Anglo-American long-term cycle, part 2 Turnings

As I previously told you, each complete cycle has had four different seasons. The first cycle started in 1435 from the third turning, an Unraveling. Since then, the Anglo-American world has completed six full cycles. Today, the Anglo American world is in the fourth cycle, a Crisis. This is the turning in which the biggest changes happen. A society fights for its survival. It is almost impossible to forecast which will be the end result. The length of a Turning is normally 15-30 years. Only once, the length of the season has been something else. This happened in the Civil War in the US. That season lasted only five years. These Turnings have changed in the same order through all the history:

• The first Turning is called a High.
• The second Turning is called an Awakening
• The third Turning is called an Unraveling
• The fourth Turning is called a Crisis

Each Turning has its own characteristic social mood. After the Turning has changed, people think about themselves, institutions and society differently. These Turnings can change gradually or suddenly. The reason for each change is that different generational archetypes move to the next stages of their lives. Each of these archetypes are equally important. They will be introduced in the next week. Each Turning is also important in its own way. Each Turning moves the society towards another rebirth, which comes after the Crisis has been resolved.

The first Turning, a High

A High can the best Turning for a society. It begins after the society has resolved the most important basic issues of the prior Crisis. Last High started soon after the World War II ended. This Turning is mostly a great time for people who accept the majoritarian culture and society´s major role in their lives. The destruction of society is finally left behind, even though people don´t really know it. People are happy for what they have achieved during the Crisis. Wars are unlikely. Institutions are reinforced and individualism is low. People are unified and moving the society into the same direction. Families are strong, divorce rates are low and the birth rate is high. Inner life of people is weak and spiritual life minuscule. Vision of the future is brightening.

The second Turning, an Awakening

An Awakening begins after some events have triggered a cultural revolution. For example, last Awakening started after the Kennedy assassination in 1963. After the Awakening has arrived, people start worrying about their inner life, instead of worrying about the society or its institutions. People become cynical, public order starts deteriorating and there are wide protests for a better society. Crime and substance abuse rise. Awakenings are remembered for their images of extreme social behaviors like mass demonstrations, even riots. Children become underprotected and they have liberal upbringing. Creativity peaks and it is directed towards spiritual values. In the end, people have a consensus opinion that they have better inner life than the collective social order. In the end of this era, vision of the future becomes euphoric.

The third Turning, an Unraveling

An Unraveling begins after the society and its people perceive that the new cultural mindset is in place. This era has a psychology of abundance and maximum individualism. People do not trust the government or institutions, but they do trust themselves. People also express themselves through commercialism. They show themselves through brands and prosperity. Economic booms and busts are probable. Spiritualism is declining. Individual moral is low. In the beginning, people are happy, and they trust their future will be great. Eventually, they experience the change in their mood. They become nervous about the future. They start thinking about more corrupt society and see it splitting into smaller pieces. The vision of future darkens in an Unraveling.

The fourth Turning, a Crisis

A Crisis begins after some events have triggered an upheaval in public life. This is the most important Turning during a long-term cycle. This Turning defines the direction for the society for the next long-term cycle. It is the era of destroying the old and rebirth. Its conclusion can be a glorious victory or a complete disaster. Most people that remember the last Crisis have no effect on society as a whole. The memories of the old horrors are gone. Most people will find a common enemy and rediscover teamwork and social discipline. People also start complying to the authorities, crime descends, substance abuse and birthrate decline and people accept the sacrifice they need to do to defeat the enemy. They are ready to do whatever is needed. Wars are likely, as is protectionism. There are less immigrants because foreigners are the ones who get most of the blame about the deterioration of social order. Vision of the future is urgent. There is a great need for fast action.

This was the overview of each of the four Turnings. They vary in length, but have the same order. These Turnings never move backwards. After a High never comes a Crisis, or an Unraveling never comes after a Crisis. Without a great chaos, these patterns do not change in the Anglo-American world. This cycle can come to an end or it can accelerate or stop. It is hard to imagine how this could happen, but nuclear war or biological weapons could cause an end to this cycle. Or a regime change like China taking controlling the whole Anglo-American world could be the end of this cycle. It is very unprobable that this would happen, but it is possible.

Anglo-American long term cycle, Saeculum, Part 1, Basics

What we learn from history that we do not learn from history

-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I will focus on the Anglo-American long-term cycles and generations in this text. For now, Anglo-American world is the most dominant one in this globe. This thing may change in this century. To me, this change is actually more probable than continuous Anglo-American dominance. This first part is about the basics of a saeculum cycle, its four different seasons and different archetypes of generations. ”History does not repeat but it rhymes”, said Mark Twain. This text is mostly based on the book called ”The Fourth Turning”, written by William Strauss and Neil Howe. This book is an excellent and worthwhile reading. It was written in the middle of 1990s and is still relevant. Some of its forecasts have actualized and some of them have not.

As you can divide a year for four different seasons, you can do the same for a long-term saeculum cycle. A long term cycle lasts 80-100 years and in an Anglo-American societies they have lasted from the 1400s. These long-term cycles can be divided into four generational cycles called turnings. They represent different seasons in one long-term cycle. These turnings can last anything from 15-30 years, like different phases of life. Most often they last about 18-22 years. These turnings are a first turning called a High, second turning called an Awakening, third turning called an Unraveling and fourth turning called a Crisis. There are four phases of human life, childhood, young adulthood, midlife and elderhood. One generational archetype dominates one phase of life in one turning. These archetypes are:

• A Prophet generation, born in a High
• A Nomad generation, born in an Awakening
• A Hero generation, born in an Unraveling
• An Artist generation, born in a Crisis

You have to understand these archetypes and their role in the long term cycle. You have to understand that majority of the people in one generation have special characteristics these archetypes have, not all of them. These characteristics are formed by the events of history and vice versa. You have to also understand that without different archetypes, their wouldn´t be different turnings. A new archetypal generation is born, when most people of the same generation are either dead or living their last years. These archetypes are the main reasons why long term cycle reoccurs again and again.

About the length and reason of the cycle

Most people in Anglo-American countries are not aware of these long-term cycles and their roles in them. A Crisis in the end of the cycle happens, because most people who remember the last Crisis are long gone. A society and the nature have to complete their social and biological changes. Periodic destruction in the end of the cycle is needed to renew the society and the nature. Human life time is the natural rhytm for these cycles. How could it be anything else? The changes in political regimes, natural disasters, and technology vary in length, but natural human life cycle hasn´t much changed in the previous centuries. People died before in diseases and wars before their natural life spans ended.

The most important reason for why people are doomed to see these long-term cycles are that they think linearly. People think mostly about today and they forget to think about longer-term cycles. They have no idea about seasonal changes in societies. Within a long-term cycle, each season has its own characteristics. These characteristics vary within a cycle more than seasons in different long-term cycles. An Unraveling in one cycle looks more like the Unraveling in the previous cycle than an Awakening and Unraveling in the same cycle. The reason for variation is that different archetypes have different roles in different seasons. Different generations are dominating different seasons. Archetypes in young adulthood and in midlife have bigger roles in seasons. These dominant archetypes also move their actions and behaviors for reflecting their own lifetime experiences. Thus, their efforts are directed into different directions than the efforts of the previous dominant archetypes. These changes in efforts move people from one season to another. The most dominant archetypes have the biggest effects on the second younger generation. For example, Nomads that are in midlife right now have the most effects on Artists in the childhood.

This text was part 1 of the Anglo-American cycles and generations.

There is more to come in the next few weeks. You will be less well prepared for the future, if you don´t understand a long-term cycle.

-TT

The Interconnections in and between systems

Before going to this text, you should probably read this, unless you are familiar with systems and its components.

Most things are interconnected. You cannot look only separate elements and their inputs and outputs and find out how the system works as a whole. You have to see how independent elements interact together. You have to understand what happens when an element A interacts with an element B. You have to understand what happens what happens to the element B when the element A changes its output or what happens to an element C, when the elements A and B change. Sometimes these interconnections are just information flows and sometimes they are feedback loops.

Interconnections can be loosely or tightly connected. Some of the elements can be isolated, but they are rare. It is also hard to find some systems that are isolated from others. Your body is one example of systems within the system. Some of its elements are loosely connected with others and some of them are tightly connected. Tight connections between different elements or systems are more efficient than loose connections. There are opportunity costs between the efficiency and the probability of not having a system failure. The more tightly connected the elements or systems are, the bigger the probability of system failure. When the failure hits the tightly connected element, the whole system will probably fail. In these cases, there is often only one path to a successful outcome. Systems can be loosely or tightly coupled as a whole.

Interconnectivity can be divided into four degrees of connectivity

Interconnectivity can be divided into four different degrees of connectivity:

1. Underconnected state: primitive cultures and undeveloped countries may be underconnected. This basically means that their environment may change without them knowing it. And they cannot do anything to react to the change.
2. Interconnected state: When the environment changes gradually, businesses, economic systems and governments are capable of keeping up with the change. For example, evolution works most often in the interconnected state.
3. Highly connected state: In this state, businesses, economic systems and governments are driving change. Capitalism, in its purest sense, works in a highly connected state. Sometimes it becomes overconnected.
4. Overconnected state: In this state, institutions, change so quickly that the environment in which they are embedded are unable to cope. Or the other way around: environment changes so quickly, because of the increase in interconnections that the institutions are unable to cope. Overconnected states provide disruption in one way or another. The crash of 2007-2009 was one of the best examples of a system in an overconnected state. The system failure was very close.

System safety and interconnections

Negative feedback loops mostly help make systems safer, but positive loops can cause serious problems. Positive feedback reinforces and amplifies change, accelerating it and causing the environment getting more unstable. In many tightly interonnected environments, initial stimulus works its way through the environment and back through feedback loops to provide more stimulus to the system. This drives the system faster in the same direction and causes rapid change. This rapid change causes more rapid change with increasing speed until the system will brake down. This is why you need to have balancing feedback loops in the system. They protect the system from rapid and unpredictable changes. These changes are the most dangerous ones. There can be long delays before these positive feedback loops start showing signs of trouble. Then it can be too late.

Information flows can also cause some problems in systems. They are always somewhat delayed. When the flow of information is delayed too much, the system can get into trouble. For example, when the balancing feedback loop has too big of a delay, the reinforcing feedback loop changes the system too much that it can cope with the change. Delays are hard to time properly. And they are also hard to notice sometimes.

Changing and removing interconnections can make a system safer too. Making looser interconnections can help systems become less delay dependent. They become less depended on the timing of the delay. Sometimes looser interconnections can help you to process things in parallel. Then you can have multiple actions in the same time. A system with tight interconnections may not be able to achieve this. You can also make a system safer by removing some of its interconnections. The more interconnections and the more tighter they are, the more probable it is that the system will fail. You should think about your interconnections in your systems and start removing all the unnecessary ones.

Sources:

Overconnected, William H. Davidow
Thinking in Systems Donella H Meadows

-TT

How social contagions reach critical mass, part 3, right environment

Sorry about being a day late. I was in a short trip on monday and yesterday.

Before reading this, you should read the first and the second part of how social contagions reach critical mass.

I have written about the messengers and messages and what I still have left is the environment, in which, the messengers can deliver the messages. It is quite easy to compose a sticky message and find a messenger to deliver the message compared to manipulating the environment that spreads the message. To be honest, for me the manipulating of the environment part is almost impossible and possibly to the other people too. When the environment is right, reaching the criticcritical mass happens very fast. For example, one suicide triggered the Arab Spring. The reason that happened was the underlying conditions in people´s minds.

Epidemics are sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the times and places in which they occur. Engaging some kind of behavior is coming more from the certain environment than from other people. You constantly underestimate the role of the environment and other people in how you behave. The reason for this is that you overestimate your ability to make decisions through your rational part of the brain. This means that your inner states are the results of your environment more than you think. When the underlying context around you is right, the small push is enough. Most often, you can control your environment well, but when the timing and the environment is right, even the small changes are enough. For example, having first a zero tolerance for crime and then allowing exceptions like braking some windows or letting people travel in metro without paying the ticket will encourage people to do bigger crimes.

There is another way to launch an epidemic and it is through small and solid groups of people. As a partner of these groups we are subjected to social proof. According to anhtropologist Robin Dunbar the maximum amount of people in a solid and homogenous group is 150 people. Dunbar has researched humans and other primates. Dunbar came in the conclusion that the size of the frontal lobe is the conclusive feature. And this allows the magic number of 150 to be the capacity of following other people. In the bigger groups, people are grouping into smaller groups that are having different opinions about things. Spreading messages is more efficient, when the group size do not reach over 150 people. Building communities should happen this way. When the size gets too big, you should split the group in two and let it grow until 150 members is reached.

Creating a right environment

Creting the right environment is hard. In theory, it can be done by designing an environment in which many psychological tendencies move people to the same direction. There are some environments like this. For example, cults. I am not saying you should build a cult, but you can learn from them. You should definitely be aware of their possible effect on you.

In a cult, there is a restricted availability of contrary stimuli compared to its message. To create a contageous environment, you have to maximize the availability of your message and minimize the availability of contrasting messages. You can use the help of the significant few to do this. Connectors, experts and salesmen can help you to do this. In a cult, there is usually a charismatic authority figure. Most often they are men. This authority is usually a great salesman. Salesmen can convince connectors and experts to speak on their behalf. Social proof is established by these people. Cults have usually relatively small amount of followers. They are tightly-knit groups. It is hard to have unity, when there are many people. You should spread your message through groups that have a maximum amount of 150 people. Links between these groups could be connectors.

Critical mass of social contagions in short.

Lets finish this talk by adding a summary of critical mass in social contagions in the end. To achieve a critical mass for an epidemic, you need to have messengers who can spread the information really effectively, you need to also have a sticky messages for the messengers to spread and last but not least the environment needs to be completely right with the right timing and the result will be an epidemic that spreads quickly. That is all I have to say this time.

- TT