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2025-02-14 07:35:33

Lola

lola@hubzilla.monster

I just realized something. Adults when I grew up, for the most part, were tolerant and accepting of trans people and other races, and it was socially unacceptable to be racist or bigoted. But the kids when I grew up were utter jerks, and if you did not fit in, they bullied you. Now those kids are adults, and we have all of this racism and hate going around. I guess those kids did not learn their lesson and continued to be bullies into adulthood.

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2025-02-14 14:14:25

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

Same over here, more or less. Be it that I don't think the kids here were that vicious. It seems to be a global disease, intolerance. I wonder, when did it all go wrong? Why does one find it necessary to be cruel and demeaning? Do we need war to cool down our reptile brain?

2025-02-14 21:23:04

Lola

lola@hubzilla.monster

I heard an interesting quote. I am not sure if it is true or not, but it seems to be true. It is that bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times. Good times creates weak people. Weak people create bad times. If that is true, that would explain the cyclical nature of good times and bad times.

2025-02-14 21:43:18

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Look into the generational theory of Strauss and Howe. It is interesting stuff.

Strauss–Howe generational theory - Wikipedia

The Strauss–Howe generational theory, devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American and Western history. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era (called a turning) lasting...

2025-02-15 07:20:01

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Lola I don't agree, the interesting quote sounds like tile wisdom to me. Bad times also create weak people, and lots of them (the four horsemen of the apocalypse don't sprinkle prosperity onto mankind). Strong people also create bad times (don't we know it). Good times also create strong people, if it wouldn't the world would be a mess. And weak people also create good times, Gandhi for instance wasn't a powerful figure. In my mind, these quotes just serve to ponder. But there's truth in everything, thinking about it doesn't do you harm.

2025-02-15 09:11:35

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

The quote is over-simplified, but Strauss and Howe's research showed a pattern of 4 generational archetypes going back for centuries.

2025-02-15 10:36:25

Lola

lola@hubzilla.monster

@Et I think when he said "strong people" he meant strong in principles and work ethic. They are survivors and will do what is necessary to survive.

Someone who exploits someone else would be considered weak in this context since they have poor values and act on impulses like greed at the expense of others. They are not of strong character. People who complain or blame instead of take action would also be considered weak in this context.

2025-02-15 12:05:53

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

I know. But I'm allergic to overly simplified statements. I see it as an incentive to ponder, not something to take literally. That's all. But I know, I am what you call over here "Een letterknecht".

2025-02-16 15:24:09

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Marshall Sutherland Isn't there a sort of digest version of the Strauss–Howe generational theory somewhere? The pile of books I'm supposed to read is staring at me in great indignation as it is..

2025-02-16 16:05:55

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I once looked on youtube to try to find a good summary months ago. I didn't find anything great, but, having read some of the books, my standards may have been a bit high.

I think this was one of the ones I watched that tries to explain in 10 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeVyfiP0cLk

2025-02-16 16:07:26

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

I'll have a look..

2025-02-16 16:47:03

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

So I'm a prophet. No wonder I'm touted as a loudmouth 😂

But seriously, I've read the narrative, but what I'm interested in, especially, is the innards that drive this mechanism. As many books are written on astrology, as on astronomy. But there's a huge difference. Both sides claim accuracy, but really only astronomy has statistics on it's side. Still, as unwavering astronomers and their theory's and theorems can be, as unwavering the truth can be in proving them wrong. The cosmos is bigger than the milky way, Edwin Hubble proved the universe is expanding, not static, the 'discovery' of dark energy and dark matter broke many paradigms. Lord kelvin thought physics had it all covered at the end of the 19th century. And then Einstein came along, and Planck, and Bohr.

It's a very interesting theory, and a very important one, if even just partly true. But is it a theory, or 'just' an observation? I would like to know whether the authors have idea's about the why's and how's. Then we could learn a lot about how things work globally. Is it something completely human? Or something nature does anyway, but only accelerated by humans?

2025-02-16 16:55:25

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I have thoughts on the matter, but I need to go walk the dog now...

2025-02-16 16:58:15

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The cycle does make sense and seems to describe much of history. But I am wondering about how to break the cycle. Just because it has been going on for centuries or even millennia, that does not mean we have to continue the same way. We can't get rid of our human nature, of course, but that does not mean we can't mitigate against bad policies or actions.

2025-02-16 17:03:12

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Marshall Sutherland It's midnight over here, so I'll read your thoughts at breakfast. Or when you're ready writing them.

2025-02-16 17:03:51

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Scott M. Stolz My thoughts exactly.

2025-02-16 18:21:47

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I read much of the original The Fourth Turning book (written in the 90's), but then I got the new one, The Fourth Turning is Here, written recently, so I skipped the rest of the original and read all of the new one.

I had the same sort of question about "how can we be controlled by this cycle?" What it seems to boil down to is a pattern like the quote that started this whole conversation about strong/weak people and good/bad times. You've got 4 generations cycling through 4 archetypes of people passing through 4 stages of life resulting in 4 societal "turnings". Why?

First, I guess I should say the lines between generations are fuzzy. Depending on who you ask, I am either a very late Boomer or a very early Gen-X. For the sake of argument, let's just pretend we are talking about the center of each generation. Maybe a 15-year swath in the middle of the range.

There is sort of a feedback loop that happens between generations. Gen-Xers (I can never remember the archetype names to match to each generation) were sort of left to their own devices by their parents because of how those parents were raised. As a result of this, Gen-X parents tend to raise their kids in a way which turns out to be how their parents were raised. It becomes sort of a feedback loop between the alternating pairs of generations. This is how you get the 4 generations cycling through the 4 archetypes.

As a side note, this pattern pairs up alternating generations is about a 40-year gap, but actual birth generations tend to be significantly shorter, so the parents of one archetype tend to be split between two different archetypes. I don't recall an explanation as to why this doesn't make the whole idea fall apart.

Now that you have these generations cycling through 4 archetypes with different values, based on how they were raised, you get a cycle of 4 turnings where you have the 4 patterns of the archetypes in the different states of life. For simplicity, let's use 20-year generations. The different age groups have a different influence on society. The youth have a minimal impact. I forget the names they give to each of the groups. The 20-40 group are the the doers. The 40-60 group become the leaders. The 60+ group become the advisors. As the values of each generation rotate into these societal roles, it affects the nature of our society in a rotating pattern called turnings.

Hopefully that wasn't too awful of an explanation.

2025-02-17 09:57:10

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Marshall Sutherland No, it wasn't awful at all. Notion of the shifting of influence of groups is very interesting. At least as interesting as the fact that there are cycles at all, I think. Assuming a group keeps it's bearings during life, the respective roles cycle with time.

2025-02-17 11:33:15

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

If I recall, they say that there was one archetype (and therefore, I assume, one Turning) that was skipped around the time of the American Civil War, but, other than that, this pattern fits the American and English experience going back to the 1500's.

2025-02-17 12:25:52

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

Now there's an interesting read for you.

2025-02-25 15:51:20

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

@Marshall Sutherland I just ordered "The Fourth Turning is Here". Watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIccg0X6Ijg doesn't make me sleep better. So it will be be WWIII or an American civil war 😱

2025-02-25 17:30:32

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Each turning has pros and cons, but the 4th seems like a particularly crappy one to experience. If you live a full life, you should experience one of each.

2025-02-26 05:57:03

et@hub.hoteldaan.nl

but the 4th seems like a particularly crappy one to experience

That's an understatement..
If it's an American civil war, ww3, or both, we're doomed. Let's hope something will come up to avert this bleak scenario.