Carolina Quotes[U]ntil the fundamental SD drivers for instability are reversed, there will be other triggering events... social turbulence may continue for years ahead.
Peter Turchin Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Postscript
- work
- The 2010 structural-demographic forecast for the 2010–2020 decade (Aug 17, 2020)
- year
- 2010
Cite this record
“[U]ntil the fundamental SD drivers for instability are rever…” Peter Turchin. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-E3BE8EB141. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/e3be8eb141
More from Peter Turchin
Making scientific predictions about the events that happened, but are not known to the authors of the theory, is a valid scientific approach in historical sciences, such as geology, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, and cliodynamics (history as science). It is sometimes referred to as "retrodiction". ...[T]he primary way of testing theories in historical dynamics is retrodiction. But when mulitple successful tests using retrodiction (prediction about the past) are complemented with a few cases of prediction about the future, our degree of confidence in the theory is... enhanced.
[C]omplex human societies at base and at some abstract level, are organized according to the same general principles.
[A]t a very deep and abstract level these forces, immiseration and elite overproduction... are playing out in very similar ways in very different societies. However, ...the theory has to be tailored to each society because ...the critical dimension is what's happening to the elites. Now different societies have ...a variety of ways in which the elites are defined and ...regenerated ...so even if you look at western democracies, you compare the United States, let's say to France, the United States is basically a plutocracy, the reigning elite is the economic elite in collaboration with the political elites. But France is a bureaucracy. In France the elites are created in different ways, and there are other examples, other societies. ...[I]n Egypt, for example, it's militocracy essentially. So those details are very important. ...[T]hat's why the general ideas, elite overproduction, they have to be filtered through the specific structures of different societies. ...[T]he Democratic societies have different ways that the power flows in them compared to autocratic societies... [I]f we take a step back from specific arrangements in which power flows, and... focus on more structural, more fundamental issues, then the theory works surprisingly well.