Turchin's Cliodynamics Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 03:29:44 No. 16413
Any thoughts on this? For a quick primer, cliodynamics is basically quantitative historical analysis. Using what amounts to big data analytics, it builds computer models of macrohistorical trends to identify patterns and predict developments. By this method Turchin himself has claimed to have discovered certain formulas for civil unrest, though Marxist theorists could have told you most of that without the models. He claims that many years ago he predicted that civilization would enter an age of instability starting in the 2020s. Some of cliodynamic's findings are as follows: Societies tend to function in circular centennial patterns of uptrends and downtrends, “an alternation of integrative and disintegrative phases lasting for roughly a century” as he puts it . The three most robust predictive metrics for societal collapse are a wealth disparity and declining wages, "elite overproduction" (too many highly educated people with not enough positions of power for them to fill), and an increase in public debt. Another is what he calls the "wealth pump" , where wealth is funneled up to the rich away from the poor, which usually marks the end of the integrative phase and the beginning of the disintegrative phase. He claims to identify four major power sectors, the militaristic, financial, bureaucratic and ideological, which in good times, remain aligned, but begin to fall out of joint with one another and begin to squabble. In my opinion, I like data based models. However, a model is not an explanatory theory. It is inert. And in that sense, Turchin does not go far enough. He has snapshots, but does not tie them together, probably because he wouldn't like where it would lead him: to Marx.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 03:46:19 No. 16414
interesting but I will call bullshit. However interesting
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 03:57:35 No. 16416
>>16415 TLDR; kill the elites to fix the problem
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 04:05:14 No. 16417
>>16413 I might be wrong on this, but I originally heard about him when looking into world systems theory and heard he was influenced by it.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 04:31:24 No. 16418
>>16413 >inequality and unemployment lead to unrest imagine if we didn't have doctor peter turchin, his cliodynamics theory, and big data, to tell us this, we would have never figured this one out
I would like him more if he went back to modeling bacteria and algae populations
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 05:29:35 No. 16419
>>16418 That's a bit too dismissive. It's good to find patterns in the data. This argument that things follow cyclical patterns gives new life to the old chestnut about history repeating.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 06:08:06 No. 16420
>>16418 >inequality and unemployment lead to unrest No actually inequality is completely natural and unemployment is caused by workers not willing to work for 0.50$ a day because evil regulations pushed by greedy workers using unions and the state prevent wages from fluctuating according to the magic powers of the market according to the Austrians, unemployment is the unemployed fault and workers cause unrest, you just need allow your benevolent employer to set your wage and leave le entrepreneur porky alone.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 07:23:14 No. 16421
It's pure pseudoscience and another example of trying to re-legitimize Francis Galton's statistical fuckery. None of that is real, and his theory of elites does not comprehend what makes a political elite an elite, either in the theory of political elitism or what actually allows an elite to govern.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 07:32:00 No. 16422
>>16413 >By this method Turchin himself has claimed to have discovered certain formulas for civil unrest, though Marxist theorists could have told you most of that without the models When scientists and analytic philosophers discover the same shit as political theorists and continental philosophers several centuries later.
More reasons to be well-versed in disciplines outside of STEM. Take that, scientologists!
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 16:39:06 No. 16423
>>16422 It's the same deal with math.
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 16:58:47 No. 16424
i came across turchin a long time ago because i was a neet with lots of time on my hands obsessed with patter and cycles in history, thinking i could find some secret patterns to help me tell the future. Whats funny is that he uses science to analyze history but it comes off like some weirdo shit
Anonymous 2023-06-05 (Mon) 22:26:22 No. 16425
>>16420 I understand the point that you are making through irony, but these theories are not really about the structural causes of unemployment, but about the consequences and some vague correlations
doesn't seem very useful but I guess the guy is filling his white paper quota or some other grift