Future Revolutions

[peter]

Do you guys see any scope for 'world changing revolutions' in the current mix of geopolitics prevailing today - if so any ideas about how and what form such 'upheavals' might take? Or has all the big stuff of history already happened [taking a Francis Fukuyama like approach].

[Vraith]

Do you guys see any scope for 'world changing revolutions' in the current mix of geopolitics prevailing today - if so any ideas about how and what form such 'upheavals' might take? Or has all the big stuff of history already happened [taking a Francis Fukuyama like approach].

I'm fairly confident there are...more than fairly...I am certain there will be revolutions that change the world, I suspect in my lifetime and I'm getting up there...whether they're GOOD revolutions or not is what's undecided.
There are some obvious potential causes of such. Most them are essentially techno-economic, and the geopolitical the likely subject/victim not the initiator/cause.
Like the fusion thing Hashi posted about elsewhere....that one thing brings cheap and practically unlimited power AND fresh water to practically everyone, everywhere.
Like the cyber-stuff peeps have talked about elsewhere.
[[a sub-category of that I don't know if anyone's talked about is the possibility of ultra-rapid R&D for research, creation, and production of cheap personalize-able drugs and all things medical. Applies to all of chemistry, at least, as well]].
EFFECTS is a much trickier thing.
I mean...one thing the fusion power might lead to: the end, finally, of the middle-east problem. Cuz it will change the entire economics...no more big-oil trillions and weapons flowing in to tyrants and terrorists. The deserts could bloom with agriculture with water available. [OTOH, a few of the whacko-birds might decide to nuke and bio- launch as a last ditch, taking as many as possible with them].

What is gonna happen in China and India when 2 Billion people suddenly have all the food, water, and power they need?? [and the Gov'ts will have to allow them to have it...or will have to murder them by the millions, which will likely only make it worse for them.]

The scary big one, which I've talked about elsewhere, which probably won't happen in my lifetime...but if one is under 30 or so, one might see at least the first big shock...is what happens when there is, literally, almost no necessary work for people to do?
I don't think anyone has any good theory at all for dealing with an economy where people don't really need money for things, and the making of things doesn't require any people. [or a very few brilliant people].
It COULD be amazing. It could be catastrophic. I suspect it will be the latter first, and then maybe we'll get to the former.

[ussusimiel]

Vraith names a couple of good ones. I'd especially agree with the no work one, which is where myself and Vraith's agree on the central importance of education (we do agree now and again! )

The one huge powder-keg for revolution that I would see is China. It is a truism of revolutions that they do not occur under very oppressive conditions but under conditions where oppession is being relaxed e.g. USSR circa 1985-1992. China is a colossal patchwork of etnicities and territories (e.g. there are more ethnic Mongolians (6 million) in Inner Mongolia than there are in Outer Mongolia (3 million)) and when democracy finally makes its presence felt there the country could fragment into anything upwards of 15 different countries.

I more general terms revolutions in the West could occur due to resource shortages (and there's always the chance of a Singularity ).

u.

[Avatar]

The scary big one, which I've talked about elsewhere, which probably won't happen in my lifetime...but if one is under 30 or so, one might see at least the first big shock...is what happens when there is, literally, almost no necessary work for people to do?

I dunno...there will always be work to do. People will always want things, and people will always have to, if not make things, at least provide services.

--A

[Vraith]

The scary big one, which I've talked about elsewhere, which probably won't happen in my lifetime...but if one is under 30 or so, one might see at least the first big shock...is what happens when there is, literally, almost no necessary work for people to do?

I dunno...there will always be work to do. People will always want things, and people will always have to, if not make things, at least provide services.

--A

Yep...people will always want things. Some things they'll even need.
What they won't need, and many won't want, is any people to actually DO those things.

Just one facet of this: there's this idea out there that people will always be wanted in some fields, that people like to deal with a "real person."
I think that's mostly a myth. They only want a "real person," in specific, and quite limited, circumstances.
One of those circumstances is when something get's screwed up/needs fixing. Ya need a person to understand what's broken/wrong...a menu of options won't work. Well, two really important things on that:
the truth is the tech is getting better every day at comprehending human-speak. "Press 1 for" is rapidly being replaced by a digi-person saying "how can I help you?" and understands when you say "The thingy under the whozit is making a funny clicky sound."
the other truth is: in most cases the only reason something went wrong in the first place is cuz a HUMAN made a mistake.

There are a bunch of other reasons people won't be necessary...well, a small portion of the very smartest/most creative will be necessary for quite a while. But the vast majority of us...and I mean 95% PLUS...simple won't be smart, talented, skilled, efficient enough to do anything we think of as "work," or "a job." We will be productionally obsolete. And I think it's coming sooner than folk think.

[ussusimiel]

^ I agree!

It may be connected with a shared MMT perspective but it's clear to me that the production of necessary (and luxury) goods and services is becoming more efficient with technology. What MMT points out very clearly is that while those goods do not need to be produced by people; to create wealth, they do need to be consumed by people. Consumption is facilitated by money/currency created by the state being channelled through the consuming public. A public that is less and less necessary for the production of goods and services, by necessity becomes a recipient of the required state-created currency by whatever means (funded life-long education would be my best guess at a sustainable method) to facilitate the consumption of created goods (and thus the continued creation of wealth).

u.

[Avatar]

...well, a small portion of the very smartest/most creative will be necessary for quite a while...

If not always. So there will always be work to do. Maybe not for everybody (although replacing it is going to bring massive problems of its own), but for at least a proportion of people. And not necessarily the smartest etc.

There are still many, many things that a computer can't do with much (if any) reliability. It's probably going to take true AI before a lot of sectors can even be considered for replacement. And that will probably bring its own massive problems.

And all problems lead to work.

--A

[peter]

It's intersting - and of course perfectly corect - that you guys have interpreted my use of the term 'revolution' more broadly than [not what I had intended, becaise I had no intention, but than what] I was thinking. In my head the post started out as a question as to whether there had ever been a [fighting on the streets style] revolution that had had good results. I pondered this, thinking of France, Russia etc and then of course the obvious hit me - America! I had been forgetting the chucking out of England from the USA. This, I'm thinking is the closest history gets to what you could call a sucesfull revolution - or more correctly a revolution with a sucessfull result - but the jury has to be out on the French Revolution. The results of this has in many ways been the actual turning point of the world - the true birth of modernity. Where France started to go, the world followed. But enough of that.

These revolutions I mention [France, America, Russia, China etc] have been world changing events of massive proportions by virtue not only of the changes they wrought within their respective countries, but in the wider world at large. Now what is the scope for further such revolutions. We could consider that the muslim world might throw off the yolk of religious tyrany [where such tyrany pertains] by revolutionary means, or indeed as u. above said, that China may decide enough is enough, and push itself toward the capitalist world by violent, rather than slower more peacefull paths. I suppose it is conceivable that the post-soviet countries may decide that having their lives run as money generating machines for huge criminal cartels is not what they have fought and suffered and died for, for so long in Europes eastern region.

Closer to home the ever increasing 'wealth gap' between the 'haves' and 'have nots' of western society is already engendering alarming symptoms in the form of inner city riots and civil disorder; places where a disenfranchised youth lets it be known in no uncertain terms that a life of drudgery in the persuit of enriching a distant and uncareing plutocrat is not what it has in mind ar all. Again the shifting economic migrants of Eastern European and African origin are stretching already limited rescources of health, work and housing in their recipient Western European countries to their limit, and this is begining to take it's toll with the ugly spectre of racism and religious intolerance beginning to raise it's ugly head even in the main stream politics of many of the affected countries.

So I'd hazard a guess that the age of revolution is probably far from over - in fact it may have hardly begun........

[ussusimiel]

I don't know if you know your countryman, the political philosopher, John Gray. One of his main points is that the Cold War was an abberation in historical terms, so instead of the fall of the Berlin Wall being the end of history (as Fukuyama claimed) it actually marked the reassertion of normal historical patterns.

u.

[Avatar]

So I'd hazard a guess that the age of revolution is probably far from over - in fact it may have hardly begun........

Man...I live in Africa. Armed revolution is alive and well.

Past a certain development point, it can become more unlikely, but its spectre is always there.

...instead of the fall of the Berlin Wall being the end of history (as Fukuyama claimed) it actually marked the reassertion of normal historical patterns.

I never liked Fukuyama's premise. It seems to betoken a massive arrogance. We can't predict what we don't know is possible.

Each age is a fusion of the age that preceded it, and the age that will follow it. Right now, our pseudo-democratic age is colliding with whatever it will evolve into. Maybe that's a truly democratic one, maybe not.

The only way to know is to live through it. And maybe not even then.

--A

[peter]

Yes - I've read a few of John Grey's books and in the main I tend to agree with him. He and I share exactly the same abhorrence of the idea of the introduction of mandatory ID cards to UK residents - a repulsive and dangerous encroachment on liberty that was introduced only briefly and with great reluctance, when Germany were poised 14 miles away ready to invade at the height of WW2.

Back to topic - or at least tangential [nealy wrote tangenital there] to it - and in refference to history being 'back on track' and the present being a fusion of what has gone before with what is soon to come - where do we stand in relation to the 3 ages of Vico's historical cycle. [Theocratic-->Aristocratic-->Democratic-->Theocratic....etc]. Presumably we are in or near the end of the 'Age of Men' (Democratic) and so by Vico's reasoning will see the re-emergence of 'The Age of Gods' before long [thence to be followed by the Age of Heroes (Aristocratic)] Should make for interesting watching by the Gods.

[Avatar]

We don't have a real democracy.

--A

[peter]

We don't have a real democracy.

--A

Tell me about it!

[Vraith]

We don't have a real democracy.

--A

Tell me about it!

And does anyone want one, really?
I don't think a pure, direct democracy can work unless:
The state in question is relatively small.
The population in question is very homogeneous.
The state in question is inclusive, the population essentially equal, and the equality protected.
[it bugs me when folk point at ancient Greece as a great democracy]
Some method/structure/rules are in place requiring
significantly greater approval than a simple majority on most
important issues.

But, more on topic...in my first, I completely neglected to mention the place most likely to experience revolution, or at least extremely rapid evolution. [distinguishing them, in this case, by the presence or absence of
massive civil violence]: Africa. I anticipate fracturing/splintering/conflict, of course...everyone does, and much of it is already happening. But I also anticipate consolidation/reorganization/cooperation in a revolution/evolution aimed at the outsiders who are basically beating the hell out of them and taking their shit: The U.S., China, and Europe [especially France.]

[Avatar]

I did mention it a couple posts up...

China is busy positioning itself as very friendly to Africa...it's making huge investments in African countries and I'm vaguely suspicious of their motives.

In Africa, communist ideals still hold appeal to many, and I suspect that this investment is intended to push African sympathies further away from the "west." Not to mention take advantage of the resources etc.

Right now, There's no indication of trying to push them at least away. The US seems to get the majority of the ire.

--A

[peter]

The western capitalist model has not been exactly kind to Africa over the years so it would come as no suprise to hear that large numbers of it's inhabitents would give serious consideration to other economic philosophies. Africa has always been a struggle for me; why has it failed to develop. It has an articulate and intelligent populace in controll of a rescource rich environment and yet.. and yet...

Never did a continent deserve so much to be able to take controll of it's own destiny and go forward to enrich both itself and the world - but damn, it just don't seem to happen. I read on one occasion that in many respects it was the rise of 'the West' that held Africa back - this being an almost deliberate policy integral to the West's sucess. Maybe this is true even to this day [if it ever was that is.]

aside; I wonder if humanity will ever reach a sufficiently advanced level where anarchy will be the optimum condition for maximising the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people?

[Vraith]

I did mention it a couple posts up...


Right now, There's no indication of trying to push them at least away. The US seems to get the majority of the ire.

--A

Yea, I know you did, that's part of what reminded me.
And yea, the U.S. seems to get peeps riled up to a greater extent...for now.

I don't think it will last, once they [Africa] get a little bit more unified...perhaps an econo/political alliance along the lines of those things currently being attempted in South/Central America is possible...which are pushback against everyone...former soviet remainders, China, U.S...

which relates to peter...yea, the West [and lately China] had a vested interest in keeping Africa fragmented, and they did it on purpose. [The West did the same to China for a long time, if you recall].
It was relatively easy to do cuz Africa is so freaking HUGE and many don't realize just how big it is. [I'm pretty sure that the ENTIRETY of U.S. + China + All of Eastern and Western Europe + India can fit inside Africa]

It is also not, and never has been...culturally nor environmentally...monolithic.
Hell, the single largest thing they have in common MIGHT be that they were all set upon by white people.
And we can't ignore that there is an almost perfectly straight line near 10 degrees North Latitude across the continent...above that line, Islam is...in many places by far...the dominant religion, below that line, Christianity is.
In the long term, will that difference prevent progress/cooperation?
OR, can their other common needs overcome that, perhaps solving the religious lunacy?
OR will it be the place where all-out, world-wide religious war actually begins?...I know most folk think the Mid-East is where that will happen if it does...but there are a lot of things working against Mid-East as a flashpoint.

[peter]

Thats an interesting- and frightening - idea about Africa being the site of the future [and God hope it doesn't happen{accidental irony}] clash of religious cultures V.

Even as we speak some really strange geopolitical stuff is happening with America and Iran starting a dialogue for the first time since 1979(?), Isreal being all pissed off with that, France being pissey about loosing its influence in Lebanon and Syria and so scuppering the talks [really to cosey up to Irans enemy the Saudi's from whom it [France] wants to secure huge defense contracts in the near future] - it's all tp play for as the saying goes!

[Avatar]

Religious unrest has certainly become more prevalent in parts of Africa of late. More to the north, (but then everybody in Africa is north of us).

Tribal, cultural and social conflicts have always been the norm on a continent that's national borders were pretty much arbitrarily decided by a bunch of colonialists with a map and a pen.

Centuries of virtual and actual subjugation do not make an environment in which stable and reliable governance can readily emerge. After being oppressed, the victims want what was taken from them, and the best at taking it become the new oppressors. It's a bloody tragic turn of events.

--A

[peter]

And alas a cycle that one cannot readily see a way out of.