; I might be wrong here, which is why Im hoping for constructive responses which could demonstrate my error if there is one.

    3. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Unnngh! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment

      I'm all for second amendment rights but I really don't think they are going to help with any of these things. If we can't live together as a society without the threat of violence, there is not much hope of maintaining a stable, long-lasting state. It is violence spurred by political unrest and divisiveness that the OP is predicting, go figure.

    4. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by artor3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fuck you.

      You think you can just start murdering people to fix all your problems. It doesn't work that way. You spill blood, and other people will fight back, and we'll end up in a 3rd world hellhole for a century. You will not live to see a return to peace. None of us will.

      Go visit other countries, if you think things here are bad. See hundreds of millions of people living in shantytowns. See the bribery that is required on a daily basis. See people sentenced to years in prison because they spoke out against Putin or Ahmadinejad or some other despot. See life behind the Great Firewall, or in Brazil where it is illegal to be anonymous.

      Life in the US is unbelievably wonderful compared to damn near everywhere else in the world. And you want to destroy that, because of some fucking security cameras? Well thank God for those cameras! I hope some are pointed squarely at you. As soon as you seek to end a human life, you deserve to be taken away and locked up in a place where the world can forget you.

    5. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Should the US ever become a police state (which is never going to happen, IMO) your collection of handguns will not help you defend yourself against a SWAT team.

    6. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haven't been to Detroit, have you?

    7. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nah merkins are too fat, lazy and complacent and full of RA RA NO 1 shit fed to them to riot , even the French do it better

    8. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why do you think China is so bad? I know dozens of Chinese, they love their home country and are happy to vacation there every year. They'd stay if they could get better pay.

      I also know people from Brazil. Their biggest complaint was the pollution. They loved the people and the country is beautiful. They also vacation there, and would go back if it paid better.

      Life in the US pays better. It is not better.

    9. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

      The big problem there is that the US Gov't will see your 2nd Amendment and raise you tanks, air strikes, and anything else up to and possibly including nukes.

    10. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I totally agree on this.

      Seriously, though, if we actually look at the underlying problem behind the use-of-drones against US citizens issue, one key point stands out. In my assessment, the reason for these deaths is that it is virtually impossible for an enemy of the US to relinquish his citizenship.

      If you actually look at the people who are killed, none of them consider themselves US citizens. They are people often in the direct service of foreign states or state-like actors, who dedicate themselves to the destruction of the US. They aren't going to vote, pay US taxes, or make use of US services any time soon. They profess no loyalty to the US, nor to its values, nor to its flag or any symbol, and would probably *prefer* to die in combat rather than be captured and go through a trial as a criminal.

      The thing is, under the present system, the only way for someone to end his citizenship, is by appearing, in person, at an US consulate. This is obviously a suicidal move for these people. Therefore, due to the requirements of the system, these people must necessarily remain, on paper, US citizens. What actually needs to be done here is that it should be more simple for people to safely and voluntarily declare themselves enemies of America. Farcical as it sounds, otherwise the present situation will inevitably and pointlessly continue.

    11. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by M.+Baranczak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

      The 2nd Amendment has failed to prevent any of the things that you listed. What was your point again?

    12. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 2

      I keep saying this, but yes, the second amendment is no protection against tyranny. It merely allows a transition to the rule of the strong, instead of the systemised albeit flawed democracy we presently have. Unless a government is really stupid and alienates *all* of its citizenry (which admittedly, has happened, but seems unlikely to be the case in a place as polarised as the US), civilian held weapons are about as likely to be used to terrorise opponents of the government, as anything else. Recall how Nazi Germany and East Germany both built careful systems where people would inform on each other for personal gain. And indeed, how ahead of the Rwandan massacre, the government actually *handed out* weapons to the public, so that they can use them against the opponents government propaganda had primed them to attack.

      Freedom of information and strong institutions is a *far* more powerful tool against tyranny than mere weapons.

    13. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 0

      "unbelievably wonderful compared to damn near everywhere else in the world." Yes, the US was once a terrific place. The various levels of socialist governments and Federal Reserve in the US have been working overtime since LBJ to destroy that.

    14. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We also carpet bombed cities full of innocent civilians and dropped nukes on whole cities in the middle of the day. At one time, we had laws in this country forbidding white people and black people from using the same facilities. We had a "foreign policy" of extermination regarding Native Americans at another point as well. I suppose that means we should do it again, right? Precedent does not make something justified. That mindset completely flies in the face of any notion of human progress. If that line of thinking (we did it before, so we have every right to do it again) prevailed more than it has, we could easily see great purges, racial/political "cleansing" etc. . .

      The whole point of history is to learn from it's successes and failures, so we can build on the shoulders of giants, and learn how to avoid the machinations of tyrants and madmen of old. It is an extremely bad precedent to set that an American is not protected by their own Constitution, no matter how vile they may be. It is the hallmark of a free society in which even the most evil people in society are given a fair trial, so we can be very sure that they are actually guilty of what we accuse them of. This is a precious gift that our Founders framed which is a rarity in world history, and would be a monumental tragedy to let be stamped out. Even with our judicial system intact, someone being put to death, with all of the evidence and other safeguards, we still once in a while see someone on death row exonerated before we "throw the switch" on them due to DNA evidence or so on. How then, can you justify withdrawing the trial whatsoever and going straight for capital punishment, when people who actually get trials aren't always even guilty of what they are convicted of?

      In general, even if one or two bad guys goes free, it's a whole hell of a lot better that we aren't punishing the innocent. It's funny you mention Nazi Germany, because that's precisely WHY we were fighting against them. They were extrajudicially killing their own citizens for "suspected crimes". They didn't just "round up the Jews" per-se. They usually made up some suspected crime to which they accused them of (subversion, agitation, plotting against the government, theft, or whatever) which was more than enough to see their whole family shipped off to a concentration camp and possibly extrajudicially murdered. Now, if an American is on a BATTLEFIELD, and FIGHTING IN A WAR against AMERICAN TROOPS, it's a totally different story, but this is not what we're talking about. Drones are not killing people on battlefields indiscriminately. They are targeting people away from battlefields in their homes, sometimes with their innocent families, and they are often unarmed and not engaged in combat (which is a war crime, according to the rules of war, I believe).

    15. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see:

      1. "Extrajudicial" killing of US citizens
      2. Use of drones against US citizens
      3. Cameras recording activities
      4. Government snooping into private conversations

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

      I don't know why you were modded down. Maybe because your list left out too many other reasons why the Govt needs to be slapped down.

      Probably because the Slashdot group-think is now at an interesting crossroads. People are now beginning to see the real consequences of handing power to the government just to "solve problems".

      You want "free" healthcare? You want to be protected from "terrorists"?

      So you give the government the power to do that.

      And guess what? People are finally not being surprised to see that power used against them.

      Of course, someone clinging to statist solutions would resort to a typical statist response - censorship (via downmod in this case) of viewpoints that are a threat to his statism.

    16. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 4, Insightful

      *What socialist governments* since LBJ? The tax rate pretty much dropped uniformly after the end of his presidency. It's the lack of socialism that has fucked the US up.

      http://www.personal.psu.edu/sjh11/images/mtrgraph.gif

    17. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by FhnuZoag · · Score: 3, Informative
    18. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Velex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Somebody mod parent up. There isn't going to be another attempt at revolution any time soon because the powers that be have figured out that if you don't screw up like the British did in the 1770s you can get away with anything.

      --
      Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
    19. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by misexistentialist · · Score: 2

      You're assuming guilt, and that a trial would lead to imprisonment. The case against al-Awlaki was thin, and the case against his son didn't exist.

    20. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      Then he was guilty of standing too close to the terrorist training camp when they targeted it. They might have waited to target that camp till he was there, but they guy was hanging out with KNOWN terrorist elements... And got blown up along side them.

      The whole "US Citizen" thing is just the right wing military/intelligence guys backstabbing their boss so they can get one that won't cut their war budget.

    21. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Mabhatter · · Score: 2

      So we have tax rates now, almost as low as just before the Great Depression. Yet companies are at an all-time high for diverting profits away so they don't have to pay.

      Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer is happening at a record pace as well. A recipe for trouble?

    22. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      If we can't live together as a society without the threat of violence, there is not much hope of maintaining a stable, long-lasting state

      We can't. If we could live together as a society without the threat of violence we would have no reason to form a state.

    23. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But if a US citizen in 1942 were to go and fight for the Nazi's, and lets say he became a high-up officer-- would we not be justified in going after his life "extrajudicially"?

      Yes, because Germany was recognized as a sovereign nation undertaking action through organized military forces.

      In terms of Joe Herpaderp the Taliban Janitor? Absolutely not, because we do not recognize "terrorists" as organized military forces. "Terrorism" is treated as criminal; ergo, such morons must be treated through criminal law if they're US citizens.

    24. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by rohan972 · · Score: 1

      I keep saying this, but yes, the second amendment is no protection against tyranny. It merely allows a transition to the rule of the strong, instead of the systemised albeit flawed democracy we presently have.

      I disagree that it is no protection against tyranny, but I do agree that it is, by itself, inadequate protection against tyranny. It has proven useful on occasion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._%22Catfish%22_Cole#Klan_defeated_by_the_Black_Armed_Guard

      Also what many people don't realize is that you don't always have to win an armed conflict for your use of arms to be effective. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_stockade

      Recall how Nazi Germany and East Germany both built careful systems where people would inform on each other for personal gain.

      The Nazis, IIRC, banned Jews from owning guns pretty early on.

      And indeed, how ahead of the Rwandan massacre, the government actually *handed out* weapons to the public, so that they can use them against the opponents government propaganda had primed them to attack.

      They handed out weapons to the Hutu. I bet they didn't give any to the Tutsi. Examples of oppressive governments arming their supporters and disarming their opponents doesn't really support your argument the way you think it does.

    25. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by artor3 · · Score: 1

      I know lots of Chinese, Indian, and Filipino people, among other nationalities, and they're largely unanimous in saying that the US is a great place and they'd prefer to stay here. See? I have anecdotes too.

      If you're convinced that life is better somewhere else, move there. Find out for yourself. Don't go on a murder spree to try to turn the US into your idea of utopia.

    26. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      More probably because the 2nd amendment doesn't do much to empower the citizen against the government or the corporate state. But does make it easy to attack other citizens from ambush.

      Now if you want to argue that the second amendment gives you the right to own tanks and anti-tank missiles...
      1) That's not the way it's usually interpreted.
      2) Who can afford that kind of weaponry?
      FWIW, I suspect that a corporation could own any weaponry it chose to acquire, but they generally find it easier and cheaper to just bribe the legislators.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    27. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      You can argue that particular cases were enemy combatants. My understanding, however, is that the president of the US has signed legislation permitting him to order people, including citizens, killed with no evidence or trial. And that it did not specify that they must be enemy combatants. Just that the president had to decide to do it. (I wonder if he's allowed to delegate that authority? If he weren't, then it *might* not be *too* bad a law. But generally this kind of thing is interpreted as "since he has the right, he has the right to delegate that right".

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    28. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you do not want to see people murdered, then you have to do something about it and it means you have to put down your liberal, progressive, republican flags and actually do something that is needed to be done to restore the freedoms and the Republic.

      If you do not want to see a civil war that will surely erupt because at the current direction the collapse of society is imminent given the imminent collapse of economy, then you have to do something totally radically different before the blood is spilled.

      You can get rid of the people who are running the show by voting, it is possible, you have to vote in the TRUE Republicans, not the Republicans of the Republican party but the LIBERTARIANS.

      You have to vote in people like Ron Paul or Garry Johnson.

      There are a number of senatorial races where libertarians took over just now and there are some more where more libertarians may take over, you better be cheering for them and you better be helping them unless you WANT bloodshed, and there WILL BE bloodshed and yes, many people will die, and it's not because people want to kill each other, it's because there will be no more choices left.

      Desperately wishing for a -1 'naive' downmod. sigh!

    29. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by FridayBob · · Score: 1

      Indeed, but I think these are also important:

      • * income inequality
      • * police brutality
      • * a legal system that favors the rich and powerful
      • * a broken banking system
      • * a free press that no longer does its job
      • * a corrupt political system

      In no particular order.

      IMO, however, that last one is the root cause of all the others, including the ones on your list. Since basically all US politicians depend heavily on private campaign donations (i.e. legalized bribery) in order to get elected to major government offices, they can't help but put the the interests of their financial backers ahead of those of the electorate. The Republicans have consistently proven themselves to be a bit more reliable in this than the Democrats, which is why the rich and powerful always prefer to support them first.

      Today, especially in the wake of Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, the situation is worse than ever. It's telling that our current president, a Democrat, is politically to the right of Ronald Reagan. But, what can we do when our two-party system of democracy virtually guarantees that the bastards in the opposition will be elected soon enough anyway, since all they have to do is wait around for the electorate to get tired of the incumbent? Can it even be described as a democracy anymore? It seems more like a corporatocracy to me.

      If this downward spiral is not reversed, how can it not end in violence?

    30. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Let's see:

      1. "Extrajudicial" killing of US citizens 2. Use of drones against US citizens 3. Cameras recording activities 4. Government snooping into private conversations

      Good damn thing there is a 2nd Amendment.

      Benjamin Franklin himself said that the constitution would not protect the US from slipping into despotism and that the inevitable corruption of it's people means that it can only be governed by a corrupt government. It's quite a painful introspection for a country to ask itself that question, especially as it drives itself towards bankruptcy through war, as the British Empire did. It hard not to recognise the US as anything other than an empire now and that violence is inevitable as Kennedy stated.

      What is sad is this great American experiment of Democracy will be the most innocent victim.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    31. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      if you don't screw up like the British did in the 1770s you can get away with anything

      That hypothesis didn't work out very well for Lincoln, or Kennedy, or a number of US mayors. Who knows what other abominations people in power might have tried if the possibility of armed insurrection, or even a lone assassin, didn't exist?

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    32. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      If you think Obama is to the right of Ronald Reagan, your understanding of politics is nonexistent.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    33. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep, because it's obvious that laws are the only factor being followed, in these cases. /sarcasm

      Sadly enough, in this country a single judge can say that the comma made the sentence mean something else entirely and have it annulled.
      Or attempt to, for 7-10 years before people spend blood, sweat, and tears trying to keep it from being "reclassified".

    34. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      The idea that you can POSSIBLY conduct a war when you must do a trial prior to any killing just in case some of the enemy are citizens is ludicrous.

      I dont know what the solution is, but the idea that "killing the bad guys" is an antiquated notion of war leads nowhere successful. We might as well relinquish any claim to whatever it is the bad actor of the day wants, since we wont be winning any wars with that frame of mind.

      How then, can you justify withdrawing the trial whatsoever and going straight for capital punishment, when people who actually get trials aren't always even guilty of what they are convicted of?

      Because there is a vast difference between a theatre of war with minimal chance of capture, and Main St USA where the police can apprehend the "bad guys". Unless I am mistaken, police are authorized to use lethal force if it is a proportional response-- if the suspect is armed and taking aim. Im not terribly upset if soldiers shoot a US citizen who is aiming an AK47 at their position in a warzone.

      It's funny you mention Nazi Germany, because that's precisely WHY we were fighting against them. They were extrajudicially killing their own citizens for "suspected crimes".

      No, thats not why we were there, and if you think so its probably because youve bought into the "US was fighting for freedom" rhetoric. We went into WW2 grudgingly and with selfish motives; if "justice" were the goal we would be doing something about the exact same thing happening in North Korea today. We dont, because its not politically expedient and we arent the force of righteousness that some believe us to be.

      They didn't just "round up the Jews" per-se. They usually made up some suspected crime to which they accused them of (subversion, agitation, plotting against the government, theft, or whatever) which was more than enough to see their whole family shipped off to a concentration camp and possibly extrajudicially murdered.

      Maybe early in the war, I seem to remember a number of stories about what were basically lynch mobs rounding Jews up and breaking shop windows with no justification-- you might start by googling "Kristallnacht". You seem a little misled on what happened, Id recommend you read up on it.

      Even if what you say were true, the massive difference would be that by and large the jews werent on a battlefield, they werent declaring their opposition to the country or their intention to tear it apart, and they werent in a position to do so.

      They are targeting people away from battlefields in their homes

      When the city contains insurgents, id imagine it becomes difficult to pin down exactly what the "battlefield" is.

      and they are often unarmed and not engaged in combat (which is a war crime, according to the rules of war, I believe).

      Unless im mistaken, a lot of those rules cease to apply when the opposition wears no uniform nor has a flag, in an attempt to blend into the civilian population. And "innocent" loses a lot of its weight when those around are enabling the opposition and sheltering them. This is a tricky question that has been dealt with before, but whatever the answer is it certainly isnt "anyone who hasnt actually shot a gun is innocent", or else we could never go after enemy officers.

    35. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are a number of senatorial races where libertarians took over just now and there are some more where more libertarians may take over, you better be cheering for them and you better be helping them unless you WANT bloodshed, and there WILL BE bloodshed

      Vote for us or the world will descend into anarchy! Brilliant. Now just come up with an external enemy for the people to fear. Crazy Uncle Ron already has a couple of favorites as evidenced by his past newsletters: niggers and Jews.

      "Vote Ron Paul 2012 or the niggers and Jews will burn the world down!". Yeah, that ought to appeal to a large segment of Crazy Uncle Ron's supporters.

    36. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So.. Just about every government in the world needs to be taken away and locked up in a place world can forget them?

      I, for one second that motion!

    37. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF is wrong with you people? What difference does it make if someone is a citizen of the USA or not? Where in the constitution or the declaration of Rights does it say "citizens" instead of "people" or "persons"? In your opinon, does anyone who is not a citizen automatically have no rights, or is there some special subset of rights that apply?

    38. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by deblau · · Score: 1

      But if a US citizen in 1942 were to go and fight for the Nazi's, and lets say he became a high-up officer-- would we not be justified in going after his life "extrajudicially"?

      No, we would not. We were already at war with Germany, so the solution would be to simply (and legally) kill him in combat.

      What if a US citizen went to Mexico and became a higher up in the militarized drug cartels (lets not turn this into a discussion on drug politics)-- would we be justified in assisting in his death if capture were not an easy option?

      No, we would not. That's a job for Mexico. As a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend our territory. If a violent invader crosses our borders illegally, we are perfectly within our rights to shoot them dead on sight. If they don't cross our borders, it's not our problem.

      You seem to be confusing our recently ineffective justice system for a lack of justice.

      --
      This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
    39. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Falconhell · · Score: 1

      If you think he is not, you dont live in the real world. The US does not have a left wing, only Right(D) and far right loopy(R) its really amusing to see the total lack of knowledge of the rest of the world that leads to such cognitive dissonance in americans.

    40. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see:

      1. "Extrajudicial" killing of US citizens

      Yes, and anyone who chose not to be born in the US just begged for the execution squad coming for them.

      What worries me the most is the division of people into "us citizens" and "others". This is the kind of thinking that smells Germany in the late 20s...

    41. Re:Government needs to be slapped down again? by AwesomeMcgee · · Score: 1

      I completely agree, right up until my physical presence isn't required to have my citizenship renounced, and someone renounces it for me. Oopsy.

  6. Heard this one before by oakgrove · · Score: 2

    And if I flipped ten heads in a row the next one must surely be tails right? Right?

    --
    The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    1. Re:Heard this one before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No as the most tails I have flipped is 17. So it must be heads.

    2. Re:Heard this one before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And if I flipped ten heads in a row the next one must surely be tails right? Right?

      The more heads in a row that you flip, the more likely that the next flip will be heads.

      In statistics class conjectures, we know the coin is fair. In reality, we don't know if the coin is fair, or if you are reading it incorrectly, or if there was a sleight-of-hand swap to a two-headed coin. We assume there is a low probability of those things happening, but the farther out on the bell curve you go, the more significant those factors become.

    3. Re:Heard this one before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, if you flip a coin and got ten heads in a row, you are more likely using a flawed coin and will get heads again.

  7. It's revolution time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this when we overthrow our lords and masters?

    1. Re:It's revolution time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No. Now get back in the kitchens, I don't want my friends to see me talking to the help.

  8. Not scientific, but not unreasonable by sehryan · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I agree that the sample size is small, there is certainly reason to think that if the political discourse continues as it is now, in eight years we could be in for that talk to start manifesting itself physically.

    --
    The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
    1. Re:Not scientific, but not unreasonable by Lewis+Daggart · · Score: 3, Informative

      While I agree that the sample size is small, there is certainly reason to think that if the political discourse continues as it is now, in eight years we could be in for that talk to start manifesting itself physically.

      You have to be very careful with this kind of reasoning. It is close to saying, "Even though he doesn't have to evidence to back his claim, it fits my world view so I will use it to reinforce my current beliefs." This is the same kind of thinking that spreads conspiracy theories and group think, and it is an extraordinarily easy trap to fall into.

    2. Re:Not scientific, but not unreasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Leftists should stop broad-painting all conservatives as "intolerant hate-mongers". This causes polarization and political hatred.

    3. Re:Not scientific, but not unreasonable by khallow · · Score: 1

      Even the stopped clock is right twice a day. Frankly, I think we're in for a bit of violence whether or not this guy's theories hold water. Plus his theory isn't all that bad, I think.

      Creating a massive, unemployed, educated class (his "fighting elites") never worked well in the past. For example, the Taiping Rebellion in China supposedly started among people who failed the imperial examinations. And the current "Arab Spring" might be explained in such a way as well.

  9. Mark your calenders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lets prove'em wrong boys!

  10. Stupid by Paul+Slocum · · Score: 3, Funny

    Uh duh, the Aztecs already did this, the world is ending in 2012.

    1. Re:Stupid by Grayhand · · Score: 1

      Uh duh, the Aztecs already did this, the world is ending in 2012.

      The world better end I'll have my last credit card maxed out in November and I don't know how I'm going to buy Christmas presents! Come on Mesoamericans! I'm unemployed with no retirement or health insurance so I'm counting on you guys. Given how they have been handling things I think Congress has the same end of the world economic plan.

  11. Percentage of Population Between 15 and 25... by littlewink · · Score: 1

    determines the likelihood of violent crime. There's probably a peak (a baby boom) in that statistic in 2020.

    Easy, no mathematician required.

    1. Re:Percentage of Population Between 15 and 25... by Surt · · Score: 1

      Except that statistic has been headed down for a while in this country, and is unlikely to change course in that time frame. So if he's right, it will be evidence against your theory, and vice versa.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    2. Re:Percentage of Population Between 15 and 25... by HiThere · · Score: 1

      That's certainly a major component. I wouldn't say it's a sole determinant, though. A foreign war can calm things down, especially is people believe that the war is in defense of the country. All the medium aggressive types then join the military. That leaves only the extreme cases, and they are more easily dealt with.

      N.B.: This is NOT an original observation. It was a tactic used by both the Romans, and before them by the Greeks. I doubt that the Greeks originated it.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  12. I wonder if this cycle follows by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    I wonder if this cycle follows the wave of economic depressions? It would make sense that people with less to lose who are hit by the recession and see others making more money from it might become restless

  13. Buried in Last Paragraph by dcollins · · Score: 5, Interesting

    FTA: "For example, it seems that indicators of corruption increase and political cooperation unravels when a period of instability or violence is imminent."

    Why do articles like this act as though "violent acts" were the essential force, and "corruption" some kind of indicator symptom? I submit that the latter is the cause and the former the resulting symptom.

    The article includes this viewpoint, but you have to get all the way to the very last paragraph to see it -- "But perhaps revolution is the best, if not the only, remedy for severe social stresses. Gintis points out that he is old enough to have taken part in the most recent period of turbulence in the United States, which helped to secure civil rights for women and black people. Elites have been known to give power back to the majority, he says, but only under duress, to help restore order after a period of turmoil. “I'm not afraid of uprisings,” he says. “That's why we are where we are.”"

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    1. Re:Buried in Last Paragraph by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, totally, because causes can go back in time! (Or do you not know what the word "imminent" means?)

  14. BAH! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    The peak will reach that of the 1860s before it begins to calm down a bit. We only do violence for 'humanitarian' reasons.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:BAH! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Oops.. just recognized the 8 in the summary

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  15. compare resources per person by minstrelmike · · Score: 2

    Politics and divisions between people are not the cause of war. (Politics is how we operate as a society and it can be good or bad. If politics turns from good to bad and then to war, the cause of war is what caused the change from good to bad politics).

    Similarly, the differences between groups, say Sunni and Shi'ite to let Americans off the hook, does not _cause_ the fighting between them. They live together side by side in other countries and they live together side by side in the same country before and after the fighting.

    The root cause of war is having fewer resources per person this year than last year. How we move from less money to war is done politically and part of the politics is finding a group to place blame on, but the underlying cause is not politics or divisions between groups.

    (For folks who think divisions between people should go away, consider there are 950 different Christian religions and 700 different Islamic ones. None of them, not a single one, was created by non-believers or dis-believers. All 1600 religions were created by true believers. Belief is not a solution).

    1. Re:compare resources per person by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      You could simplify it down to "virtually all wars are essentially economic."

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:compare resources per person by Surt · · Score: 1

      I don't know on what evidence you're basing the notion that the religious splinters are not being created by non-believers. I'm a non believer and I've worked on founding a couple of splinters to sow division. I'm sure others have also.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  16. I don't care... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't care. I live in a mountainous region of Europe, where tanks and helicopters are useless. I've got enough ammo for two zombie apocalypses. Worst case is no Slashdot.

    1. Re:I don't care... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By any chance your neighbors are Serbs? You might need that ammo.
      Last ethnic cleansing done in Europe in living memory, brought to you by religious wars.

  17. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You are full of shit and hatred. There are over 2 million muslims in the USA who have been here for over 2 decades who haven't been "biding their time" to do anything. I have over a dozen muslim friends, their families came over here to get away from the B.S. at home and to live a happy non-violent life in a prosperous country. they excel in business and academics, asian people tend to be funny that way (there is a racial stereotype for you, and it's a useful generalization)

  18. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Very true. The thing that gets me is that everyone knows that Islam is evil and violent, they know that they cannot criticism them for opposing gay marriage and so on, but they all pretend that Islam is just fine because they are sheep following the "PC" herd.

    Let me break it down for you. Christians are white therefore it is perfectly politically correct to demonize them. Contrast this with muslims. I'm not trying to conflate your viewpoint with racism and I wish there were a better explanation because I do not consider myself a racist but that's the explanation occam's razor leads me to.

  19. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a hard time believing a "Mathematician" is making predictions based on such a limited sample size. This is kind of like the Gambler's Fallacy. Past occurrences are not really indicative of future patterns. This is the same for gambling, stock performance, whatever.

  20. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

    You mean all those Muslims who, much like the Minutemen and colonists, have risen up and overthrown oppressive regimes in many middle eastern countries?

  21. Thinks he sees patterns in history by QuincyDurant · · Score: 1

    "Thinks he sees"? Doesn't that strongly suggest that we're dealing with a lunatic here?

  22. Psychohistory by clintp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course, psychohistory doesn't work if you publish the results -- so all of this is bullshit. This implies that the psychohistorical result is actually not violence in 2020, but something else that they're trying to steer us towards. Maybe this is also why we're not supposed to be aware that psychohistory exists.

    Back to the Prime Radiant, guys.

    --
    Get off my lawn.
    1. Re:Psychohistory by loimprevisto · · Score: 1

      Oh, someone came up with a solution to *that* problem...

      --
      Much Madness is divinest Sense --
      To a discerning Eye --
      Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
    2. Re:Psychohistory by westlake · · Score: 1

      Of course, psychohistory doesn't work if you publish the results -- so all of this is bullshit.

      Asimov's Psychohistory, like his Laws of Robotics are fiction.

      His Second Foundation consisting of backstage manipulators answerable to no one but more than willing to impose their own sense of order on the whole of human history.

      It is the oldest of all grand conspiracy theories and the one most likely to charm and seduce the intellectual.

    3. Re:Psychohistory by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      That was a trite, shallow, frivolous, and ultimately pathetic analysis of Asimov's Foundation series. In fact, it wasn't an analysis of the series. It was an analysis of the first 50 pages of the first book in the series. The entire rest of the series is about the flaws and fragility of the whole concept of psychohistory, including a prediction that the First Foundation allegedly created for the purpose of exercising control of the galaxy through psychohistorical means would turn into a despotic oligarchy.

      That useless "analysis" tries to claim that the Foundation series was about promoting psychohistory as a viable method of managing human populations. It wasn't. So all the blather about Marxism and libertarianism was useless and stupid.

  23. One also wonders by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why those Mayors discuss feeding their city's poor but are silent on starvation in Africa. Come off it people, you fight battles you can win. I'm sure they'd love to spread tolerance throughout the world, but their Mayors, not God-Kings.

    Speaking of religion, have you ever actually read the Christian Bible? You can do all sorts of things to people you don't like and it's A-OK. And don't forget, blacks weren't people until the last 1970, so says Mitt Romney (or at least his religion). Every religion that's existed for any length of time has terrible things in it's dogma.

    We're not pretending Islam is just fine. But we're rationalists. Give people enough food, shelter and some discretionary income for hobbies and they mellow out. Ever wonder why terrorists don't send deep cover moles over here? It's because give them a taste of good life and they stop being psychotic extremists. The challenge is giving that life to everybody. Not just the vague promise that you might have a chance at it that economic conservatives and 'libertarians' favor, but the real thing.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:One also wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      We're not pretending Islam is just fine. But we're rationalists. Give people enough food, shelter and some discretionary income for hobbies and they mellow out. Ever wonder why terrorists don't send deep cover moles over here? It's because give them a taste of good life and they stop being psychotic extremists. The challenge is giving that life to everybody. Not just the vague promise that you might have a chance at it that economic conservatives and 'libertarians' favor, but the real thing.

      I find your comfort level with what is essentially buying people off a bit disturbing.

    2. Re:One also wonders by houghi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ever wonder why terrorists don't send deep cover moles over here? It's because give them a taste of good life and they stop being psychotic extremists. The challenge is giving that life to everybody.

      Deep cover moles as you see them in the movies? No. They are not send over. Sending people? Yes, that does happen. They send some people over to learn how to fly planes into building.
      Other terrorists are not send over. They are already here. They were born here. Also one terrorist is not like the other.

      Despite with what the media is telling you, not all people want the life of the west. I would not like to have the 'freedom' that the US has. And even if they don't want it, does not mean that they want to destroy it. They just don't want it in their own country, so why would they come to a country that they do not care about. It is not THEIR center of the universe.

      And some people just want to see the world burn.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    3. Re:One also wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't believe your comment was marked insightful. It is clear that you are misinformed and hang out on the Reddit echo chamber but you are not on Slashdot.

      1. Mitt's book does not condone or justify the murder of persecution of people you don't like. I think you have it confused with imperialism.
      2. The 9-11 hi-jackers came here and lived the 'good American life' and they didn't mellow out. Some of them lived and worked here for over 1.5 years with their families. They had cash and even went to flight school. They didn't mellow. I think that is why they are called 'sleeper cells.' They had a taste of the good life and decided to destroy it.

      As for you comment on the good life. Do you have a car? Possibly a 2-car garage? Do you have 24x7 electricity, clothes, shelter, climate control, medicine, health care, clean water, food, education, access to a non-corrupt legal system, the ability to speak freely or practice your religion, the right to own weapons, the right to free elections? In the USA we have the good life and each and every day we should be thankful that we weren't born in Mexico, China, Russia, India, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Africa, Myanmar etc ... While I will agree that we have corruption in our political system we still have the right to vote and the power of the Internet. However, we still seem to be content with Democrats and Republicans which are two sides of the same coin and owned by the same banksters.

      Go out and visit the world, you'll be glad to be back. :)

    4. Re:One also wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking of religion, have you ever actually read the Christian Bible? You can do all sorts of things to people you don't like and it's A-OK.

      I have read the Christian Bible, and based on your statement, I can tell that you have not. Christianity has no such philosophy.

      The *JEWISH* Bible, on the other hand, allows exactly what you claim, since it pretty much ends right before the New Testament starts.

    5. Re:One also wonders by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You say 'buying off', I say giving people a life worth living and something to lose.

      --
      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    6. Re:One also wonders by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 2

      You sound like you have not read much if any of the new testament. You know the whole "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "love thy neighboor as thy self" or "ask ye oh man what is good and what does the lord require of the but to do justly love mercy and walk humbly with thy god." Sound fairly peacefull. I don't see any excuse for being terrible toward others. The being terrible to others comes from human nature.

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    7. Re:One also wonders by udachny · · Score: 1

      You can't 'give' anything to anybody, you have to step aside and allow people to build it, so libertarians are the ones with the common sense, the rest are mostly ignorant. The problem with the poor is that there are many powerful forces that are keeping them poor - their governments, whatever those governments are, whatever shape they take, they prevent people from rising from poverty. African countries have been getting financial aid for half a century, much good it did them. All of a sudden the Chinese come to Africa with a different promise - a promise of trade and they establish trade relations and they start producing in Africa, buy mining companies, lands, hire Africans and start working. Go and as an average African who do they prefer Chinese or Americans? Guess what, it's the Americans that have been giving this 'aid' to Africa for 50 years and the Chinese trade with them not for free, but in exchange for productive output - work. And yet the Africans today prefer the Chinese, not the Americans.

    8. Re:One also wonders by M1FCJ · · Score: 0

      You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

      Just like you can't pick various sections of Leviticus (homophobia) and ignore the others (Any person who curseth his father or mother must be killed (20:9), "and the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you." (11:7,8), "Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric" (shit, there goes my wardrobe, and that's 19:19 by the way)...

      Of course, you can attempt the "No true Scotsman" line...

    9. Re:One also wonders by M1FCJ · · Score: 0

      Oh, by the way, is slavery OK? Baby Jesus says so...

      "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."(Ephesians 6:5-9)

    10. Re:One also wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Romans 14, 1-9 and 20-21
      14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

      5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. ...

      Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.

    11. Re:One also wonders by benjamindees · · Score: 1

      Ever wonder why terrorists don't send deep cover moles over here? It's because give them a taste of good life and they stop being psychotic extremists.

      This may be relevant to your preconceptions: The Power of Nightmares

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    12. Re:One also wonders by KeensMustard · · Score: 2
      Just wondering if you could actually link that verse to your proposition in any logical/meaningful way?

      Seems to me that it says it's ok to be a slave which if I were a slave, I would take to heart as a validation of me, and a reflection of on the importance of my conduct in the household, not a validation of slavery itself. Also I note that there is a whole letter of the New Testament written to a slave owner, whose slave has run away - urging him to accept the slave back as a brother, and not a bondservant - and you failed to mention that fact, why is that?

    13. Re:One also wonders by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

      You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

      Did he?

      Care to tell us where he said that?

    14. Re:One also wonders by khallow · · Score: 1

      I find your comfort level with what is essentially buying people off a bit disturbing.

      Two challenges for you. First, show it doesn't work. Second, show me a better way.

    15. Re:One also wonders by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

      Again, a few isolated mad man. But without rampant poverty their attempts to radicalize fall on deaf ears. At the risk of Godwining this thread I'll point out that Hitler only got to power because of the extreme reparations imposed on German people after WWI. Recognizing this the allies choose not to punish Germany, and instead help them rebuild.

      --
      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    16. Re:One also wonders by Amiga+Trombone · · Score: 1

      Er, do I need to remind you the terrorists that flew the planes into the WTC were mostly highly educated professionals who were hardly in a position where they needed to be bought off? What else could you have given them to buy them off? Perhaps not everyone is for sale.

    17. Re:One also wonders by benjamindees · · Score: 1

      Again, a few isolated mad man. But without rampant poverty their attempts to radicalize fall on deaf ears.

      And what about the neo-cons, who are not particularly isolated and whose radicalized footsoldiers are not relatively poor? They are relatively well-off, have infiltrated all levels of the US government with "deep cover moles" and remain as psychotic and extremist as ever. How do you explain that?

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    18. Re:One also wonders by teg · · Score: 1

      You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

      Did he?

      Care to tell us where he said that?

      Matthew 5:17: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

      Thankfully, the Bible is interpreted differently at different times: The Bible, as interpreted back in e.g. the 15th century was not very tolerant. While Islam was much more open and tolerant a millenium ago, but had a backlash and today is rather backwards and intolerant.

      Of course,I might hope that people would they no longer need any crutches to explain the world and would meditate on "why do I believe in this? Is it because I was brainwashed into it? What about all the other religious systems, that also claim to be unique? And why do none of them have any effect on the world today?". But people seems to get less sense (homeopathy, new age, birthers, tea party) rather than the opposite

    19. Re:One also wonders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, they were for sale, all right. It's just that tens of virgins plus the other benefits of paradise trumps a widescreen TV when you've been brought up in a culture that makes women scarce and is economically retarded for the vast majority of the population, including educated professionals.

      Unfortunately for them, they were bought with entirely imaginary currency, which demonstrates they weren't all that highly educated after all.

    20. Re:One also wonders by KeensMustard · · Score: 1

      You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

      Did he?

      Care to tell us where he said that?

      Matthew 5:17: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

      How is him saying that he is (personally) fulfilling the Law and Prophets the same as a commandment for his followers to follow the Law and the Prophets?

      This seems like a terribly counterintuitive reading of this passage to me, especially given the preceding segment. A much more intuitive reading of this section is that he is claiming that he will fulfill the Law and the Prophets - the former centering around a complex system of ritual sacrifices, the latter a series of prophesies about the Messiah. Thus the Law is not abolished, but fulfilled. This is the way that Christians have understood it for centuries.

      Thankfully, the Bible is interpreted differently at different times: The Bible, as interpreted back in e.g. the 15th century was not very tolerant. While Islam was much more open and tolerant a millenium ago, but had a backlash and today is rather backwards and intolerant.

      Not sure I understand the relevance of those remarks. I would say that in society generally the levels of tolerance (versus intolerance) remain fairly constant over time, just that the things we tolerate and the things we don't gradually change. So for instance, 100 years ago we didn't tolerate slavery, but felt comfortable with racism. Now, we tolerate the former, but not the latter. In 100 years time, they will tolerate some things we do not, but will probably regard us as something like monsters for knowingly presiding over a massive extinction event.

      Comparative to society at large, Christianity has been relatively free of hyprocrisy on the things it tolerates (versus the things it does not).

      Of course,I might hope that people would they no longer need any crutches to explain the world and would meditate on "why do I believe in this? Is it because I was brainwashed into it? What about all the other religious systems, that also claim to be unique? And why do none of them have any effect on the world today?". But people seems to get less sense (homeopathy, new age, birthers, tea party) rather than the opposite

      I would say that you are doing a pretty poor job of externalising yourself into the worldview of someone with different religious beliefs. It is a useful exercise - but mainly from the perspective of examining how coherent an rational your own beliefs would appear to someone who does not share them. "Fortunately" for Christianity it's founder seems to have already thought about both underlying issues so we tend to take such things in our stride, having understood and contextualised the presence of unbelief and other religions, as well as the evidentiary framework underlying the things we believe.

    21. Re:One also wonders by Falconhell · · Score: 1

      Somalia that libertarian ideal, shows the common sense of libertarians who on close examination turn out to be self centred morons.

    22. Re:One also wonders by udachny · · Score: 0

      Somalia that libertarian ideal, shows the common sense of libertarians who on close examination turn out to be self centred morons.

      - the morons are those, who are using the example of Somalia to try and discredit libertarian ideas, while completely oblivious about Somalia, fully ignorant. Somalia is a former British colony, former Communist nation, that fought a civil war to get rid of that Communist government over 20 years ago now, to get some semblance of freedom. The idiots who talk about Somalia don't have a clue. Yes, those people want freedom, no it doesn't make them 'libertarians', it makes them desperate. A civil war ridden country that never had any freedoms at all is an example of libertarianism only in the heads of the ignorant, stupid, mis-educated dumb shits.

      Though it can be added that Somalia today has some of the strongest currency in the world specifically because they are using the paper that no central bank could print for decades. They exchange for rolls of these notes, but the perceived value is stable, not falling, like currencies of some nations we know all about.

  24. Not necessarily by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People who have options don't get violent. Not in mass anyway (yes, chemical imbalances will result in the occasional horror story like that Batman shooting). That's why Canadians are so well behaved. They feel secure in their well being thanks to an extensive safety net and healthcare system. Systemic violence is an outgrowth of poverty. The single most enlightening moment of my life was when I realized that every war ever fought was over money in one form or another.

    e.g. the American South wasn't fighting to defend slavery, but to defend the right to oppress blacks. Blacks were oppressed not for the economic benefit (immigrants where cheaper and disposable) but because it gave poor white southerns someone to look down on and kept them from asking questions like, how come I barely make it through the winter while that guy sips mint juleps? Don't take my word for it, google Karl Rove and the Southern Strategy.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:Not necessarily by fustakrakich · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Systemic violence is an outgrowth of poverty...

      No, poverty is the result of systemic violence. You have to steal from people to make them poor.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Not necessarily by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I doubt it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_and_the_slave_trade. But nice try at blaming the Jews once again for everything bad that ever happened. I guess when you're proud of a slave-trading past you have to reframe the whole discussion so as not to appear inhuman.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    3. Re:Not necessarily by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Interesting

      People who have options don't get violent. Not in mass anyway (yes, chemical imbalances will result in the occasional horror story like that Batman shooting). That's why Canadians are so well behaved. They feel secure in their well being thanks to an extensive safety net and healthcare system. Systemic violence is an outgrowth of poverty. The single most enlightening moment of my life was when I realized that every war ever fought was over money in one form or another.

      e.g. the American South wasn't fighting to defend slavery, but to defend the right to oppress blacks. Blacks were oppressed not for the economic benefit (immigrants where cheaper and disposable) but because it gave poor white southerns someone to look down on and kept them from asking questions like, how come I barely make it through the winter while that guy sips mint juleps? Don't take my word for it, google Karl Rove and the Southern Strategy.

      Um... you do know about things like the Vancouver Riots (mk I and II) right? Canadians might not be as brutally violent as their neighbours to the south, but they tend to be just as physically violent. The difference is that population density in Canada is much lower (except at major sporting events, where, surprise! you end up getting violence).

      A better case study would be somewhere like Singapore that has a high population density, but relatively low societal violence.

    4. Re:Not necessarily by Surt · · Score: 1

      +1. Eruption of violence is the result of poverty is the result of systemic violence.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    5. Re:Not necessarily by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 3, Funny

      >> That's why Canadians are so well behaved.

      I take it you don't watch much hockey, eh?

    6. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um... you do know about things like the Vancouver Riots (mk I and II) right? Canadians might not be as brutally violent as their neighbours to the south, but they tend to be just as physically violent.

      Did anybody die, or even get seriously hurt, in the Vancouver riots? Answer: none, as far as I know. It wasn't much of a riot.

    7. Re:Not necessarily by HiThere · · Score: 2

      Calling Stalin's government "Jewish" is a bit weird. I have really no idea as to what the ethnic background of the Soviet leaders, but they definitely weren't religiously Jewish. AFAIK, they were from a mixture of backgrounds, though I doubt that there were many Ukrainians among them.

      As for "slave traders", this depends a lot on exactly which period of time you are looking at. The Teutonic Knights used to find the slavic slave trade quite profitable, and they weren't exactly Jewish. I'll admit that I don't know if the slave traders were ever predominantly Jewish, so at some points they may have been. But a lot of the time the Jews were much to oppressed to engage in anything like that.

      Given the number and variety of individuals and organizations that engaged in the slavic slave trade, from the early Greeks, through the Romans, up until slavery was rejected in most of Europe, it doesn't seem plausible to single out any one groups as most blame-worthy. It seems a fairly wide-spread human vileness.

      As for the situation in current Palestine... what would you expect? The logic of action and reaction through history is pretty clear, with each group oppressing the other as it was alternately in power. When the Arabs declared that they wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than the destruction of Israel, how do you expect the Israelis to respond? No, they aren't being kind or civilized. But they (both sides) are in a life or death struggle. People from outside saying "Now play nice!" wouldn't be enough to clam things, but more often the external forces seem to be agitating from an increased level of combat, even the ones that *claim* that they're trying to promote peace. You want to claim that the Palestinians are being treated unfairly? But what's fair? The Palestinians hide among their populace people whose avowed goal is to kill as many Israelis as they can. But who can blame them when the Israelis treat them so abusively? But how could the Israelis treat them in any other way, when they shelter murders and terrorists? I don't see any answer, but blaming one side or the other doesn't seem to be of any benefit.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    8. Re:Not necessarily by HiThere · · Score: 1

      That is a gross oversimplification. It's involved, but not at all straightforwards.

      E.g. the US revolutionary war (1776 et seq.) was lead by some of the wealthiest individuals in the colonies. And was opposed by some of the wealthiest individuals in the colonies. Poverty wasn't *the* cause, though a fight for economic advantage was certainly one of the main contributors.

      From what I've heard, most successful revolutions are lead by individuals who were of the upper classes before the revolution. They may well not live *through* the revolution, but they are dominant at least until it's been largely successful. (See "Reign of Terror".)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    9. Re:Not necessarily by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Um... you do know about things like the Vancouver Riots (mk I and II) right? Canadians might not be as brutally violent as their neighbours to the south, but they tend to be just as physically violent.

      Did anybody die, or even get seriously hurt, in the Vancouver riots? Answer: none, as far as I know. It wasn't much of a riot.

      Answer: yes. I'm not sure what riot you're thinking of, but the Vancouver riots have always been bloody.

      http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=369127
      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/riot-sparks-busiest-night-in-20-years-at-vancouver-hospital/article583471/
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Vancouver_Stanley_Cup_riot
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_anti-Chinese_riots,_1886
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Exclusion_League

    10. Re:Not necessarily by khallow · · Score: 1

      The single most enlightening moment of my life was when I realized that every war ever fought was over money in one form or another.

      Wars predate money in any form. Ultimately, wars are fought to take or deny things of value to rival sides. It is no coincidence that these things can usually be valued monetarily.

      But some of the cases where they can't are instructive. The best sort of victory in war is elimination of a rival permanently (especially, if that rival in the process becomes a stalwart ally). There's no monetary value one can assign to the Roman Republic's razing of Carthage. One could even argue it lost them a lot of trade.

      Similarly, we can't place a hard value on the conversion of Germany, Italy, and Japan to democracies. But in each case, a future of more war was prevented.

    11. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go back to Stormfront, you filthy, stinking, antisemitic cunt.

      I am going to find out who you are in real life and send copies of your post to all your friends, your family, your employer, and everyone else you know, even the doctors treating you for hemophilia and osteochondroma. I won't embellish them at all, just give them the post and the methodology I used to find out who you are. You will become a pariah. Nobody you care about will want anything to do with you anymore. Going over your post history, you've given away a lot of personal information a detective can use to narrow down who you really are. You've even narrowed down your location to a very small number of places--there aren't very many residential areas within the immediate fallout range of a nuclear plant using an old reactor design. Cross-referencing that with your medical conditions, anyone can find you out easily.

    12. Re:Not necessarily by Xenkar · · Score: 0

      Oh wow, trying to silence dissent? Says a lot about your character. Free speech for all except those with opinions I disagree with. Anyway I just want people to be able to live without usury. I can't help it if that mere expression is antisemitic.

      Oh well, I doubt you'll be able to find where I live in Arizona anyway.

    13. Re:Not necessarily by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Wow. You make a point "every war ever fought was over money in one form or another" and contradict it in the paragraph immediately following.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    14. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sick puppy who believes everyone else is sick except him.

    15. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    16. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Proof Jews fear being exposed for what they are and what they do's in that reply before yours. Laugh at it. I did.

    17. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, that's not true.
      Poverty is due to lots more than violence, and even has nothing at all to do with it in lots of cases.
      Poverty by very definition is being poor.
      Which doesn't come from being stolen from.
      Poverty happens when the individual or group of individuals (we'll call them "groups of people") do not earn the money necessary to rise above Poverty.

      In fact, everything you said was wrong. Very wrong.

    18. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not really. Toronto has a population in the greater metropolitan area of about 5.6 million, and a homicide rate of 1.59 per 100 000 (source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/30/by-the-numbers-torontos-murder-drops-sharply-in-2011/).

      The homicide rate for the US is 4.7 per 100 000 (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate). Also, from wikipedia, Canada's homicide rate as a whole is 1.7 per 100 000, so Toronto actually has less murders per capita than Canada on average. Events like the Vancouver riots are incredibly rare in Canada, and there just aren't that many murders here.

      Also, Detroit has a population density of 5,142/sq mi, while Toronto's is 10,750/sq mi, and Detroit only has a population of about 700 000, but it has a homicide rate of 43 per 100 000 (source: http://www.lawofficer.com/article/news/detroit-murder-rate-likely-15).

      So as you can see, it's not the population density that makes Canada so much safer.

    19. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, I don't believe in freedom of speech at all. I explicitly want the First Amendment revoked.

      Europe and Canada got it right by banning hate speech. Look what happened to that cocksucker John Galliano. My only complaint is that his punishment wasn't harsh enough.

    20. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      :-) That was a very weak troll. Try again.

    21. Re:Not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the American South wasn't fighting to defend slavery, but to defend the right to oppress blacks. Blacks were oppressed not for the economic benefit (immigrants where cheaper and disposable) but because it gave poor white southerns someone to look down on and kept them from asking questions like, how come I barely make it through the winter while that guy sips mint juleps?"

      This is patently absurd. The vast majority of Southerners did not own slaves and had little real interaction with them. The mass of Southerners who volunteered to fight against the North were more concerned about defending their states and their "region" from what they saw as an out-of-control and over-reaching federal government. It hardly had anything to do with how they felt about blacks. Hell, Northerners hated blacks just as much as Southerners, though most of the Northern states had abolished formal slavery. That doesn't mean blacks in the North were free though.

      "Don't take my word for it, google Karl Rove and the Southern Strategy."

      Yes, as I suspected, you're applying a revisionist paint brush to history. The Southern Strategy is a well-known political strategy used by the Republicans to wrest the South away from the Democratic party, but it has NOTHING to do with why Southerners chose to fight in the Civil War. Please go read some actual history books and not just political blogs that echo your opinions.

    22. Re:Not necessarily by Ruie · · Score: 1

      Calling Stalin's government "Jewish" is a bit weird. I have really no idea as to what the ethnic background of the Soviet leaders, but they definitely weren't religiously Jewish. AFAIK, they were from a mixture of backgrounds, though I doubt that there were many Ukrainians among them.

      In fact, Stalin was strongly antisemitic..

    23. Re:Not necessarily by Falconhell · · Score: 0

      Wish I had mod point man nice to see someone can see thru the bullshit to the truth. Israel is a nation of thieves living on stolen land that should properly be called occupied Palestine.

    24. Re:Not necessarily by Falconhell · · Score: 0

      What a pathetic piece of crap AC, the usual wolf cry of anti-semitism when ever Israels outright thievery of Palestine is mentioned. Then a pathetic, abusive threatening ad-hominem.

      The likes of you always falsely claiming Israels critics are anti semetic is so worn only a few sycophants like still believe it.

      When you actually have a point and can make it in a civilised way (Try getting an education) you may have some relevant comment.

      I couldnt care less if you track down anybody, go for it, see whjat good it does ya.

      Brainless fuck, if you had any balls you would put a name to your post coward.

  25. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean all those Muslims who, much like the Minutemen and colonists, have risen up and overthrown oppressive regimes in many middle eastern countries?

    Ha ha ha .. tell that to the non-Muslims in those countries. They were actually a lot better off under the "oppressive regimes"

  26. Income inequality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the current trend of inequal distribution of wealth continues then yes, we will see increased violence. It's a formula that's a old as civilzation itself. Poverty is and always has been the root cause of most crime, including violent crime. (Some of it is due to crazy. You will always have jealousy, rich people shoplifting for thrills, adultery, etc)

    Whatever your political creed or economic philosophy, you must recognize that gross wealth inequality /always/ leads to bad things. It's a common theme of all civilizations world wide throughout all recorded history. It's the destroyer of nations. It's the murder of kings. It's the ruin of the most mighty military forces. It's the trigger of violent, bloody revolution where the innocent and the guilty both suffer alike.

    Our country used to recognize this function but in the last few decades it's been ignored wholesale. The rich are getting very very rich and have somehow convinced everyone that they "deserve" it while our nation stumbles with infective public programs and crumbling infrastructure. Wealth redistribution used to be a clear, stated goal of our government and now, somehow that idea is taboo and evil.

    1. Re:Income inequality. by Surt · · Score: 1

      That is the best AC post I have seen in ages. Too true. The wealthy in this country have lost sight of their self interest in wealth redistribution. It's a short sighted hoarding that will end with their children executed.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    2. Re:Income inequality. by carpefishus · · Score: 1

      Actually, poverty is the result of crime. Research it. Think.

      --
      Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
    3. Re:Income inequality. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Oh poppycock, you're talking out of your nether regions. In relatively free countries most poverty is caused by the immorality of the poor: laziness and destructive habits. Treating poverty as a "root cause" is claiming that poverty is a fundamental, not caused by something else.

      Jealousy is a bad thing, a personality defect. Poverty is a bad thing. Wealth is a good thing. Without the personality defect of jealousy, wealth inequality does not lead to misbehavior. It is typical liberal BS to claim that having some people rich and some poor is bad, with the implicit understanding that if the poor took everything from the rich it would all be OK. (And failing to recognize that the poor would soon destroy their ill-gotten gains and once again be poor. The liberal has a hidden belief that things would be fine if everyone were poor [excepting himself, of course.]). One thing worse than having both rich and poor, and jealousy of the rich, is people who play on jealousy to gain political power, and also those who deliberately start riots using the excuse of inequality.

      Incidentally, riots don't "just happen." In varying degrees, riots are planned, both at the high end by hidden leaders, and at the low end by people planning to loot during the chaos (I've heard such planning.)

      Wealth redistribution used to be a clear, stated goal of our government

      At the federal level, that is a vicious and deliberate lie. Read the Constitution of the United States.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    4. Re:Income inequality. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      The liberal has a hidden belief that things would be fine if everyone were poor [excepting himself, of course.]).

      Wrong. Also stupid. You don't know what liberals believe, since you think you aren't one. So I'll tell you. Liberals believe that a rising tide lifts all boats, that the wealthier a society is in general, the more stable, the more moral, and the more comfortable it is. And figuring out why this is so is not rocket surgery. Look at the history of the world for the past three thousand years. Watch the rise and fall of civilizations. Every single time the average wealth rises, society improves. Every time average wealth falls while a very few get very rich, society declines. The worst example of that phenomenon is called the Dark Ages, and it lasted nearly a millennium, and it was a period of more suffering and privation for more people than any other in history. The efforts of Stalin pale in comparison. Stalin managed to kill a lot of people, but Stalinist Russia lasted only a generation. The Dark Ages lasted for fifty generations.

      Meanwhile, I can tell you've never been poor. Nor do you even know any poor people. I mean really poor people, who live 6 and 7 and 10 to a house, and it's a small house, people who ride the bus because none of the 10 of them owns a car, people whose lives sound like something out of Dickensian England. None of them are lazy, none of them are wasteful, most of them are less destructive than the affluent, and all of them are desperately moral. Such people are among the most devout churchgoers around, and go out of their way to help one another, because no one else will. I know. I'm related to some of them.

      Poverty IS a root cause, and there is plenty of evidence that shows it. Jealousy is not a personality defect. It is a survival trait. Those who are incapable of jealousy get ground to dust beneath the heels of those who are incapable of empathy. Like you.

    5. Re:Income inequality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the past it has been easy to control the masses by showing that the Ruler is next to God. There is no way a mere weakling (=peasant) would understand powers so great. The weakling could not even read the Bible. So the weakling could to critize what he did not understand.

      I would say education is the next Bible/God: the weakling blames himself when he doesn't have enough education. The weakling will still blame himself for selecting the wrong occupation or - if he has all the skills - blame the bad economy.

    6. Re:Income inequality. by EdgePenguin · · Score: 1

      Anger at social injustice is not jealously. I'm perfectly comfortable myself, but the rampant greed of the super-rich offends me. I don't want their cash. I want them to get an honest fucking job and pay their taxes.

      But don't let the way people actually feel get in the way of your moronic libertarian rant, will you?

    7. Re:Income inequality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bull. Americans are a very spoiled lot. Even the poorest of Americans live better than 90% of the world's population. No one in America is starving. No one in America is dying because of political repression. No one in America is being forced to risk their lives in senseless wars.

      The fact is, only truly desperate people resort to social violence. During the Civil Rights era, black were being killed regularly for no other reason than who they were and they were certainly economically and politically repressed. Young men during the late Sixties had a vested interest in engaging in social violence so they would not be drafted and sent to fight and possibly die in a questionable war. Labor violence in the 1920's was sparked by regular exploitation of workers by corporations, including occasional killings to keep the workers in line.

      Those are all examples of desperate people. No one in America is desperate today. If they are, it's merely histrionics and unchecked envy of those who have MORE, when you already have more than enough yourself. Being in debt because YOU CHOSE to take out loans for college so you wouldn't have to work while you attended school is YOUR OWN FAULT. If you're desperate because of that, then good luck convincing others to join your cause who don't share your plight or your irresponsibility.

    8. Re:Income inequality. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chris Maple, I hope that is your real name, I hope that you'll be among the first swinging from a tree, cause you sound like the kind of asshole that deserves it. The Constitution of the US was a document which had at its root the protection of the wealth of the then wealthy, to ensure the wealth would remain generationally, the States were very much opposed to this document and it was only approved by means of shenanigans.

    9. Re:Income inequality. by airdweller · · Score: 1

      Remember: when you're arguing with an idiot, he/she is doing the same. ;)

  27. Utterly Stupid by Gorobei · · Score: 2

    Linear time is useless to predict cyclic anything where modern human society is involved. Ten years of innovation today (and its effects on society) is greater than thirty years of innovation two hundred years ago. The scale just isn't linear. Nothing has a significant long term stable frequency.

    If you are a cicada, you have reasonable grounds to disagree. Sadly, you can't talk and aren't real big in the innovation space.

    1. Re:Utterly Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure I believe it, but I think the argument goes like this: The main source of a stable period is generational effects. Think of social feedback as an epigenetic process. Perhaps there is something in human psychology that prevents individuals from fully reacting to social change, and instead it is their children who grow up with the effects and formulate a complete response.

    2. Re:Utterly Stupid by Gorobei · · Score: 1

      Right, but the trouble with that theory is that "generations" are continuous, not discrete. What is the generational difference between someone born in 1962 versus 1967? Unless the government passes some extreme law, the answer is "it's just a label." They will behave differently, but on a continuum, not because one is a baby boomer and the other is GenX.

    3. Re:Utterly Stupid by mikael · · Score: 1

      If you are going to run simulations, then you have to take extremely small time-steps. Chemical simulations (reaction-diffusion equations have to sometimes work at the nano-second level to model individual atomic bond changes). For human civilisations, it would have to be down to the hour. One news report about one event can blow up an entire country like the Ceaucescu revolution in Romania. One minute Ceaucescu is at the football stadium doing a speech. Next thing the crowds are chanting and calling for support from the rest of the country.

      Any simulation would have to factor in the various attributes for every person like: age, happiness level (subdivided into food, home (rent/utility bills/purchases), neighborhood, work, commute, social life, purchasing power, career progression, healthcare). This would change due to external events. Sudden inflation would hit food, home, commute, purchasing power. Sudden tax increases would hit work, purchasing power, social life). Education cutbacks would hit work and career progression. Constant strikes would hit healthcare, purchasing power and commute.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    4. Re:Utterly Stupid by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      What is the generational difference between someone born in 1962 versus 1967?

      One quarter to one fifth generation. (joke)

      The concept of generation is key here because so much of a person's attitude comes from parents. A person absorbs lessons from a parent, particularly those lessons expressed often and strongly. From among those lessons, he passes on to his children only those confirmed in his own lifetime. So the terrible events in his parents lifetime that were prevented from recurring in his lifetime by the vigilance of his parent's cohort, are not confirmed and are not passed on. His children repeat the mistake that caused the evil his parents experienced. In a family there are no fractional generations and in 2 generations all but the most alert historical scholars are ignorant. --- Or at least, that's the hypothesis.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  28. I HOPE its worse than the 1970s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We really ought to have some violence and riots over what the feds are trying to do to ruin the internet.

  29. 1870? What about 1861??? by Baldrson · · Score: 2
    The outbreak of the US Civil War was only 9 years before the cited "1870" and 4 years before the earliest year that TFA could have associated with 1870 since the graph describes the years as "5 year intervals".

    Moreover, it was a unique peak in US history.

    This guy's model needs an overhaul -- either that or its intend use is useless for phenomena that are really interesting.

  30. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And what makes you an authority on the matter? Fuck, you don't even have the balls to post with an account.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  31. U$A paranoid... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    at its outmost...

    1. Re:U$A paranoid... by M1FCJ · · Score: 1

      Only 10 years ago they were so gung-ho and there were books about the New Roman Empire: Pax Americana.
      GW Shrub and his cronies were talking about staying in Iraq for hundreds of years.

      It is very sobering to see how fast their downfall was and how they dragged the world economy with them.

    2. Re:U$A paranoid... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      Stupid insults do not enhance your argument.

      The current economic mess is primarily the fault of Barney Frank with an assist from Chris Dodd. Sarbanes-Oxley drove in another stake, and Obama has been busy strangling entrepreneurs. To blame G.H.Bush the proper target is the prescription drug benefit. The Iraq war was/is a partial bungle, but it was not avoidable without very bad consequences.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  32. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by captainkoloth · · Score: 2

    Let me break it down for you. Christians are white therefore it is perfectly politically correct to demonize them. Contrast this with muslims. I'm not trying to conflate your viewpoint with racism and I wish there were a better explanation because I do not consider myself a racist but that's the explanation occam's razor leads me to.

    Well, that can't be right. My family is Baptist and Negro.

  33. I get it . . . by sgt_doom · · Score: 0
    . . . so it's been peaceful up until now????? (What a complete douchetard!)

    That reminds me of all those moronic polls falsely claiming crime is dropping --- as long as they refuse to prosecute the millions upon millions of crimes perpetrated by the banksters, of course the dramatically rising criminal rate will appear to be falling. . .

    1. Re:I get it . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bring back the murder and assault! Down with funny money crimes!

  34. Correlation is Not Causation by ancarett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a historian with a lot of statistical study under my belt, call me skeptical. I don't see how we're able to make the leap from his observations to cycles at work in wildly variant institutions and cultures. This sounds an awful lot like the wide-eyed promise of cliometrics to revolutionize history starting in the 1950s.

    In the mid-twentieth century, cliometrics (ah, look how much it reads like cliodynamics!) was going to save us all from the loosey-goosey styles of history that just weren't as good as honest-to-gosh social science. (This is why many mid-twentieth century universities placed history in their social science faculties rather than humanities where it was categorized in older university systems.) Certainly, learning how to handle large data sets and tackle questions of change over time with accurate analysis has been good, but stats wasn't the smoking gun to solve historical debates. Look how hard some of the great works of cliometrics crashed and burned when they tried to assert a grand rule of human behaviour: just two examples off of the top of my head, the Tilly's "The Rebellious Century, 1830-1930" which tried to unify the study of European revolutions over a century or Theda Skocpol's "States and Social Revolution: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China" which claimed that you could come up with a universalizing analysis of authoritarian state collapse. Both are interesting and ambitious books but ultimately unconvincing as they attempted to assert a general rule-set for history.

    Now we're told that cliodynamics is going to solve the problem. Again, as the original article notes, most trained historians are skeptical. It's not just that we like futzing around with old documents, it's that we're aware of the weaknesses in ongoing research, holes in observations and the biases in the data. You want to point to huge amounts of populist violence in the U.S. circa 1920 as proof that it was a high in a fifty year cycle? I and other historians can point to stunning outbreaks a decade earlier related to the anarchist movements and a decade later with the unrest regarding the Great Depression. It's not so much cherry-picking counter examples: it's the wrongheaded concept of seeing people as pawns of historical forces. Asimov was fun to read, I'll grant you, but I'd hope that people can see that human agency has an awful lot more to do with historical change than the rules of psychohistory.

    Stop looking for general rules of what's going to come next and consider, instead, clear-sighted analysis of how we've come to where we are and what that tells us about problems we've had and continue to experience.

    --
    ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
    1. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by gishzida · · Score: 1

      Questions then:

      What is a historian's role? To recite the past? And if that is the case, what then is the relevance of historical study at all?

      Is this why that most of these cycles research efforts [call it cliodynamics, cliology, psycho-history] is from non-historians? Is it because historians cannot see patterns in the data or is there factually no true data pattern? Could it be historians are so stuck on their own way of seeing things that it is left to others to advance the field? [as Alvarez did when he proved the mass extinction 65 M years ago was caused by an impact] Why does Dewey's and Kondratiev's work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave appear to make sense? Or are we "making patterns" out of statistical noise?

    2. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by ancarett · · Score: 1

      We're not reciting the past, we're uncovering the past and interpreting it as well as teaching others how to do the same. Just because we can't predict the next big thing doesn't mean we're irrelevant - rather like seismology isn't irrelevant because it can't tell you when the next earthquake will happen on this or that fault line.

      Historians tend to say "You're cherry-picking your data" when the cliometricians or cliodynamists come to town. They're taking material from one set of circumstances and missing another, conflating events that aren't equivalent or sometimes simply misreading things that have changed dramatically over time. (Did you know that up until the 19th century in Europe, it was an established belief that women were sexually insatiable and utterly physical creatures, incapable of ruling their baser emotions while men were more spiritual and disinterested in sexual or physical matters. Nowadays, of course, western societies pretty much put it the other way around. But if you read something about woman's 'nature' in a fifteenth century source, it's coming from a wildly different assumption than a 21st century individual might expect. The same kind of 'false friends' exist in everything from laws to agricultural practice to religious activity. Nothing stays the same, even when people are trying to conserve practices!)

      Historians also tend to emphasize how behaviours are socially constructed and how those constructions change over time. So, for us, to expect that the same rule would hold for 1830 and 1930 and 2030 is hard to believe. Furthermore, that it would hold for all societies in some cycle of development? Again, tough to swallow. I've looked at some of the material they're putting forward and it's not rocking my world yet, nor is it making a big impact with other historians even though Turchin's book has been out for years, now.

      With regard to Turchin, Dewey & Kondratiev and their long-cycle models, I'd have to say that most historians would be with the doubters. Not enough's attributed to human agency as matters are described to cycle up and down in response to "natural laws". Never underestimate the power of a few well-placed individuals to screw everything up at unpredictable moments!

      It's not inevitability, it's incidence. Social, technological or political change takes a long time to shake out. While we can talk about patterns, it's never a good idea to believe they're natural forces dictating the future. Instead, we'd talk about patterns in terms of parallels: see, when the printing press was developed and popularized, these are some of the effects that it had, direct and indirect. How can that inform our understanding of how the internet is changing modern economies, culture and education, say? But nobody who tells me something like, see, it took seventy years from the advent of printing in Germany for Luther's 95 theses to be circulated, so there's a cycle for you!, is going to convince me they have a useful scheme. I'd say that such pie-in-the-sky claims are counterproductive.

      Turchin hasn't engaged historians nearly as much as he has economists and his interest in predictive modelling fits more in with that field than with history and historians whose chief interest remains in accurately documenting the past as opposed to thinking we can predict the future. That didn't work so well for Fukuyama, now, did it?

      --
      ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
    3. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by EdgePenguin · · Score: 1

      You can pick out causation (or at least decent evidence for it) if you know what you are doing. If someone has a bunch of stats they think are relevant, I would want to see something like PCA to show which ones are actually doing anything. I'd also like to see that if you picked a date in the past, say 1950, and only gave your model information before that date, how well it could predict what came after.

      This wouldn't give you a formula to predict which government is going to fall next year. But it will let you figure out a good metric (probably a composite of other data, like the Human Development Index) that policy makers can understand as 'likely to lead to trouble' if its high/low.

    4. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by khallow · · Score: 1

      Stop looking for general rules of what's going to come next

      Why? You just indicate that it's hard not that it's impossible. We can already come up with some sort of simple rules for extreme cases. For example, if less food energy is produced than is needed to keep a population from starving, then someone will starve. And an energy release beyond a certain level will destroy a city, depending to some degree what form that energy is released as. We're constrained in a physical universe and as a result our societies should be subject to rules derived from these physical constraints. Similarly, there are apparent economic rules (to be honest, I thought this person's work was more properly considered economics than history) that societies and smaller components such as markets are subject to. We can also codify a lot of societal incentives and motivations in economic terms and conversely an apparent economic incentive often manifests as one would expect.

    5. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by ancarett · · Score: 1

      Looking for universal rules of human behaviour in history is fruitless for two reasons. First, to put it in Asimovian terms, there are a lot more Mules than there are rules: people who break with expectations and predictions and their historical agency goes against the expected "flow".

      Second is the problem of complexity. There's so much data that's not recorded or doesn't survive, even in our modern age and moreso the farther back you go. Researchers who try to connect two seemingly-related phenomenon in different circumstances end up tripping up on the differences they've discounted, ignored or don't see until someone brings up the flaw. For current-day society, historians would ask what current events and developments aren't even appearing on the radar of contemporary analysis.

      Historians still generalize, but under limited terms (comparing, say, the decline of industrial production in similar cities/cultures or pointing out similarities between the adoption of or opposition to Reformed religion in early modern European states). Even then, they often get hammered by colleagues who point out key differences they argue have been overlooked in the analysis. Given that critics can shoot holes in the comparison, especially as it broadens, historians have learned to be very carefully about generalizing from the past. We'd obviously be very skeptical of someone who claims they have drawn a universal lesson of human behaviour (and nothing in Turchin's work has really made an impact on historical scholarship, even though his book has been out for almost a decade and he's been promoting his cliodynamic theories for even longer).

      This skepticism towards positing rules of human social behaviour is probably why the other social scientists don't always feel we fit in with their disciplines and keep putting us back over into the humanities.

      --
      ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
    6. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by ancarett · · Score: 1

      Yes, you can find and argue for causation if you have the right data and good insight. The problem in history is that we're often working from incomplete and sometimes even what feels like sabotaged data. I do work with the history of crime and there are famous studies showing how a lot of the crime reporting in 19th century England, say, were massively tweaked in order to promote the producing police agencies' claims for more funding. Some crimes were massively under-reported in the documents due to social attitudes at the time that led authorities to lack interest or feel they couldn't do anything about the problem, so why report their failures to their higher-ups?, while others were exaggerated in order to highlight how more police and more resources were desperately needed.

      So all of those lovely charts about crime rates over time start to look a lot less reliable when you poke into the data at the base level. When the definition of a particular crime changes, that has to be taken into account. What do we mean by infanticide? What did people in 1800 mean by the term? How many people really WERE in that gathering, assembly, march or riot? Were they there for the reasons that the official accounts claim or was it something different? How do you know?

      I don't think any historian has a big objection to analysts making direct parallels between what they see today and certain events in the past. You're right that those kind of insights are useful (and they're the fruit of a lot of sociological, political science and economics research that's highly respected for good reason). It's when someone starts to talk about inevitable highs and lows or natural rules of society that we get antsy, because that puts a lot of faith in data that we've been trained to approach with caution and in the broad pictures of humanity that we're always diving into and reworking at more basic levels of analysis.

      --
      ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
    7. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by khallow · · Score: 1

      Looking for universal rules of human behaviour in history is fruitless for two reasons. First, to put it in Asimovian terms, there are a lot more Mules than there are rules: people who break with expectations and predictions and their historical agency goes against the expected "flow".

      Second is the problem of complexity. There's so much data that's not recorded or doesn't survive, even in our modern age and moreso the farther back you go. Researchers who try to connect two seemingly-related phenomenon in different circumstances end up tripping up on the differences they've discounted, ignored or don't see until someone brings up the flaw. For current-day society, historians would ask what current events and developments aren't even appearing on the radar of contemporary analysis.

      In other words, the only known obstacle is insufficient data collection. A second speculated obstacle is that humanity might vary enough to make any sort of prediction impossible, but there's no evidence for that position.

    8. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's when someone starts to talk about inevitable highs and lows or natural rules of society that we get antsy,

      To trow little more ants in the game, how about the accumulation of legal precedents and the trend of materialization of legislation postulated by Weber? Would that rising complexity lead to lessening of popular trust to the justice system over time, and this way expose the society to increasing risk of unrest?
        Somehow the traces of historical materialism are still around, and get blown up whenever there is a "crisis of Das Kapital", like in 2008.

    9. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by ancarett · · Score: 1

      Soon as you get a time machine, we can talk about more data collection. That's the problem with history: we're at the mercy of whatever's survived and it can be scary how little that is. Seriously, we're losing some historical data faster than we can analyze it and that even holds for very recent history what with the degradation of various digital data forms. (How are those 5 1/4" floppies doing nowadays? Or tape drives?) Not to mention the destruction wrought by war, natural disaster or simple incompetence.

      There's also no evidence for human societies being comparable enough to make the same prediction (or solution) work from one to another. Some of the great attempts at comparative histories that I mentioned above, such as the Tillys' work on the Rebellious Century or Skocpol's comparison of France, Russia and China, have fallen apart when subject to closer scrutiny. Maybe if we had all the data ever created and the supercomputers to crunch it all, we could reduce human experiences to a mathematical model but that sounds a bit ridiculous. Most historians would suggest that humanity would benefit a lot more from some other endeavours. Like preserving, restoring and studying some of those degrading documents. . . .

      --
      ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
    10. Re:Correlation is Not Causation by khallow · · Score: 1

      Maybe if we had all the data ever created and the supercomputers to crunch it all, we could reduce human experiences to a mathematical model but that sounds a bit ridiculous.

      I figure we'll get to the point within a few centuries, where as much data as ever will be collected about humanity's past will be collected. (Unless some extraterrestrials are holding out, that is.) That doesn't help us now in making models of collective human action, but it'll probably reveal whatever rules or effective models there are. And there will be some, just due to the limits of being in reality.

  35. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Immostlyharmless · · Score: 1

    Im not sure if I should laugh at this or what? You start your sycophantic rant with "Asperger little faggot" and then end it with "Homosexuals are being legally harassed.....some people have a conscience..." Did I really just read this?

  36. Hmmmm.... by sgt_doom · · Score: 1
    Interesting background which Turchin has: Turchin was born in Obninsk, Russia, in 1957 and in 1963 moved to Moscow. In 1975 he entered the Faculty of Biology of the Moscow State University and studied there until 1977, when his father, the Soviet dissident Valentin Turchin, was exiled from the USSR. He got his B.A. in biology from the New York University (cum laude) in 1980 and Ph.D. in zoology in 1985 from Duke University.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turchin

  37. This was on Doctor Who already by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    1888: Jack the Ripper active
    1913: The eve of the First World War
    1938: Hitler annexes Austria
    1963: Kennedy assassinated
    1988: The Lockerbie bombing

    It's 2013 we need to worry about, sheeple!

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:This was on Doctor Who already by benjamindees · · Score: 1

      1863: US Civil War

      I find this 25 year cycle much more convincing, based on demographics alone.

      --
      "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
    2. Re:This was on Doctor Who already by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      I'm sure you can prove any cycle by being selective enough. Pretty much exactly mid-cycle in your suggested list there were the 9.11 attacks for example.

  38. A la Terminator? by Saija · · Score: 1

    The publication of this article by some way reminds me of the Terminator: the publication of some possible future events make that events happen, or alter them in some way

    --
    Slashdot ya no es que lo era! ;)
  39. I think Mr. Math Genius missed something obvious. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Has anyone else noticed that the two world wars are completely absent in this "cycles of violence" graph?

  40. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

    We were hardly any better 100 years ago, and there are no lack of Westerners who wouldn't mind seeing homosexuals shoved back in the closet.

    And what is with these Aspergers accusations?

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  41. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by MightyMartian · · Score: 0

    All I've got to say is that you are stupid fucking moron. God your family must absolutely fucking hate you.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  42. Title gets it wrong by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 5, Informative

    The guy isn't a mathematician, he's an ecologist. And I find it hard to believe that by 2020, social acceptance of domestic violence (say) rises again to mid-20th century levels. The reporter's suggestion that the precise moment in time of the Egyptian revolution was predictable is likely based on a misunderstanding of Turchin's work.

    By the way, the field isn't as new as the article suggests. Steven Pinker's recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, collects quite a bit of quantitative research in this area, most of which does not support the existence of stable cycles.

    1. Re:Title gets it wrong by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Steven Pinker's statistics very clearly show the violence has gone down steadily over the millennia. By orders of magnitude. Steadily. His range goes from incessant tribal warfare, inter societal plunder and robbery, national wars, global wars, regular crime, ... and extends it to racial discrimination, gender discrimination, acceptance of gays ... etc etc.

      Pinker only briefly touches upon the reduction in violence before recorded history. For that we can look at Nicholas Wade in "Before the Dawn". The gradual thinning of human skull from 200000 years ago to 75000 years ago shows the reduction in violence. (The older skulls were "robust" and the modern skulls were "gracile"). Basically skulls less able to withstand thumping blows from clubs and stones actually survived and thrived.

      So the general arc of violence has been on the downward path. There would be short term fluctuations. But 2020s will not be like 1970s. No way. Steven Levitt first broke the taboo and mentioned the link between legalization of abortion in 1970 and the reduction in violence in 1990s. 2020s will be when the grand children of unwanted babies aborted in 1970s will be missing from the crime age pool. Very unlikely we are going to see any spike in violence in 2020.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    2. Re:Title gets it wrong by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 1

      Sure, you have to ignore the decline in violence (simply looking at absolute numbers would help in a few cases). But there could still be periodic patterns against the general backdrop of decline. However, there is little evidence for that.

      Now all kinds of things could go wrong and lead to rising violence levels in the next years (global financial meltdown followed by a drop in international trade, countries trying to collect on their debts by military force etc., which would eventually have an effect on personal violence as well), but if these things happen exactly in 2020 (and not earlier or later, or not at all), it will be coincidence, and not related to some recurring societal patterns. Our world is already very, very different from the 1970, and no matter what happens, there are so many things which are quite irreversible, at least in the course of a decade or two (the global rise in English literacy, for instance).

    3. Re:Title gets it wrong by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 1

      >> The guy isn't a mathematician, he's an ecologist.

      Well that explains his bellicose tendencies.

    4. Re:Title gets it wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're really interested in the subject, look up Strauss-Howe generational theory (explained mostly in the books Generations and The Fourth Turning, with an abbreviated version on Howe's website), then go on Howe's forum and read about the various extensions to the theory people have created (my favorites are cusp theory and two-stroke advancement/atonement saecula).

    5. Re:Title gets it wrong by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

      But as ecologist, different groups of animals have different needs. One group grows, till a predator starts eating them, then the predators over hunt the pool and then the predators numbers reduce. People aren't animals, so we have some control over our fates. The "stars are aligning" for a fight, you'd be clueless if you didn't see it.

      Politically, Republicans haves moved so far right they can't find a "Christian" man to run for President. The Tea Party guys were crying for violence against "liberals" before Obama was even elected... With two houses of REPUBLICANS in Congress.

      Along with that you have chronic unemployment, because even though profits at many business are breaking records, they arent hiring workers, just working them harder. The Affordable Health Act is another shot because it shows how many people are really hopelessly out of reach of basic Heath care versus how many have it as a perk for "free".

      For some Bible thumping, in the OT, Israel was on a 360 day calendar with leap months every 7 years. After 7 of those they were supposed to have a "Jubilee year" where they returned to their ancesteral home, forgave debts, freed slaves, and emptied the cities of refuge. That happens to be 50 years. Of course, they never actually had one of those, but they did get wars, captivity, ect... other things that "reset the balance". That 4000 years later we come back to defining human nature in a similar way cant be entirely coincidence.

    6. Re:Title gets it wrong by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      The gradual thinning of human skull from 200000 years ago to 75000 years ago shows the reduction in violence. (The older skulls were "robust" and the modern skulls were "gracile"). Basically skulls less able to withstand thumping blows from clubs and stones actually survived and thrived.

      That sounds wrong. Evolutionary changes aren't easily attributable to a change of behaviour. The idea that ancient humans did more thumping on each others' heads and therefore needed to have thicker skulls can't be verified.

      If I had to wager, I'd suspect that lighter skulls are more advantageous for walking and keeping one's equilibrium when upright, but if I actually claimed that I'd be committing the same mistake you are. Changes could just as well be triggered by environmental factors or random combinations of genes due to mating.

    7. Re:Title gets it wrong by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      The acceptance of violence in the US is already much higher than in any other developed country that I can think of, and most of the rest of the world too (having a (civil) war going on does not mean there is an acceptance of violence).

      Just look at the incredible amount of violence shown in children's cartoons (Tom&Jerry, Road Runner, etc) or your average Hollywood movie (the cinema massacre was nothing compared to the on-screen violence by the "hero" Batman).

    8. Re:Title gets it wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Robust skulls are the result of being repeatedly clubbed in the head, +5 interesting? Jesus fucking christ, slashdot.

    9. Re:Title gets it wrong by bar-agent · · Score: 1

      Just look at the incredible amount of violence shown in children's cartoons (Tom&Jerry, Road Runner, etc)

      These two cartoons were from the 50s and 60s. What has that got to do with violence today? These days, the only children's cartoons that spring to mind are Spongebob Squarepants and Avatar: The Last Airbender. They aren't at all violent in comparison.

      or your average Hollywood movie (the cinema massacre was nothing compared to the on-screen violence by the "hero" Batman).

      First, it was an action movie. There are whole genres of Hollywood movie that aren't action movies.

      Second, did you see that movie? Batman hardly committed any violence at all. He was, in fact, either retired or incapacitated for over half of it. And, of course, Batman doesn't shoot people — it's one of his defining characteristics — so that last parenthetical is just laughably wrong.

      --
      i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
    10. Re:Title gets it wrong by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Second, did you see that movie? Batman hardly committed any violence at all.

      I may be able to find a watchable copy on The Pirate Bay (if there is some preview-DVD-rip available) but that'd be the only way for me to actually watch it in my part of the world. For the rest I'm limited to what the media informs me about it.

  43. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The muslims in the west are just biding their time until they are strong enough to act like muslims in the middle east.

    Heh.

    One wonders why the Mayors of Chicago and Boston go off on fundamentalist Christian Chick-Fil-A, which voices opposition to gay marriage, but are silent against fundamentalist Islam extermination of gays themselves.

    Probably because the Christians won't kill 'em.

    Just ask Theo Van Gogh.

    Oh, wait. You can't. Muzzies actually KILLED him.

    Wonder if the Piss Christ artist has the balls to do a Shit Koran?

    Yeah, we know the answer to that, don't we.

    Very true. The thing that gets me is that everyone knows that Islam is evil and violent, they know that they cannot criticism them for opposing gay marriage and so on, but they all pretend that Islam is just fine because they are sheep following the "PC" herd.

    Let me rephrase that to make ti a bit more on-topic:

    Very true. The thing that gets me is that everyone knows that humans are evil and violent, they know that they cannot criticize them for opposing gay marriage and so on, but they all pretend that humanity is just fine because they are sheep following the "PC" herd.

    Point being: people are greedy and violent and abuse power structures. The degree to which this happens in a given society seems to go in cyclic 2-generational waves, and this mathematician has found a way to model it. The rhetoric in this thread ascribing human faults to specific people groups (faith based or ethic based) and pointing out specific failings inside these groups is totally beside the point. If there were no non-white muslims living in the US, there'd be someone else, and the rhetoric would be almost identical. Eventually, the overall level of societal dissatisfaction with the way these issues are resolved by "peaceable" means will come to a head, and people will look to physical solutions. This will carry on until there is a majority formed who share strong core societal values that they then shove down the throats of everyone else, at which point "peace" returns and "everyone" is happy.

    They say history repeats itself, and in this case they (and this mathematician) appear to be spot-on.

    What these models don't factor in especially well though, is population density. I'd like to see this guy do a slightly more complex model that ties in the affects of density on the level and duration of the violence.

  44. seems plausible by n30na · · Score: 1

    With the slowly churning unrest in lower classes these days, it seems quite possible that it will end up going somewhere.

    It's too bad it's unlikely that a revolution could come of it, in the us at least. It's equally too bad that I would probably disagree with whomever would end up in charge, were that to happen.

  45. Sounds like Psychohistory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hari seldon would be jealous.

  46. contradictory opinion by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the article, here is the opinion of historians who disagree with this guy, probably worth reading:

    Cliodynamics is viewed with deep scepticism by most academic historians, who tend to see history as a complex stew of chance, individual foibles and one-of-a-kind situations that no broad-brush 'science of history' will ever capture.....Most think that phenomena such as political instability should be understood by constructing detailed narratives of what actually happened — always looking for patterns and regularities, but never forgetting that each outbreak emerged from a particular time and place.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  47. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    You basically slander a billion people and when cornered on it try to shut up your opponents with being autistic homosexuals, before explaining how bad it is for homosexuals. You're a loud mouthed halfwit

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  48. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    Frankly you're showing more signs of Aspergers than anyone else here.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  49. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are over 2 million muslims in the USA who have been here for over 2 decades who haven't been "biding their time" to do anything.

    Explain Dearborn, MI please.

    You are partially correct... in that they haven't been biding their time... It appears they are actively persecuting every person that does not conform to their beliefs.

    Obvious FUDster is obvious.

  50. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Capt.+Skinny · · Score: 2

    Take your meds.

  51. Re:1870? What about 1861??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    His model doesn't predict wars, but domestic violence. The ca. 1870 spike involves the large numbers of lynchings of African Americans and race riots during Reconstruction.

  52. 1940? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There was a dip in violence in 1940-1945???

  53. Firstly, we assume perfectly spherical criminals.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...

    -Kevin

  54. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    except they'd be far more effective doing many, many small one-off acts of violence, so why isn't that happening? oh yeah, because you're pushing boogeymen bullshit.

  55. My Commodore 64 has the same predictive app by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Biorhythms

  56. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by fnj · · Score: 1

    Dear Coward: you don't consider yourself a racist yet you claim "Christians are white"? I _suspect_ you are a racist, but I _know_ you are an ignorant SOB.

  57. I don't think so by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    you don't have to steal from them, you just never let them have anything in the first place. I guess you can call that 'stealing', but it's not stealing in the traditional sense, so it's too difficult an idea for people to understand. This is why R Money and Billy G have billions and 46% of the rest of us don't make enough money to be worth taxing...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:I don't think so by Phrogman · · Score: 2

      I think its also important that the poor people in the society are aware that there is no reason that they *must* be that poor except that the system (tax laws, political structure and who has influence etc) is set up by the rich and wealthy and that they are using it to ensure they remain rich and wealthy and that the poor remain barely able to get by.
      This is what I see in North America at the moment, and what the Occupy folks were upset about. The system is unequal, inherently so, and thus while its possible for a poor person to make themselves wealthy, the deck is stacked against a lot of the population who don't see the opportunity to do so, and thus have less hope.
      The economic news I note a lot these days is the media pointing out how many executives are being grossly overpaid, or getting massive yearly bonuses etc. The reality I see on the street is small business after small business going out of business, and their part of the market being taken over by massive corporations like Walmart or Amazon. I have no evidence, but it seems to me that our economy is rotting from the bottom up.
      To add fuel to the flames of course, we have commercial advertising which creates demands for products that everyone wants, the poor can't afford etc. The solution of course is to buy on credit (i.e. with money you don't have) and thus ensure you remain in debt and thus tied to your social and economic situation.

      --
      "The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
    2. Re:I don't think so by tftp · · Score: 1

      the deck is stacked against a lot of the population who don't see the opportunity to do so, and thus have less hope.

      The deck is stacked against those who are lazy, violent, or on drugs. That's for a good reason. Everyone else has his own road to success. But the road is not easy, and many weaker minds prefer to not walk it at all. It's much easier to cry "Help, help, I'm being oppressed!"

    3. Re:I don't think so by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

      I know this is Conservatard trolling, but I'll bite. What happens when a woman doesn't get enough vitamins and food during pregnancy. Google it, I'll wait. Now, you're a child born to that Mother. Your brain doesn't work as well, and you have lots of health problems. If that isn't the deck stacked against you I don't know what is.

      --
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    4. Re:I don't think so by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      This particular bit of bullshit gets repeated so endlessly I can only assume you idiots actually believe it.

      Where do you think those small business that are failing came from? Rich people? Don't be stupid. The endless series of small business failures the GP was talking about come from those fine upstanding ambitious citizens you seem to think you're one of. But no, they must have been on drugs or violent or lazy, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have failed.

      I'm not even going to bother to make more of an argument than that. There's a point where ad hominem is de rigueur. You're an idiot and should shut up.

    5. Re:I don't think so by tftp · · Score: 1

      Now, you're a child born to that Mother. Your brain doesn't work as well, and you have lots of health problems. If that isn't the deck stacked against you I don't know what is.

      I suggest you ask Stephen Hawking about that.

      But in general, if you are disabled and a group of doctors confirms, you can be given social assistance. It's a safe thing to do because there are very few genuinely disabled people among all those that receive social assistance today. Your example of a disabled child is statistically insignificant. But personally - yes, a deaf child cannot become a musician; a blind child cannot become a race car driver; a child with low IQ is unlikely to become a famous mathematician. The society cannot help here - unless you suggest that we give honorable titles and jobs just so the disabled people feel good about that? We can do that, but it will dilute the value of those titles and jobs as rewards for people who earned themselves on their own. Now the deck is stacked against healthy and productive members of the society. (It was one of reasons why USSR fell.)

      I know at least one able-bodied person on social security. One day he complains that he is not getting as much money as he'd wanted. I immediately gave him a business idea that was entirely within his domain. He thought about that and said: "If I open a business I will lose social security. What if I fail at that business? I'm not willing to risk that." US taxpayers are still paying him for his refusal to contribute to the society.

    6. Re:I don't think so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poverty is caused by humans having compassion for the weak, disabled, etc., instead of just killing them, as what happens amongst all other life forms and actually levels the playing field.

  58. Uh.. yeah I have those things by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    meanwhile there are people down south without them. People who depend on a medical outreach program Modeled after Iran.

    Yes, I know I have it relatively good. But I also know there is virtually no safety net for me and I can slip into third world poverty. I know that kind of poverty exists and is tolerated in America. Did you?

    But another way, just because things could be worse doesn't mean they SHOULDN'T be better.

    --
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  59. The Rise of APD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is no one taking a serious look at the REAL problem our human civilization is facing: the rise of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Generations of human beings raised without loyalty and unconditional love develop into people that cannot genuinely express those qualities.

    They manipulate everyone around them like objects for their own gain and the entire world is now run by these people with an incurable lack of conscience. Until we as a civilization address this very real problem, society itself will continue to breed anti-society until its demise.

    1. Re:The Rise of APD by beaverdownunder · · Score: 1

      I don't think it's fair to tie a lack of ethics or morality to 'unconditional love / loyalty." You can certainly be ethical and moral and just in your relationships without being forced to accept someone being an ass-hat simply because they're related to you, or because you've known them for a certain, arbitrary amount of time.

      Later generations have learned not to take shit. If this means that the older generations who, for example, raised their children under a false assumption that they'd be there for them later in life 'no matter what' are sadly disappointed and lonely in their elder years -- guess what? TOUGH.

      You get what you give. Nothing more and nothing less. I don't think there's anything wrong with that principle at all. If you do, then you probably take more than you give, and I can't have any sympathy for you.

  60. violence in here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As I skim through these responses, I can already see the violence ensuing, primitive minds that will never evolve.

  61. Nothing new.... by gishzida · · Score: 1

    Cliodynamics seems to be the new, trending name for... Cliology [see the afterward of the hard cover edition of "In the Country of the Blind" by Michael Flynn which originally appeared as a two part article 'Introduction to Psychohistory' in Analog magazine in 1988] and "Cycles Research" founded by economist Edward R. Dewey http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/ Also a book by Dewey "Cycles, The Mysterious Forces that Trigger Events..." and some of the papers presented in the Journal of World Systems Research archives such as this one from 1995: "The Next World War: World-System Cycles and Trends" http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol1/v1_n6.php

    Dewey was of the belief that the cycles he uncovered had a 'rational cause'...

  62. Re:Government needs to be... by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    Good thing that there is a second amendment, but remember the pre-emptive police and FEMA tactics during Katrina in New Orleans against honest, gun owning households.

    Knock, knock. Hello we're FEMA/police [1/2 minute of polite conversation] "Do you have guns" as if making sure you're adequately prepared for self defense. Dumb, honest homeowner: "Yes"
    CRAAAASH, armed invasion and personal injury follows. No sh|t.

  63. Kondratiev by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like the Kondratiev cycle, which is about the economy rather than social unrest, but it's also about 50 years.

  64. meanwhile... by ThorGod · · Score: 1

    It would still be a good idea to get guns off the street. There's a number of ways to do that:

    -turn the underground drug market into an above-board, regulated market (with broad social programs to help people off their addictions).
    -take a serious look at just what sort of weapons *are* constitutionally supported.

    It's not likely for such measures to *increase* drug/gun related violence.

    --
    PS: I don't reply to ACs.
  65. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by nedlohs · · Score: 1

    One wonders why the Mayors of Chicago and Boston go off on fundamentalist Christian Chick-Fil-A, which voices opposition to gay marriage, but are silent against fundamentalist Islam extermination of gays themselves.

    Because as things get closer to home they become more important.

    For example, my child cutting himself on some broken glass is more important to me than an African child starving to death. In fact it's more important to me than hundreds of African children starving to death. Sure that sounds terrible (and probably is). But I will drop everything and take my kid to the hospital/doctor to get some stitches, I won't drop everything when I see something on TV about someone overseas starving.

    To be even more extreme, my kid going to the swimming pool is more important to me than a thousand African kids starving to death. After all I spend more of my time and money taking him there, than I do on helping starving Africans.

    Similarly mayors of chicago and boston are more likely to care about statement from a company that operates in their jurisdictions than actions of foreigners who do not.

  66. Re:1870? What about 1861??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Moreover, it was a unique peak in US history.

    The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, WW1, WW2...these were all unforeseeable, unmodelable events, right?

    A data set full of black swans is still a data set.

  67. Regulation caused the Great Depression by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Troll

    it was Reagan who began ignoring the lessons of the Great Depression

    Odd then it was Reagan who prevented a similar collapse just as we were on the edge from Carter - liberal revisionism knows no shame, and seeks to hoodwink a younger generation.

    No, in truth it was in fact regulation that caused the great depression.

    The younger readers out there, do not be fooled again - read the WHOLE truth rather than be fed the small twisted portion those who would impose a liberal tyranny upon you insist is the "truth". Break the cycle of poverty and misery than liberals impose upon us all every three generations or so, now at last with the internet it's easy to research the entire story on anything and not listen to any one interest group.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Here's the basic story of the Great Depression, which is very similar to the story of the more recent financial crisis.
      1. Times were good in the 1920's on Wall St. People could and did make good money trading stocks.
      2. A bubble began to form, with financial companies willing to extend credit in order to buy stocks. For instance, you could buy a $1 stock for 10 cents and owe your banker for the other 90 cents. They were willing to do this because the stocks were constantly going up, so this was a good investment.
      3. Of course, the stocks were going up because people were entering the market with only 10% of the value of the stock in hand, which meant they could pay 10 times what they previously could.
      4. Eventually, somebody discovered that the underlying assets were worth, at most, 10% of what they were priced at in the market. When this became public knowledge, everyone tried to get out at the same time.
      5. End result: Crash. And when one business crashes, their stock, which was considered good, is now worthless, so businesses holding their stock also crash, so it cascades through the system leaving things worse than if the Crimson Permanent Assurance had hit them.

      Replace "stocks" with "mortgage backed securities", fast forward 70 years or so, and the same thing happened. It happens any time that a con man can successfully make worthless pieces of paper look like representations of valuable property. And yes, it could conceivably happen that the pieces of paper that say "One Dollar" on them will also become worthless - if it does, you want to have land and a team of people who will help you defend it.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    2. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      Replace "stocks" with "mortgage backed securities", fast forward 70 years or so, and the same thing happened. It happens any time that a con man can successfully make worthless pieces of paper look like representations of valuable property. And yes, it could conceivably happen that the pieces of paper that say "One Dollar" on them will also become worthless - if it does, you want to have land and a team of people who will help you defend it.

      The key step as usual is step 2, leverage. You always have con men. But you don't always have people investing mostly borrowed money. I'd say that the levels of leverage reached during the recent real estate bubble, roughly 50 to 1 are high enough that even investing in US treasuries, would eventually lead to an oopsie.

      This only leads to the crash not to the depression. One instead has to look to what attempts were made to get out from under. During the Great Depression a bigger oops was the Smoot-Hawley act of 1930, which created large tariffs on goods coming into the US and led to retaliatory tariffs by every other country. Employment plunged and eventually FDR got elected in 1932. FDR's terms consist of bad idea after bad idea, from making labor unions overly powerful and creating oligopolies in many industries to trying to stack the Supreme Court so he could pass unconstitutional law more easily.

      This only straightened out when the US had to gear up for the Second World War. The myth of war being good for the economy comes from this particular war, when the FDR administration had to reverse, rather quickly, most of the bad policies that they had created, particularly ending the oligopolies and trimming back the powerful labor unions.

      I think it's interesting how Obama has attempted to follow FDR's efforts but with much less legislative success. Due to the uncertainty, the bad law, and just the nasty anti-business attitude coming from the White House, businesses have been putting off investment and hiring for quite some time. But I imagine that will improve greatly in 2013, if Obama should be voted out.

    3. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by ethergear · · Score: 2

      I think it's interesting how Obama has attempted to follow FDR's efforts but with much less legislative success. Due to the uncertainty, the bad law, and just the nasty anti-business attitude coming from the White House, businesses have been putting off investment and hiring for quite some time. But I imagine that will improve greatly in 2013, if Obama should be voted out.

      Ridiculous! Businesses are putting off hiring because there is no demand. If these businesses had demand they'd be hiring, uncertainty, law, and the White House's attitude be damned. Your assertion to the contrary is clearly politically motivated.

    4. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      Businesses are putting off hiring because there is no demand.

      My view is that uncertainty generates a lot of negative effects including reduction in demand.

      If you're afraid you're going to lose your job, do you go buy a new house or car? Maybe, but it's a pretty dumb thing to do. Similarly, if a company is worried that it'll take on a lot of future obligations if it expands and hires people, then it's less likely to do so. That shows up in reduced demand for capital and various sorts of business and industrial goods. This sort of thing is how uncertainty kills demand.

      If these businesses had demand they'd be hiring, uncertainty, law, and the White House's attitude be damned.

      Right. Because they don't mind getting losing their business because they gambled wrong.

      Your assertion to the contrary is clearly politically motivated.

      Of course, my assertion is. But why isn't all that stimulus that the US and the rest of the world burned, doing much? That's supposedly a huge spur to demand, but it's fallen pretty flat. Seems to me more likely that demand wasn't the problem in the first place.

      Second, if you look at the excuses for why businesses are holding back, it's basically two things right now: the upcoming US election and what the EU will do about Greece.

      Hence, why I asserted what I did. Uncertainty is a powerful demotivator. People want to know what's going on before they take big risks.

    5. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      Well, I guess that even if Obama does win the election, there probably will be some business activity and some increase in demand. There might even be some reduction in uncertainty. One can't sit on one's haunches forever and still remain a viable business. But that will be a poor recovery compared to what happens if Romney gets elected.

    6. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      New products are one of the prime motivators of demand. Apple excepted, most large US businesses are not developing new products and most rich people are not funding new development because of 2 reasons: Obama is properly seen as a kleptocrat who will steal the profits of new developments, and regulatory attacks on those without political pull will derail new products. The rich are holding onto their money until the election: if Romney is elected, it will become safer to do business in the US, and they will do so. If Obama is re-elected, they'll put their money to work in a safer place (like Poland?) as the US enters the dark ages.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    7. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An excellent example, and a near repeat of the perhaps more internationally famous events that occurred in France with John Law in the 1710s. The 1848 book "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay details those events and is the earliest instance I've read of the description of the formation of the financial "bubbles" created by wild speculation and poor monetary regulation.

    8. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 2

      Of course, my assertion is. But why isn't all that stimulus that the US and the rest of the world burned, doing much? That's supposedly a huge spur to demand, but it's fallen pretty flat.

      There are two things to keep in mind here. First of all, there wasn't that much stimulus happening in the first place. All those huge sounding numbers that the Fed throws around with various QE activities does almost exactly zero to stimulate the demand, and economists who focus on how the financial sector works have been able to predict that quite accurately.

      Second, the Obama stimulus has in fact helped soften the recession according to most simulations, including those of the CBO. The stimulus simply wasn't very big compared to the overall size of the problem. (Yes, the problem was that huge.)

      As for the whole uncertainty thing, look: Of course this is largely a chicken-and-egg problem. You are of course right that uncertainty leads to individuals spending less. But then this reduction in demand causes uncertainty in the first place. So the non-partisan question here is how to best break that cycle. It is obvious that if you inject more demand into the system, this eliminates many reasons for uncertainty for individual spending decisions.

      Outside of neoclassical economic models, expectations follow reality more than the other way around.

    9. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      First of all, there wasn't that much stimulus happening in the first place. All those huge sounding numbers that the Fed throws around with various QE activities does almost exactly zero to stimulate the demand

      It gave a tremendous amount of wealth to anyone who owed money. Bond and loan yields dropped as a result. There probably was a bit of inflation as well. That should have spurred collective demand in theory just due to the massive number of people who hold loans out there and suddenly had a lot less risk in their portfolio. In practice, I see it as confirmation of my assertion.

      And then we need to consider actual stimulus spending by all governments not just the US. The EU, Japan, and China all have burned a lot of money on stimulus as well.

      Second, the Obama stimulus has in fact helped soften the recession according to most simulations, including those of the CBO. The stimulus simply wasn't very big compared to the overall size of the problem. (Yes, the problem was that huge.)

      The "it was bigger than we thought" argument is countered easily by the "It wouldn't have fixed the problem in the first place" argument. Japan has spent vast sums on stimulus since their really bad 1990-1991 recession. It hasn't helped them regain their former strength and economic momentum, but it did help weaken their recovery. TARP and the many other stimulus efforts are just more of the same with as we see, the same outcomes.

      And the CBO claims TARP actually worked? That's what propaganda organs of US Congress do. But let's consider how much money was spent for result, say like the infamous "jobs created or saved" metric (something like $200k spent per job "created or saved")?

      The argument that it's all about demand is just a transparent excuse to increase public spending. It hasn't worked so far because the model doesn't fit reality. Unless a US business sees a vast opportunity right now, there's little reason to invest large sums or hire lots of people before the outcome of the US presidential election is known in November.

      Similarly, many European businesses risk a lot if they make big investments now. They could get burned by some consequence of the Greek thing. That's just how it is. People are unwilling to buy lots of stuff, if they don't have confidence in the future.

    10. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      As for the whole uncertainty thing, look: Of course this is largely a chicken-and-egg problem. You are of course right that uncertainty leads to individuals spending less. But then this reduction in demand causes uncertainty in the first place. So the non-partisan question here is how to best break that cycle. It is obvious that if you inject more demand into the system, this eliminates many reasons for uncertainty for individual spending decisions.

      That hasn't worked so far. Even in a do nothing scenario, eventually the uncertainty goes away. Everyone who could have gone bankrupt has done so. Every market or sector that could fall did so. Everyone who was going to be fired, got fired. Then it's "Well, I got money and the price of that house, that used industrial equipment, or that really cheap unemployed skilled worker isn't going to get any cheaper." And demand returns.

      The problem here is that various governments, particularly the US, have done much to greatly increase uncertainty about the future. How much is hiring an employee really going to cost? We won't know until after the presidential election. You can be sure that it's going to be more expensive under Obama than under Romney.

      Will the feds be trying to block expansion of my business after I already have spent the money for expansion? Who knows? But Obama has already blocked a lot of such things (particularly, fossil fuel related industries and infrastructure) and is likely to continue that practice should he get reelected.

      Will the next president try doing some crazy shit like creating national oligopolies, tariff wars, greatly increasing labor union power, massive social engineering (like trying to force people back into urban centers), etc. Well, Romney isn't likely to do that. But an Obama administration just might try something.

      Outside of neoclassical economic models, expectations follow reality more than the other way around.

      Everyone agrees on that. But what is reality here? I just don't buy that our current problems are because we didn't try stimulus hard enough.

    11. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Ruie · · Score: 1

      Here's the basic story of the Great Depression, which is very similar to the story of the more recent financial crisis. 1. Times were good in the 1920's on Wall St. People could and did make good money trading stocks. [..] 5. End result: Crash. And when one business crashes, their stock, which was considered good, is now worthless, so businesses holding their stock also crash, so it cascades through the system leaving things worse than if the Crimson Permanent Assurance had hit them.

      Replace "stocks" with "mortgage backed securities", fast forward 70 years or so, and the same thing happened. It happens any time that a con man can successfully make worthless pieces of paper look like representations of valuable property. And yes, it could conceivably happen that the pieces of paper that say "One Dollar" on them will also become worthless - if it does, you want to have land and a team of people who will help you defend it.

      It happens more frequently ! dot.com bubble of 2000, LTCM collapse, 1980s collapse, etc. Roughly every 5-7 years, with some collapses being larger than others.

      This is really just our economy's analog of Chinese ghost cities.

    12. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Falconhell · · Score: 1

      What more unbiased site could there be than libertarian answers? Who wants to read the views of those moronic bozo apart from super stupid here.?
      Poor old kendall just doesn't get the whole reality has a liberal bias thing, he should move to Somalia where he can truly see his libertarian society in action!

    13. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by unitron · · Score: 1

      The article to which you link mentions nothing about stock market speculation.

      Allow me to recommend something which does, Galbraith's "The Great Crash, 1929".

      In it you'll find things like companies whose sole asset was stock in another company whose sole asset was stock in yet another company whose sole asset was...until you get to the bottom of the pyramid and find that there's nothing of value there.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    14. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by unitron · · Score: 1

      You are attempting to use logic to explain things to a supply-sider. Good luck with that one.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

    15. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 1

      First of all, there wasn't that much stimulus happening in the first place. All those huge sounding numbers that the Fed throws around with various QE activities does almost exactly zero to stimulate the demand

      It gave a tremendous amount of wealth to anyone who owed money. Bond and loan yields dropped as a result. There probably was a bit of inflation as well. That should have spurred collective demand in theory just due to the massive number of people who hold loans out there and suddenly had a lot less risk in their portfolio. In practice, I see it as confirmation of my assertion.

      It didn't help those on the lower end of wealth spectrum as much though, like all those people whose mortgages were under water. Rate of savings matter a lot.

      The argument that it's all about demand is just a transparent excuse to increase public spending.

      That's where you're letting your politics cloud your judgement. Demand-side economists can almost as easily be used to justify tax cuts, and many demand-side economists indeed argue for income tax and tax roll cuts for lower-income brackets.

      The subtle issue here is that tax cuts are only really effective when they affect low-wealth/income households, as those are the ones that are most likely to go out and spend the additional available income on real goods and services.

      Similarly, many European businesses risk a lot if they make big investments now. They could get burned by some consequence of the Greek thing. That's just how it is. People are unwilling to buy lots of stuff, if they don't have confidence in the future.

      But what kind of confidence are we talking about here? Mostly, we are talking about confidence in future income streams. If, as an employee, I worry about being laid off in the next few months, then naturally I am going to save more - if possible - to have some savings as buffer. Similarly, as an employer, if I worry about landing enough contracts over the next months, I am not going to employ more people. It's all about income streams.

    16. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 2

      Even in a do nothing scenario, eventually the uncertainty goes away.

      You're missing the point.

      To paint an obviously exaggerated picture, if a prolonged global depression causes so much social unrest that the global supply chain disintegrates, then what good does it do if uncertainty goes away afterwards? When living standards declined after the fall of Rome, do you really think people thought that was just fine, since after all, uncertainty eventually went away?

      Now of course nobody expects anything quite so stark, except perhaps limited to countries like Greece and Spain. But the point still stands: prolonged recessions can decrease the long-term trajectory of an economy. It's called hysteresis.

      Will the feds be trying to block expansion of my business after I already have spent the money for expansion? Who knows? But Obama has already blocked a lot of such things (particularly, fossil fuel related industries and infrastructure) and is likely to continue that practice should he get reelected.

      Frankly, you're letting your politics cloud sound judgement (bringing suspicions about future behaviour of one specific politician into the discussion is a sure sign of that). It is a pity that I cannot find the link right now, but a survey among small businesses around 2010-2011 clearly indicated that what they were most worried about was finding customers for their products and services.

      Regulation can be troublesome, I give you that, but individual pieces of regulation are mostly confined to a very narrow segment of the economy, and the problem we're talking about here is obviously at a macro level.

    17. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 1

      Everyone agrees on that. But what is reality here? I just don't buy that our current problems are because we didn't try stimulus hard enough.

      I recommend that you go through publicly available data sets, and just look at the scale of the accumulated private debt that collapsed due to the GFC. All that debt recorded previous "stimulus" by private households spending more than their income, and all this "stimulus" then stopped abruptly. We can throw numbers around here, but I think the best approach is for you to just take a look yourself. A lot is available from the St. Louis Fed's FRED database, for other, aggregated data, you might want to look at some of the things that Richard Koo and Steve Keen have collected.

      In any case, the scale of the problem was truly mind boggling, and you really have to take a rational thinker's approach to judging how big those numbers are in relation to each other.

    18. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      It didn't help those on the lower end of wealth spectrum as much though, like all those people whose mortgages were under water. Rate of savings matter a lot.

      Why in the world do you think it's a better idea for those people to demand more? This is another problem with focusing on demand rather than the actual problems that exist out there. There are a lot of people who really should be cutting back on their demand for a long time. We should encourage them and find other ways to solve our problems.

      The argument that it's all about demand is just a transparent excuse to increase public spending.

      That's where you're letting your politics cloud your judgement. Demand-side economists can almost as easily be used to justify tax cuts, and many demand-side economists indeed argue for income tax and tax roll cuts for lower-income brackets.

      The subtle issue here is that tax cuts are only really effective when they affect low-wealth/income households, as those are the ones that are most likely to go out and spend the additional available income on real goods and services.

      So many untested assumptions in that last paragraph. The key two are current economic activity does not correlate to future economic activity and that economic activity is a full metric for health of an economy.

      And we see that with current stimulus spending. It has no long term effect. One needs to keep spending in order to keep getting the boost in demand and economic activity. A permanent redistribution of wealth and drain on society merely to boost economic activity. It doesn't make sense.

      Seriously, you claim that the way to help an economy is to give money to the dumbest and most spendthrift people in our society. That indicates to me a remarkably unsound and irrational approach.

      But what kind of confidence are we talking about here? Mostly, we are talking about confidence in future income streams. If, as an employee, I worry about being laid off in the next few months, then naturally I am going to save more - if possible - to have some savings as buffer. Similarly, as an employer, if I worry about landing enough contracts over the next months, I am not going to employ more people. It's all about income streams.

      So you're choosing not to agree with me why? The above is not some deep insight, but merely a slightly different model.

    19. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by airdweller · · Score: 1

      The most idiotic thing I've heard today.

    20. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      But the point still stands: prolonged recessions can decrease the long-term trajectory of an economy. It's called hysteresis.

      And what makes you think we're doing anything to shorten this recession or not enable future recessions? To be blunt here, I don't see that past stimulus activities were any better than just doing nothing.

      Frankly, you're letting your politics cloud sound judgement (bringing suspicions about future behaviour of one specific politician into the discussion is a sure sign of that). It is a pity that I cannot find the link right now, but a survey among small businesses around 2010-2011 clearly indicated that what they were most worried about was finding customers for their products and services.

      That poll would already be a year or more out of date. And Obama is a good sized roadblock to global economic recovery, much as Hoover made the equivalent Great Depression worst worldwide by allowing Smoot-Hawley to pass.

      Regulation can be troublesome, I give you that, but individual pieces of regulation are mostly confined to a very narrow segment of the economy, and the problem we're talking about here is obviously at a macro level.

      In a storm, an individual raindrop gets only a minute area wet where it lands. But you can still get macroscopic disasters, ie, floods, on a large scale from enough of those raindrops. One cannot dismiss regulation on the basis that individual pieces cover small areas when the collective effect of that regulation can be far more damaging than a single piece.

      For example, there are roughly 160,000 pages of federal regulation and that appears to have doubled in size in the past third of a century.

    21. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      The other part of the "uncertainty" explanation: It's nonsense. It always has been: to get profits, you have to take on risk, and risk by definition involves uncertainty about the outcome.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    22. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      New products are one of the prime motivators of demand.

      That's quite simply nonsense. Standard micro explains exactly what creates demand, namely that the product offers utility to the buyer. In other words, it solves (or appears to solve) their problem. I'm hungry, so I'm now motivated to buy hamburger and eat it so I'm not hungry anymore. I don't like the color of my curtains, so I'm now in the market for new curtains. My car has a dent, so I'm now part of the demand for auto body repair services. I'd like to walk around with all my digital music, so I'm now going to consider buying an iPod.

      And on the macro scale, we also know how to create demand: Give more cash to the people who are broke, because they will spend it right away on services and goods they've been putting off buying because they were broke.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    23. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 1

      Skipping to what I think is really the crucial point.

      But what kind of confidence are we talking about here? Mostly, we are talking about confidence in future income streams. If, as an employee, I worry about being laid off in the next few months, then naturally I am going to save more - if possible - to have some savings as buffer. Similarly, as an employer, if I worry about landing enough contracts over the next months, I am not going to employ more people. It's all about income streams.

      So you're choosing not to agree with me why? The above is not some deep insight, but merely a slightly different model.

      I'm not exactly disagreeing with you. Rather, you seem to use "it's all about confidence" as an argument to contradict me. What I am saying is that one of the most important factors in confidence is the confidence of future income streams, i.e. demand.

      In other words, it is completely misguided to use confidence-related arguments as a reason to ignore the issue of aggregate demand.

    24. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are attempting to use logic to explain things to a supply-sider. Good luck with that one.

      No kidding, that's almost as bad as trying to use logic with a trickle down theory believer...

      PS, To be fair, trickle down theory works very, very well, if you're very, very,....very**n wealthy and that is very unlikely to be you (that's not you Rupert, is it?) and it sure as hell is not me, or anyone I know, or anyone in my neighborhood or anyone I've ever met or, well, you get the picture (scarely I'm in the top 10% for family income, but that's really somewhere around the hold even point, you actually have to be somwhere deep within the top one percentile to actually have these kind of policies benefit you, in the middle-term anyway)

    25. Re:Regulation caused the Great Depression by khallow · · Score: 1

      Rather, you seem to use "it's all about confidence" as an argument to contradict me. What I am saying is that one of the most important factors in confidence is the confidence of future income streams, i.e. demand.

      Demand is not equivalent to an income stream. You have lots of demand, but not much income (for example, grocery stores). Or you can have little demand, but lots of income (for example, a US prime contractor in a unique niche and the favorable cost plus federal contracts they're able to score). You can be losing money at any degree of demand (for example, many US airlines).

      You can also lose income streams even when the demand stays or even improves. That's the power of an Obama administration. They can abort a fossil fuel project that was well underway, drive up employee benefit costs, or make it a lot more expensive to fire bad employees. This is a power to cause businesses to lose lots of money without directly harming demand. And the more risk that a company took on, the more painful the attack becomes.

      In summary, demand doesn't magically translate into profit. The uncertainties in the current environment are more or less the sort that can cost a business a lot of money, maybe even kill it, no matter how the demand changes.

      Confidence is an indicator that business believes it can take risks again. Merely increasing short term demand doesn't do that, because everyone knows demand will go down again once the short term incentive for the demand goes away.

      Let's consider a statement of yours a bit more carefully.

      What I am saying is that one of the most important factors in confidence is the confidence of future income streams, i.e. demand.

      What sort of solution improves future demand? We know what doesn't, present day public spending stimulus. It improves present day demand and stops improving demand when the spending stops. So to increase future demand in this way, one needs continuous future spending.

      As future economic crises happen, then there is need for more spending to increase demand to counter these continued failures. Eventually you reach the point where it no longer works in any sense (increasing current public spending decreases future public spending) and you've painted yourself into a corner with a pointless and exhausting income redistribution scheme, massive debt, and repeating economic failures.

      The problem is simply that any sort of Keynesian strategy doesn't really work.

  68. Can't we all just get along? by allseason+radial · · Score: 1


    Can't we skip the "BRANG IT ON!" stage and go straight to the "Mission Accomplished!" endgame?

    Seems like doing so would save a lot of time (among other valuable resources).

  69. Sounds like Strauss-Howe generational theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Strauss-Howe predicts we entrered a "Crisis" turning in 2008, and turnings typically last roughly 20 years. There are four turnings in a cycle, so a Crisis comes around roughly every 80 years.

    For reference, the other Crises in US history were the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression/WW2 (yes, the short length of the Civil War is an acknowledged anomaly, and there is much debate on why it happened).

  70. Medler by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    This PKDick's short story plays with the paradoxes of going to the future (and coming back) instead of going the past. Politics wanted to know if what they choose would be for good, send a time traveler to the future to know that and something that wouldnt ever happen happens because of doing that travel. There was about physical things, but with just information things can become weird fast.

    Both being able to change the future and knowing it is a not a good thing, could end being not able to change it or what you knew was wrong (because you changed your own future actions based on that knowledge). In the story, something totally out of the map could happen to fix that conflict. Thats why in Foundation people of Terminus shouldnt don't know about psychohistory.

  71. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Chrisq · · Score: 0

    I have not posted anonymously in this thread.

  72. It could be society cycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    50 years is two generation to two generation and a half. That is time where one inherit and build something, then second generation profit from it but do not build upon and "stay on the laurel of the previous generation", and 3rd generation is left out and end in violence. I am not saying that guy is right, jsut saying there could very well be human societal reason to expect violence every 2 generation.

  73. Short answer no by aepervius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Long answer : back in 1942 there was such things as an official war against germany. No matter how your governement , there is no such a things as a recognized war against a *word* (war agaisnt drug, war agaisnt terrorism) just like the made up "illegal fighter". The simple truth is that terrorism is a judicial problem (aka non military) but your governement saw the occasion to use new toy in real theater instead of training zone/firing range.

    So we are speaking of assassination(the correct word in absence of due process) of citizen from your (or other) country.

    *Shrug* . I don't expect that to change any time soon. Your military right now is probably creaming in their pants just as the amount of data they got about their toy used and potential advance.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
    1. Re:Short answer no by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Assassination is a mere euphemism of murder.

    2. Re:Short answer no by T+Murphy · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure the drones have been put to thorough use on missions that don't involve US citizens. If you want to (rightly) criticise the US, making caricatures that make no sense doesn't help you (the military has such an unrestrained urge to play with their toys that they refrain from testing them on the plentiful non-US-citizen targets? Seriously?).

  74. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    History repeats itself, but it's not reproducible. That's why it's not a science. Turchin is doing good work on developing an analytical tool, though, for anyone with the historical insight to use it. As a sanity check on the historical record, if nothing else. Not there yet, but something useful may emerge.

    I am the Great and Powerful OZ! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

  75. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Mabhatter · · Score: 1

    I dont really see anything at that page other than the city of Derborn not liking out-of-town asshats stirring up trouble and dealing fairly heavy handed with them. Really, what do you think the news would be if a group of Arab teens got sick of these people committing blaspheme against their religion on the street and beat them up?

  76. Two words for you: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "American Spring"
    It'll happen unless the direction we're going changes dramatically. Banks and big corporations need to be reigned in. Government needs to stop snooping on it's citizens and eroding away their civil and basic human rights. Neo-conservatives and Dominionists are actively trying to destroy the Middle Class in the U.S., leaving only the poor working-class (with no way out of it) and the rich (who get richer on the backs of the poor), and a societal structure similar to feudalism. There is already unrest all over the world, and the powers-that-be in the U.S. are scared shitless of those two little words: American Spring.

  77. Some Historians Agree by superflippy · · Score: 1

    I read The Fourth Turning back in the '90s. This book by two historians also espouses a cyclical view of history. Their hypothesis is that these cycles are driven by the given generational makeup of a country at any given time.

    What I find interesting about this mathematician's predictions is that they pretty closely match Strauss and Howe's.

    --
    Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
    1. Re:Some Historians Agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thoughts exactly.

      Also, if you read Howe's blog, he's of the opinion that the 4T began with the 2008 stock market crash, since that's the point when society collectively freaked out, and the freakout stuck around for good (far, far more than even 9/11, which didn't really change much in the long run--everything went back to normal within a year after that, but things still aren't back to normal four years after the 2008 crash).

      Even more interesting, one of the most popular sub-theories on the forum is that saecula alternate between outward-focused "advancement" and inward-focused "atonement" saecula. We're currently in an "atonement" saeculum, just like the Civil War Saeculum and the New World Saeculum (which ended with the Glorious Revolution). For comparison, "advancement" saecula include the Great Power Saeculum (ended with WW2) and the Revolutionary Saeculum (the "revolution" here refers to the American Revolution for Americans and the French Revolution for Europeans, which is part of why the turnings are slightly out of sync between America and Europe).

    2. Re:Some Historians Agree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, here's the actual blog post where Howe explains why he thinks the 4T began in 2008.

  78. Hari was probably right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The analysis is "most" accurate when it is not noticed.

    Given the small sample of people who probably will read this article and come to their own conclusions.

    And the smaller sample still of elite people in places of power to act on the information, it will probably come to pass and the events will play out as predicted.

    It does make some interesting observations, that violent people or people of action tend to be the points where new elite form - the leaders, however they don't seem to survive the revolution very often. We have a way of retiring presidents for example, other countries are less lenient.

    That they try to eliminate bias in the samples used to study the cycles is encouraging, and anonymizing the data sets helps too. The sample sizes seem to span about 2000 - 4000 years or 20 per millennium.

  79. So 8 more years of taking shit before by Nyder · · Score: 1

    people get pissed enough to do something about it.

    Can't wait.

    --
    Be seeing you...
  80. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by mike1214 · · Score: 0, Insightful

    It's the percentage of population that matters. Islam spreads primarily though violence. The borders of Islam are bloody. When Muslims are one to two percent of the population, you see sporadic violence and terror. When Muslims are five to ten percent of the population, full scale war sets in, as we see in as in Thailand and the Philippines, and the beginnings of which we are seeing in France.

  81. As predicted on cable TV? by cstacy · · Score: 0

    In the cardinal summer
    From the man fields
    A numerologist bursts out
    The future becomes history

    Seen ahead like Seldon
    The decennium two times
    In the western land
    Violence and strife reigns

    Another man will come
    A crown of shock
    Ancient secrets confounding him
    Therefore, aliens

  82. What jews think of non-jews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."

    2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."

    3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."

    4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."

    5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."

    6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."

    7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."

    8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a way must be found after prudent consideration to wipe him off the face of the earth."

    9. Choschen Hamm 266,1: "A Jew may keep anything he finds which belongs to the Akum (Gentile). For he who returns lost property (to Gentiles) sins against the Law by increasing the power of the transgressors of the Law. It is praiseworthy, however, to return lost property if it is done to honor the name of God, namely, if by so doing, Christians will praise the Jews and look upon them as honorable people."

    10. Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17: "A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them."

    11. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."

    12. Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56-D: "When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves."

    13. Nidrasch Talpioth, p. 225-L: "Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would not have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night."

    14. Aboda Sarah 37a: "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."

    16. Gad. Shas. 2:2: "A Jew may violate but not marry a non-Jewish girl."

    17. Tosefta. Aboda Zara B, 5: "If a goy kills a goy or a Jew, he is responsible; but if a Jew kills a goy, he is NOT responsible."

    18. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 388: "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere. It is permitted to kill him even before he denounces."

    19. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348: "All property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which, consequently, is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples."

    20. Tosefta, Abda Zara VIII, 5: "How to interpret the word 'robbery.' A goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women slaves, etc., from a goy or from a Jew. But a Jew is NOT forbidden to do all this to a goy."

    21. Seph. Jp., 92, 1: "God has given the Jews power over the possessions and blood of all nations."

    22. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 156: "When a Jew has a Gentile in his clutches, another Jew may go to the same Gentile, lend him money and in turn deceive him, so that the Gentile shall be ruined. For the property of a Gentile, according to our law, belongs to no one, and the first Jew that passes has full right to seize it."

    23. Schulchan Aruch, Johre Deah, 122: "A Jew is forbidden to drink from a glass of wine which a Gentile has touched, because the touch has made the wine unclean."

    24. Nedarim 23b: "He who desires that none of his vows made during the year be valid, let him stand at the beginning of the year and declare, 'Every vow which I may make in the future shall be null'. His vows are then invalid."

    ****

    From http://www.waylanderskeep.com/2009/12/jewish-talmud-quotes/

    You can clearly see what they think of you all (yes, non-jews are Goy/Goyim and Gentiles from above), and quoted straight from their own belief systems (their talmud).

    Think about that.

    1. Re:What jews think of non-jews by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 1

      Well, yes, and we all know what to think about religious texts in general as well.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    2. Re:What jews think of non-jews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:What jews think of non-jews by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why is the linked page missing? In fact all of waylanderskeep.com seems to be missing. wtf?

  83. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by rubycodez · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The US populace is majority christian nation and they caused hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilizans, and their president said "God told me to invade Iraq". Truly a bloody religion.

  84. Beware patterns by EdgePenguin · · Score: 1

    From TFA

    “For some aspects of history, a scientific or cliodynamic approach is suitable, natural and fruitful,” he says. For example, “when we map the frequency versus magnitude of an event — deaths in vari- ous battles in a war, casualties in natural disasters, years to rebuild a state — we find that there is a consistent pattern of higher frequencies at low magnitudes, and lower frequencies at high magnitudes, that fol- lows a precise mathematical formula.”

    This same mathematical pattern occurs when you look at earthquakes (and many, many other things). It doesn't help you predict them one little bit, so has no practical value.

    Its all well and good spotting cycles. A few years ago, someone claimed to have found a 26 million year cycle in mass extinctions, and attributed it to an invisible stellar companion of the Sun disturbing the Oort cloud when it past perihelion (he called it 'Nemesis', because if you are proposing a hypothesis which is going to be greeted with scepticism by the scientific community, its always best to give it a needlessly melodramatic name...). It turns out, there is no statistically significant pattern in mass extinctions, and despite numerous infrared surveys of the sky, no death star lurking at the edge of our solar system.

  85. I am gon', I am gon', I am gon' by robbie73 · · Score: 1

    I am gon' pop a cap in yo azz!

  86. 2020-1970-1870 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First there will be the Disco 2021, then the raise of religion after an entertainer speaks about it around orange trees in Florida, then know as Pensionstan. After the 2020 riots, a neo-disco fever catches on as the LA club scene seeks a new customer base after the violent demise of the previous one. The neo-disco brings back some of the happiness lost during the disappointments of the 2019. Weapon rooms are introduced at churches, re-modeled after the weapon rooms of the European churches in the middle ages and the clubs follow suit. War deserters are hunted down all across the nation, with a single city in a mountainous and hard environment holding up the last refuge for the naysayers. Instead of joking about social security, John Steward tells jokes about citizenry security. Mormon extremistas, as they are called, are considering a mass murder in a trailer park after a bitter disappointment in the presidential elections.

  87. Don't worry - we know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  88. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    s/Muslims/citizens/

    There, FTFY.

  89. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I dare you to put yourself into the world circa 1912 and whisper to yourself what you just said.

    Don't catch polio, or smallpox, or diphtheria.

  90. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know a lot about gays (in fact I am gay). You don't have the right to call anyone a "faggot". Using hate speech in the exact way the homophobic mainstream does is not "co-opting" or "taking the bite out of the word". You're just a sexist and a homophobe.

  91. Magic numbers and datapoints by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

    He's got all of three datapoints, and completely glosses over the problem that 1820 is inside his measuring range, without any such peak. It's right there inside his diagram.

    Next: Civil war, great war, Vietnam/cold war. There are completely different primary causes for each of the points he describes, and they're only tenuously linked to each other. While you can probably plot the chain of events linking WW1 to WW2 and thence to the cold war culminating in the civil rights movement and Vietnam, that involves some heavy cherrypicking of dates. And as for civil war and WW1, those were in completely separate theaters.

    Now consider the likelihood of three similar events making a pattern by chance. Texas sharpshooter fallacy. Look at the degrees of freedom: A pattern isn't established by the first or second events, but by one single third event that happens to be as many years from the second as the second from the first. Three is the bare minimum to even define a pattern. And that's exactly how many data points he has.

  92. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Biotech_is_Godzilla · · Score: 1

    You're oversimplifying slightly. Non-Muslims are often better off under westernist (muslim) governments, but they're often so much better off that you can see why islamists hate them. I think of Islamists as equivalent to the uneducated racist masses who support nationalist parties in the west - they see foreigners as the source of their problems. Islamists have much more justification for thinking this, though, and not just because of the carpet bombing and military occupation a lot of them have been subjected to, but because most of these West friendly governments were instated by the West (US) and are working against the interests of either half their own people or all of them. "Muslims" are not all the same, either. In the mid East there are Sunnis and Shias, two main tribes who hate each other, and when regimes change, generally it's not just non-Muslims up against the wall, the Shia government and population get it in the neck too. I'm not condoning any of it, but don't portray all Muslims /Islamists as unreasonable savages just because you can't be bothered to learn the nuances of their history and politics.

  93. Good to Know! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just saying.

  94. Republican ascendence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One association that has not been noticed: the really bad periods in crime are the same as periods of Republican Party ascendance. Of course, it isn't immediately obvious if this is correlation or causality, and if it is causality, it is not clear which causes which.

    To think of this as long-term preditor and prey cycles does make one wonder about what the underlying dynamic really is. These periods of Republican ascendance are characterized by the large cash flows in the economy being redirected to insiders close to the political order. The Civil War period was as much as anything the start of major redistribution: bankrupting slave holders (good), some land reform to free blacks (very minor in the big picture), the enriching of many private cos. that supplied the war (e.g. DuPont, and a questionable way to get rich), and dirty insider land deals (what the general public calls "building the railroads").

  95. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    You're oversimplifying slightly. Non-Muslims are often better off under westernist (muslim) governments, but they're often so much better off that you can see why islamists hate them. I think of Islamists as equivalent to the uneducated racist masses who support nationalist parties in the west - they see foreigners as the source of their problems. Islamists have much more justification for thinking this, though, and not just because of the carpet bombing and military occupation a lot of them have been subjected to, but because most of these West friendly governments were instated by the West (US) and are working against the interests of either half their own people or all of them. "Muslims" are not all the same, either. In the mid East there are Sunnis and Shias, two main tribes who hate each other, and when regimes change, generally it's not just non-Muslims up against the wall, the Shia government and population get it in the neck too. I'm not condoning any of it, but don't portray all Muslims /Islamists as unreasonable savages just because you can't be bothered to learn the nuances of their history and politics.

    Your theory (Muslims cannot be blamed because they were oppressed previously and naturally are going to be violent) breaks down on several grounds. First of all there are great examples of people being oppressed and not seeking revenge. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela spring to mind - the latter's "truth and reconciliation" showing the extent to which forgiveness can go. I expect you will argue that Muslims are culturally inferior to all of these - follow their own reasoning that they cannot be held to the same standards as the rest of humanity: "they made us do it by burning the Quran", or "she made us kill her by marrying a non Muslim", or "they wore a non-Muslim religious symbol in the open". Personally I don't think appeasing their lack of control will improve it in any way.

    Secondly you totally ignore the facts that Muslims oppress the minorities in countries where they have not been ruled by others - and have done so historically. Look at Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. The latter was ruled by Britain before, but this was a brief window on non-Oppression for Hindus in Pakistan, which occurred before and still does today. Maybe again you might feel that we cannot expect Muslims to "get over" British rule in the same way that India, South Africa, and many other countries have without lashing out at others. My feeling is that since they oppress elsewhere and have done s through history, they would still be ding so in India now if they were not overthrown by the British, or someone else.

    Name one place where Muslims have the upper hand where they don't oppress or restrict non-Muslims.

  96. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Chrisq · · Score: 0

    did you just do it again chrisq? Or is this Chrisq? You all will never know because Chrisq is a turd.

    Wow,
    how clever you are! Because you can call someone who does not follow the "PC" line a turd I am going to change my opinion and suddenly believe that all the Pakistani Hindus and Egyptian Coptic Christians must have killed each other and burnt each other's houses down to make Muslims look bad. I'm going to believe that those rich Western-educated students who flew planes into the world trade centre were doing it because of their poverty and ignorance. I am going to decide that when Muslim imams say that it is a religious duty to kill non-muslims, and throw acid in the face of women who don't wear the hijab it must have got lost in translation - they must have really been saying "come round for coffee after the service".

    I'm glad that there are intellectual giants like you to show me the error of my ways.

  97. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Liar.

    GP is not a liar: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

    Bush was (and is) a religious nutbar, and Christianity has a long, long history of religiously-inspired violence that recurs as waves of violently-inclined clergy come to power and preach in favor of same. This in no way excuses the fact that Islam is far more violent at the moment, though.

    Religion is bunk. Violent, dangerous bunk. And fucktards like Bush are living proof of it.

  98. Ignorance on Toast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is sad is this great American experiment of Democracy will be the most innocent victim.

    You mean this great American experiment of constitutionally guaranteed republican governance at both the federal and state levels, right?

    Because this is not a democracy, and it has never been one. Even the (somewhat) democratic method used to elect representatives is made less so by various distortions like giving states equal weight without significant regard to population; the electoral college; the political parties themselves; and of course interference from other entities ranging from PACs to SCOTUS.

    But hey... if swooning over the word "democratic" makes you feel good, by all means. It's not like it makes any difference.

  99. that would fit very well with the prediction by KingBenny · · Score: 1

    that by 2050 things would go back up again then, too bad that's just a little too late for me unless i get some serious mods into my corpse

    --
    Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  100. Re:There are those of us who can see it coming by Biotech_is_Godzilla · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying none of them can be blamed, I'm saying don't tar them all with the same brush. Islam is diverse. Yes, there are a lot of regimes, organisations and individuals that are mad if not downright evil, but in the same countries there are often a lot of normal people who are just trying to live their lives. Just because someone is a Muslim doesn't mean they'll be stoning people to death every five minutes - you hear about the worst stuff in the news because it's the worst stuff. The Muslims living in the West are not all plotting to destroy it... again, a lot of them are just trying to get on with their lives and be nice to people (as the Qu'ran tells them to be).

    What I was saying about the Sunnis and Shia are that these guys are oppressing the shit out of each other, they're not just picking on non-Muslims. That said, I'm with you in thinking that on the whole Islam is a shitty, messed up, medieval religion that's horribly sexist, partisan, xenophobic and frighteningly expansionist and has next to zero respect for human life, particularly that of non-Muslims. You're dead right, I can't give you an example of a Muslim government who hasn't oppressed and murdered non-Muslims. I would say the current Turkish government, but they're not there yet in terms of equal rights, and the Armenian genocide wasn't all that long ago. I was just having a knee-jerk reaction against what I perceived to be unreasonable prejudice against all Muslims in your comment and others I've read on Slashdot, and trying to get you to see it from the point of view of some Middle Eastern states, which is seeing non-Muslims and Westerners as the enemy because that's all they've ever been to them.

    I can't argue against the facts of it, cos factually you're 100% right.

  101. Read Cosmos and Psyche by anwyn · · Score: 1
    Saturn, Pluto, and Jupiter are all conjunct during that year, all while square to Uranus.

    Perhaps the author has read Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas but does not want to reveal the real source of his theory.

    But I predict that nobody will consider that. Everyone knows that Astology is incompatable with the mechanist materialist paradigm, and is therefore bunk.

    Nobody will consider astrology.

  102. So he means there isn't enough violence now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He better check his fact.

  103. Flip side by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    What more unbiased site could there be than libertarian answers?

    What more expert location could you go to find such an answer?

    Also noted, you lack the intelligence to even provide a link responding to the article.

    Therefore the article stands as correct and you simply a tool.

    Who wants to read the views of those moronic bozo..?

    Well I have to admit I'm really not sure who reads your posts. "Those moronic bozo"... You are sure making a great case for why humanity should listen to your random output!

    Poor old kendall just doesn't get the whole reality has a liberal bias thing

    You misspelled Libertarian.

    Like all liberals, you cannot see that which history teaches you - repeatedly.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  104. Well, let's see... by unitron · · Score: 1

    2012 plus two terms of a Republican president...

    Yeah, that ought to just about do it.

    --

    I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  105. Balkanization of the States, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2020 will be about eight more years of seeing the little guy get screwed bringing on more civil unrest an the attempt to declare martial law. This also is a good timing for an attempt to create a new world order with a single world government. All in all it looks to me like I'd start placing bets on the United States breaking up and becoming a new set of countries with their own local interests at heart.

    Saw a note today about Texas, the only state that has it in their state constitution that they have the right to cede form the united states and whether or not they have a good chance of going it on their own. Might be a good place to live if half of what I read is true.

    (love the lockword for this one, "phosgene".)

  106. Not proof by sysrammer · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't consider this proof. I followed the link & read..."George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician"

    Problems I see...

    1) This is hearsay. Typically not valid for a proof.
    2) Possible or likely hidden agenda. Remember, politicians, Palestinian or otherwise, can and will lie to achieve their goals.

    sr

    --
    His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  107. Uh... praps a little like what I ve been... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...writing ABOUT for the last eight years, at least since one of my diagrams was STOLEN along my notes? I already applied it, actually! It is no mystery, but I would call it more physical economics (!) than psychohistory... Danilo J Bonsignore

  108. Phycohistory and adaptation by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    The difficultly with predicting human history using math is even if you are able to model the various variables with any accuracy, modeling to what rate and how humans will adapt to the pressure that those changes bring, I would suggest is exponentatioally even more difficult. In Azimov's tale, they sort of get away with it by using a gigantic sample size of human civilization. Today, we haven't been around much longer than barely 3000 years, and have nothing like accurate records for anything but maybe 100 years. Which in caluclating these sorts of things is pretty slim.

    I mean you can take some pretty basic principles of what causes war, strife, and violence and find a window as it relates to current values, but if Humans change those values as a result of those impending situations, well the calculation changes.

    Things like: Increased population prediction is pretty easy to do, and frankly difficult for humans to change in a short term, The saturation of arable land by said population, land productivity and for production, Oil depletion, you could even get into religious propagation, and things like that. However I think the big 3 are: Land, Food, Oil.

    Sooner or later population pressures are going to be an issue, closely assoicated with that the production of food on limited land, for an ever growing population is not sustainable and eventually a threshold will be reached, but it will cause conflict. Closely assoicated with that, is Oil, which is the cheap energy we use to have the farm production we currently enjoy, also the fertilizer that is used. Fresh water is the other piece of the puzzle, where population pressures and food production pressures are going to come into play. If you ascribe to climate change, this is the biggest problem, the reduction of freshwater, and the result that will have on food production, specifically in irrigation which has already destroyed sensitive areas.

    So there is all that. Which really is already enough of a hughe shitstorm to try and deal with all at once, however there is another more political issue with Oil. Global trade is pretty much run on cheap oil. You might be able to power personal cars and things with solar etc... however things like super carriers, tankers, places, etc... cannot realistically be powered in this way, and nothing in the near future is going to change that (unless you are proliferating nuclear powered ships). Most predictions I think would have oil running out before a solution for this I think. Also other than the riches that global trade has brough certain contries (China, USA, etc...), the other thing that does not run on renewable fuels are armies. Tanks, planes, ships, etc... all run on oil. Do you see this changing before Oil runs out? Which means those "stratigic reserves" that countries have will become every more valuable.

    I guess what I am getting at here, at somepoint a large powerful country is going to do the math and figure out, if they are going to expand, and aquire more resources for any forseeable future, there will never be a better time to do it, because once the oil is scarce, it will be MUCH harder to do. If you have a huge army that runs on oil, and that oil is about to become obsolete, so is your army, and with that your power, so you might as well use it while you can, as it isn't like anybody will be really able to retaliate after a certain point anyway.... With the exception of nukes. There you have it.

    Anyway probable rantings of a lunitic, but some pretty basic presumptions. However if we are able to adapt, then we can avoid. However some of these things I believe are a mathmatically certaintly, while the adaptation is a political/cultual thing, which I think is what is going to cause the conflict in the first place. As there are going to be a LOT of people that will not want to adapt, many with religious reasons for that, which will likely make it even more volitile.

  109. SD by DrYak · · Score: 1

    Actually, 47.28462943298517% of all statistics are just made up

    What is the standard deviation of that percentage?

    +/- 36.76918475928347589

    With a p-value of 0.5 for the whole study.

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]