re: #462 silverdolphin

While The Atlantic is more credible than the typical rag, I am very wary of screaming headlines.

From the article:

All human societies experience recurrent waves of political crisis, such as the one we face today. My research team built a database of hundreds of societies across 10,000 years to try to find out what causes them. We examined dozens of variables, including population numbers, measures of well-being, forms of governance, and the frequency with which rulers are overthrown. We found that the precise mix of events that leads to crisis varies, but two drivers of instability loom large. The first is popular immiseration—when the economic fortunes of broad swaths of a population decline. The second, and more significant, is elite overproduction—when a society produces too many superrich and ultra-educated people, and not enough elite positions to satisfy their ambitions.

I’m not impressed.

More specifically: even in the hardest of sciences it is often challenging determining cause and effect.

Sociology is not going to do better.

“Precise mix” - um… I doubt that.

I disagree with the assertion about immiseration. I simply do not see that in the large scale of the American population, at least not yet.

So I am going to push back at the narrative.

I’m not a subscriber so I can’t see the whole article. If he has published research then I’m open to reading links.