2012 Is Bullshit; 2020 Is When We'll Be in Trouble (2012)
vice.com
vice.com
The linked short interview was probably prompted by his 2012 paper:
> Extending the sequence of 1870, 1920, and 1970 forward suggests that the next instability peak shouldoccur in the United States around 2020. This is a simple projection, rather than a scientific prediction (which requires an understanding of mechanisms bringing about outbreaks of political violence; see Turchin, 2006a). The analysis of structural causes of instability waves is beyond the scope of this article and will be pursued elsewhere(Turchin, forthcoming)
http://peterturchin.com/PDF/Turchin_JPR2012.pdf (And yes, for the conspiracy theorists, you can search the DOI number to confirm this really was published in 2012.)
The fact that he was able to pin 2020 is probably luck.
However, history also provides some examples, where this "logic" seems to be condensed, e.g., the rise of the Nazis in Germany, where a grand parents' generation sided with the young, often against the middle generation that was much more definied by the war experience – which resulted in the "hickup" of WW II.
Being that 2020 is a round number, I wonder how many other (more unsofisticated) doomsayers simply guessed.
This prediction isn't even that accurate. 1870? The major upheaval around that time started a decade earlier. So if we're allowed to fudge the numbers by 5 or 10 years to make a pattern appear, who's to say the next upheaval isn't in 2025 or 2030? And is 3 instances of anything (1870, 1920, 1970) even enough to call a pattern?
But I think the biggest issue with it is that societies don't operate on the same timeline. Generations are kind of fuzzy to pinpoint and society's response to them largely depends on their options.
During WWI, many men left the country and women moved into the workforce and other positions of greater influence in society. When the men returned, a conflict was inevitable, and the suffrage movement came to a head.
I assume 1970 is referring to both the Civil Rights movement and the hippie movement. Both happened when the baby boomers were in their 20s, so I suppose there was a bumper crop of young people at the time, and the hippie movement was defined by a pretty narrow age range. So those may have been generational, but not part of a larger pattern that I can see.
As for the current day, civilian resentment of police brutality and overreach has been building for decades, with much of it being a result of the war on drugs. I believe it's in the limelight now due to the internet and the existence of camera phones. The militarization of police is also more visible because they increasingly dress like soldiers, and this is a constant symbolic reminder of their attitude towards civilians. This change in apparel is a direct result of the GWOT. Military gear (both new and surplus) is now cheap and easily available. There's also a tacti-cool veteran culture that arose out of the wars, and everyone from cops to airsofters to Call of Duty players likes to emulate it. Add the COVID-19 mess to this mix and you have a recipe for disaster.
Still, it remains to be seen whether 2020 is actually part of this "pattern" anyway. No fundamental shift in society has occurred yet. So far it's just been a rough year.
So which elites are funding, and are ultimately behind today's violence? Unfortunately, any possible answer is a conspiracy theory.
The way that I interpreted this article and how it fits into the current moment is that there's a substantial portion of those dissatisfied with the current political order of permanent minority rule by people who have substantially different values from themselves who could be considered part of the "elite" of society in terms of wealth and influence.
That's not to say that there's a conspiracy theory! Coastal elites are certainly not the only people protesting, not everyone that's elite is dissatisfied with the current order, etc., etc. But IMO the current situation can be characterized as one where a large group of people, including but not in any way limited to a portion of society's "elite" grouping, are attempting to overturn the political order to better suit their values.
This is not a conspiracy theory but fact :) conspiracy theories can be true.
There are certainly also conspiracy theory narratives that can fit the situation if one is so inclined that way. :-)
> Peter’s theory is the result of the hard work of a modern, living, and well-respected scientist rather than a bunch of dead dead Central American dudes whom hippies like to talk about while taking heavy psychedelic drugs
Yeah they're dead because they were fucking slaughtered by the same forces at play in today's "violence"
https://www.google.com/search?q=peter+turchin+2020&source=ln...
Predictions are much cheaper, though.