[ExI] Am I the only one freaked out by this?

[Stuart LaForge]

Tara Maya wrote:
<I’ve been reading Peter Turchin’s work, including Ages of Discord. His
semi-Malthusian theory predicts that pretexts will be found for fighting a
civil war, or something like it, when the conditions are right. The issues
are only the the flame that ignites the flammable material provided by
demographic and economic conditions. I find it a fairly persuasive theory.
Is anyone familiar with it?>

I am not familar with Turchin but his theory seems to simply be the
recognition of a pervasive cyclical pattern throughout history.
Historically governments have tended toward concentrating their power over
time into sometimes intricate networks of aristocratic oligarchs. And as
this aristocracic network develops, government tends more and more to act
exclusively in that network's interests to the exclusion of the rest of
its citizens.

This concentration of power continues until a tipping point is reached
requiring only one or more charismatic individuals within the elite to use
force to violently consolidate their power, often sacrificing the other
aristocrats to do so.

Most such individuals utilize the common folk to fight the necessary war
and a revolution ensues that redistributes wealth violently.
Unfortunately, in the process, enough injustice is perpetrated to sow the
seeds of dissent for the next civil war and so it goes- round and round-
that's why they call it revolution. To quote Hermocrates of Syracuse,
"Nobody is driven to war by ignorance, and no one who thinks he will gain
anything from it is deterred by fear."

At least that's my take on it.

Stuart LaForge