Oddbean

The Dynastic Cycle and the Fourth Turning are all basically the same thing. It's built into civilization, regardless of era or culture. There are debt/money growth cycles, law/bureaucracy growth cycles, and periods of reset for both of them. During the growth phase, debt accumulates, and laws build upon laws as bureaucrats become bloated and detached. Even well-meaning people in power can't fix it; every attempt to fix things just adds another layer of debt and legal complexity. And then after a long enough time, it blows up. It could be slow or it could be fast, but it gets fucking rekt. It could be a lost war, a major internal revolution, or a slow massive decline and then a major populist democratically-elected landslide pivot. The new government emerges, as order out of chaos, with elements of authoritarianism. The ideal scenario is that this newfound unity is enough to create change in the right direction, and then decentralize itself to re-establish rule of law and individual rights. The more common scenario, however, is that this newfound unity is not let go by those who claimed it, and it leads to authorianism/communism/fascism and decades of problems. In other words, the revolution against the decaying chaos is easy, but sticking the landing toward the re-emergence of freedom and productivity is the hard part. That's why nothing stops this train. We're in the debt cycle rotation/reset, and eventually the bureaucratic rotation/reset as well. It takes billions of dollars to build a thousand feet of high-speed rail in the USA. Europe flails around on energy optics. Politicians become satire. Japan is stuck in yield curve control. This can last a long time, but the tailspin is nearly irrecoverable. Incrementalism doesn't work at this phase. The event horizon is passed. Rather, the focus becomes on what order will emerge from the chaos. Is it rational order, or is it even worse than what came before? The answer to that question, is what people have a big part in shaping. https://m.primal.net/IFzf.png

Lyn speaks the truth. BTW, this is why I can't read or listen to MSM, because they just don't get this truth and it is increasingly painful to see them reinforce the same faulty assumptions and common wisdom. nostr:nevent1qqsrjfvmyhagp89gfjcu56s0tv5mtx9uetd25yn3q0tgzz5je2e04egpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfdupzp64suatdx2uqhn2xfu7cgjuqgqcrqadp864uxkv6wckf43atj860qvzqqqqqqyl2m7xq

Question - to what extent is the victorious emergent order determined by outside influence? Would the USA broken from Britain without the French? Would the South have successfully seceded if Europe had intervened on their behalf? Would Germany have been destroyed if the pact with Stalin had held?

types of governments tgat emerge from harships. For exemple a collapsing currency resulting from too much debt relative to GDP could well bring about an authoritarian regime, only power able to keep the populace into check. To be fair, I personnally believe we are already experiencing forms of soft totalitarianism with restrictions to freedom of speach, censorship etc...

hmmm yes to the current u.s. led regime being authoritarian af, but unclear about the grouping of those three words in particular. what do you mean emerge from hardship? when we say authoritarianism are we talking about state interventions to maintain the master slave paradigm?

The EU is no different. In a a sense in fact you could well label tge EU communist since it's lead by unelected, self appointed in the commission deciding over economic policies of member states through their Broad Economic Policies. The link between communism and fascism is their authoritarian nature. Don't forget fascism was born out of socialism, driven by socialists like Musolini and Hitler. Hitler was also an environmentalist I'm told, not surprising when you hear the greenies nowadays who'd be more than happy to lock us up and prevent free movement. By hardship I mean, tough times, chaos or paradigm shifts like a currency reset which happen every 80 or so years. We also have in mind the fourth turning here. By all accounts it does appear like we are in one, especially with wars resurfacing. Regarding tghe master/slave paradigm, that's my understanding, authoritarian regimes ensure power ends up in a few select hands.

hmmm thanks for the clarification and the engagement, though i dont quiet understand how a capitalist economy like the EU could ever be labeled communist. why do you attach the communist label to unelected, self appointed comissions? though i know france at one point had communes, most commies would agree that hitler and musolini were state capitalists who weilded the state apparatus to kill a bunch of people and maintain the class structure vs communists who democratize the workplace. do we label the democrats in the u.s. as harbingers of democracy while they take legalized bribes from corporations to craft the law in their favor? it just seems like bad faith to include communist in the same sentence as authoritarian and facism, given communism advocates for the withering away of the state and elimination of the master slave paradigm. i dont know many communists who are pro state. do you?

Communism has been the greatest exemple of state control. I actually reflected upon this ideology recently after reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Somehow she advocates austrian economics and you'll probably bump into bitcoiners mentioning her. I heard Michael Saylor's keynote speech and I knew I needeed to read that book. The EU has a lot in common with communism: the economy is rigged, the decision making completely escapes any form of democratic control and the so called "free trade" agreements are written to favour always the same actors, the multi-nationals who want to dominate their markets and crush all the small players. Consider Staline's regime, would you call it democratic? Were farmers willingly giving away all their productions for the greater good? In the end, extreme state control always ends up destroying the economy, as portrayed in Atlas Shrugged: https://youtu.be/ZcjFrIMw2sI?si=9UHRBGI84TSd2DpW

True. Look at Lebanon, Egypt, Libia, ... They are all stuck in their post revolution era and cannot seem to find a sound political stability. Examples are numerous in history. It seems a multi decade dark age is the only way out of it. Until the people elect their savior who will need to have radical thinking such as in Salvador or Argentina.

So then the sh*t gets real (by that I mean gnarly social order. chaos. violence) particularly within, and among those closest to and most dependent upon the empire's reach, i.e. cities. Some – keenly aware of concentrated, corrupted, and hierarchic power's ability to f*ck them over with the reasonability of a D11 bulldozer – they once again embrace the values (and work) of a subsistence livelihood in the country, ideally on the periphery, and with locally available resources and shipping potential. These newcomers, seeking personal autonomy, and the liberty and ability to make their homes, undoubtedly benefit and are dependent upon local traditions, customs, and knowledge. ('Not being a dick' is merely the first step.) Ability to competently work. There, I said it. Along with the convivial mindset to fit in to where they are essentially taking refuge from said sh*t storm. In such a scenario – wherein appropriate, mature, low-energy tools, need be communally shared and competently used (think: roofs, water, food) – where exactly does fiddling with so-called decentralized computers needing a global internet connection come into play? It doesn't. Those ones would be disabused of such priorities pretty quickly.