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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.
We already know the world ends on December 21, 2012, so why is he speculating about a future that won't even happen?
Obligatory xkcd.
It will happen.
If you're vague enough about your predictions... you won't be wrong often.
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!
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
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)
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.
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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"
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.