Annie

It can sometimes take having a solid handle on What Happened When to really understand What People Were Saying.

The 1977 musical Annie includes the following two songs and their associated scenes:

• We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover: The residents of a Hooverville break out in song to excoriate the former president for his response to the Crash and the Great Depression.
• A New Deal for Christmas: Annie, Warbucks, and others gush over the idea that the new president's policies will improve the upcoming Christmas season.

Leaving aside historical accuracy or lack of same, it is surprising how it unabashedly cheerleads for a point of view that is absolutely in favor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policies. It's not like he still needed the help forty years later. It's even more surprising since, evidently, the original Little Orphan Annie comic strip was much more conservative and the cartoonist, Harold Gray, was not a fan. Indeed, Daddy Warbucks was "killed off" in 1944, dying of despair when FDR was re-elected - although he came back (waking from a "coma") after FDR's passing the following year.

The setting of the play in 1933 is clearer still with a definite anchor like what is on The Grid, which may make it easy to recall that 1) FDR had just become president 2) his term started several months into the year 3) he worked to get his policies (particularly securities reform) implemented as soon as possible. Knowing that during the course of the musical's year there was a lot happening with the new president makes it more fitting, somehow. In any case, we can know that he was recently elected and conversely Hoover was recently out of office, so for some this looks like an historical document.

(Granted that other dates could have been chosen for the previous Crisis. Then again, 1929 and 1941 weren't used because they are already well-known dates. Every year during World War II had distinctive turning points with memorable details, which might be usable in the same way. There are other FDR innovations that could work similarly. Most of them wouldn't be as helpful with comprehending Annie's situation... )

The latest movie version, meanwhile, is smack in the middle of this Crisis. (The previous two film versions, perhaps coincidentally, were at the end of the Second and the middle of the Third, respectively.) It may play very differently than those others, which could be seen as sentimental and nostalgic, in their time. This one, though, would have to deal with the current economic situation, which might be a little too close to be comfortable.

Bluster

It’s been 6 months since that Ukraine prediction:

As both Ukraine and Russia are in their Second Turning,  it feels like this cannot get out of hand. It's going to remain internal.

This still seems correct. The U.S. doesn’t have any direct strategic interests in the area. There are advantages, perhaps, to Ukraine and Russia being separate entities, although the current state of affairs suggests that isn’t going to be a real problem. After twenty years of even nominal sovereignty, the Ukrainians won’t be hurrying to do the Russian’s bidding again. While there's still the concern that Putin might turn out to be a Very Bad Man, there's no other clear reason that might lead to involvement from others. Especially if Russia is having trouble even with what it's doing so far.

Meanwhile, there’s Putin’s reminder that Russia is not to be trifled with because it’s a nuclear power. The problem is that, while true, it is not a game changer. U.S. strategy was going to be a balancing act even if there was some sort of gentleman’s agreement limiting the weapons used.  To put it another way, the U.S. isn’t going to escalate to a Fulda Gap-level tank assault that requires a Return of Forces to Germany in order to repel Russian tanks in Ukraine. Putin’s comment is like pulling a gun out during a poker game: Whether or not it’s a bluff, it’s an acknowledgement of a weak hand. 

Finally, mentioning a strength that dates back to the Cold War risks reminding people that Soviet military technology lagged behind NATO’s. Twenty years later, there’s no indication Russian military systems have leapfrogged the competition, or have been built up beyond where they were when the Soviet Union dissolved. There were concerns even then that their ICBMS wouldn’t make it past the Arctic Circle.  Reminding an enemy of your weaknesses is rarely a smart thing to do.

Advances

In the posting on antibiotics, it was noted that the initial discoveries were at the very end of the Unraveling and the start of the Crisis. They were in production soon enough that they were available in large amounts by the peak of the crisis a few years later -- 12 years for penicillin, less than 10 by any count for the sulfas. 

Meanwhile, a few months Mark Andeesen noted that smartphones are going to be available everywhere within a few years - again, right around the expected peak of the Fourth Turning. The first smartphones were the BlackBerry variants around 2003 but it was when the iPhone came out in 2007 that they really became an item available to the masses. In either case, though it can be seen as an advance from the tail end of the Unraveling. 

How could we better confirm that these might be analogous? We could look at other similarities and differences. We could see what predictions were made for antibiotics after their initial discoveries. We could identify other tech that made a difference in previous Crisis periods. 

The longbow - while it made a difference, certainly, in English history -  isn't a matching example.   It was available for hundreds of years before and for much of the Hundred Years' War, including Crécy in 1346, almost 70 years before Agincourt. 

2008

Crisis - 2008 -  The Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers

Generations came out in 1991, The Fourth Turning in 1997, and both included a prediction that the Crisis would start sometime after the turn of the century. And almost from the start of the year 2000, there were candidates for When Did It Begin:

• The Dot-com bubble bursts (April 2000)
• Bush v. Gore  (November-December 2000)
• The 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan (2001)
• The invasion of Iraq (2003)
• Hurricane Katrina (2005)

Among people discussing the Strauss & Howe model, there was disagreement about which - if any - of these constituted the start of The Crisis. Despite these varied harbingers of doom, it didn't seem as if the Crisis had started yet - that you would KNOW when it was really happening.

By the end of 2008, though, there wasn't much question anymore. If the Crisis hadn't started at one of those earlier points, it started in September 2008.

That was a busy month. The Republican and Democratic conventions had recently finished, and the Presidential Election was two months away. John McCain had chosen his running mate, Sarah Palin, in order to give the ticket credence with the more conservative among the GOP, and to gain some exposure in a news cycle that favored Democratic candidate Barack Obama. It did not help McCain when it was soon revealed that Palin's unmarried daughter was pregnant.

Which all paled when it was became clear that Lehman Brothers was in serious trouble. It announced layoffs, then announced a loss of nearly 4 billion dollars, then filed for bankruptcy on September 15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped over 4%, and dropped more over the rest of the month.

It had been clear for over a year that the United States housing market was in a bubble, and that people were choosing foreclosure over continuing payments on overpriced mortgages.  Lehman Brothers had invested in securities that depended on people continuing these payments.  These securities were basically bonds that generated their interest payments from those people paying their mortgages. When they stopped paying, the securities became worth...well, that was part of the problem.

The value of the securities could be seen as either a) the present value of future payments or b) what they could be sold for on the market.  As more mortgagees considered not paying, the value of future payments could not be effectively calculated - it was not possible to determine if a given security was worth the full expected value (because everyone was going to pay) or half of it (because half of the mortgagees were going default) or nothing at all. Unfortunately, it became clear that the second option was also not available, for much the same reason: Potential buyers wouldn't risk overpaying so potential sellers had to accept much less than previously - or acknowledge that there were effectively no buyers available.  Making them worth less...if not worthless.

Lehman Brothers was caught on it. They were bought out by Barclay's a week later. The loss of faith in the financial system caught hold. The options were limited and none off them were good. Businesses dependent merely on liquidity - department stores like Gottschalks, say, who depend on credit to buy merchandise before selling it - ran out of cash. Foreclosures continued. Planned housing developments were never completed, and completed developments were unable to be sold.

McCain's chances for victory - weak enough after the choice of Palin backfired - were destroyed.  He was handily defeated by Obama just over a month later.  The ripple effects of the liquidity crunch included a recession that continued through the following year  and even today doesn't quite seem over. 

Millennials

Even if you don't think that Millennials are necessarily only about Me, this article on Linked In is worth considering.

One of the attributes of the model that can be difficult to grasp, here, is the idea that the Millennials are supposed to be the next Greatest Generation. As a Civic/Hero generation, they are similar in outlook to the folks who fought Hitler, or King George, or defeated the Spanish Armada.

Or maybe it's less that it's difficult to grasp than difficult to believe. These kids - not all kids, anymore, the youngest are in their early teens but the oldest are 32 - coddled and protected, self-centered and insular - are going to rise up and willingly take on the greatest threats to our nation and our world?

There are other parts that seem to make sense, even if they are similarly paradoxical. The teamwork thing, for example, where the end result of being coddled and protected is being able to work together  exceptionally well. They watch out for each other, they do activities together, they are willing to take risks for their friends. And perhaps that goes along - perhaps the willingness to step up when needed follows on from the interest in their fellows which is a unexpected but result of being brought up knowing that someone has your back.

BuyPartisan

It seems likely - especially through the lens of Strauss & Howe - that BuyPartisan won't make things hyper-partisan.

Or at least no worse than they already are.

Because we're past all that. The Unraveling is over, the Crisis started. Although partisanship is significant, it's not clear that it's worse than 10 years ago. (2004, for one obvious example, was the year of John Kerry campaigning against George W. Bush, which often felt like a struggle between anti-Democrats and anti-Republicans.) A case could be made that it peaked in 2008, just as the Crisis was starting.  Partisanship continued after - check the debates for the Affordable Care Act - and continues now, but you don't see the same amount of rancor. Even if there are "End of an Error 2017" shirts, they aren't as ubiquitous as the 2009 ones.

People want to know what they are getting, is all. Tools of the modern era help you to determine what's happening in the world around you, better than before.  Being able to make more educated decisions helps everyone.

PlayStation

Initially, the PlayStation network attack and associated Twitter bomb threat seemed like a prelude to the data wars.

Reconsidering, though, the bomb threat could have been done in other ways,  and the perpetrators would be in plenty of trouble whether they used Twitter, a phone call, or a letter using words cut from magazines.  It didn't depend on being part of the connected world.

Getting the information about the plane, however, did. Being able to directly affect a large corporations large and expensive assets is significant. As more large and expensive assets are online, this will be more possible. If there are those who can gain from such actions - monetarily, increased influence, or as a way to delay the inevitable - then these actions will increase.

It's a possibility worth considering.

Perspectives

While looking up info on Athens in 413 BC, I found myself on a number of different sites I'd seen before.  Which made it seem the right time to point to some of those sites, for anyone who is looking for additional information or alternative perspectives.

Lifecourse Associates - The consulting firm founded by Strauss & Howe. Includes links describing the theory and the current status of different generations and turnings. Reading the books is better, but it's still a perfectly good starting point.

The Fourth Turning - Site set up to promote the 1997 book. Includes Fourth Turning forums, with ongoing discussions on the theory, current events, and historical applications.

The Burning Platform (blog) - Updates a few times a month or more with reminders about how we are all doomed. The title refers to our current status, supported by a system that will collapse beneath us soon enough. Our foot will slide in due time...

Generational Dynamics - A continued and in-depth analysis and expansion of the theory, with some items that aren't necessarily as originally described by Strauss & Howe.

The TimePage - Silent Generation guy looking at history and Strauss & Howe. Blogs as well, with a frequent "Notable Historical Event."

James Goulding - Sections of his site delve deeply into American History, using the Strauss & Howe model.

The Art of Manliness - While not really about Strauss & Howe, the author of the blog is a fan and sometimes has posts about the theory.

Nameless - Site set up to promote the 2014 movie about Millennials. Includes an ongoing blog.

The Millennial Legacy  - A Millennial talking about being at this point in history et cetera.

It was The Burning Platform, incidentally, that had a comment about the doomed attack on Sicily in 413 BC - which is to say, about 80 years after the Battle of Marathon. Which suggests that it was the start of a new Crisis for the Athenians - and sure enough, despite some victories along the way, Athens had a rough time of it soon after.  Which I'll come back to soon.

Monitor

For what it's worth, this was triggered by a reference to an Oracle package called dbms_monitor.

The GE Monitor Top refrigerator was one of the first mass market refrigerators, sold from 1925 to 1936. In The Apartment, Jack Lemmon's kitchen has one of these - it would have been twenty or thirty years old. Its presence probably indicated a frugal but practical lifestyle. They are still renowned for their ability to keep running, nearly 90 years after they were first released.

It received its distinctive name from the round heat exchanger on its top, which resembled the turret on the USS Monitor. That was the first Union ironclad over 60 years before, when it kept the Merrimack CSS Virginia from a resounding Confederate victory at the 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads. (Their specific duel was a draw, neither warship able to harm the other.)  Successful as it was, the same basic shape - a low flat body with a round turret containing heavy guns - were used for a type of warship, called Monitors after that first one.

The effects of Crisis times run deep indeed, for so many people to associate a common household appliance with a warship based on its shape, distinctive though it is.

Frontier

You get talking about one music video and next thing you know you've wandered into a different one:

 A quick summary of the video for Donald Fagen's 1982 single, New Frontier: In the 1950s a guy takes a girl into the most private place he has access to: The family bomb shelter. They make use of the available entertainments - records and a television, cigarettes and alcohol - before using the privacy for what was planned.  When the guy falls asleep afterwards, the girl leaves, giving him one of her white gloves as a memento. He awakes alone to a new day - and an unexpected visitor in a radiation suit.

To start, it's crazy to be watching this more than 30 years after it was created, when it was critiquing a world twenty to thirty years old at the time. Presumably the world has changed an equivalent amount in each intervening period of multiple decades. The optimism of the 1950s was overtaken by the cynicism of the early 1980s, while what would have been called cynicism has been rendered obsolete by the reality of the new century.

And have no misapprehensions: The video is a critique overall, even if it is referencing some items - Picasso, say, and Dave Brubeck - positively.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan had been President for over a year, and there were still those who thought he would instigate war to rid the world of the Communist Soviet Union. The documentary The Atomic Cafe came out that same year, suggesting the futility of the Reagan administration's attempt to survive a nuclear war, and comparing it to the embrace of the Bomb in the 1950s. (As previously noted, though, this excitement about nukes was not universal: there was some concern over the reality of nuclear weapons as early as 1946, years before the Soviet Union had successfully tested their own.)  The nuclear freeze movement was becoming stronger, with a core belief that nuclear war was not winnable. The existence of a shelter implied the possibility of "winning,"which made a connection between the naiveté of the 1950s and of (GI Generation) Reagan.

Which doesn't mean that the song itself isn't a remembrance of a happier more carefree time. While the video takes place entirely in a shelter, the lyrics only refer to it at the start, and not with that name ("a dugout that my dad built").  The remainder of the song is optimistic on the surface, if cynical about that previous hopefulness. Perhaps it was written, like Blaze of Glory, as a document of those times by someone who had lived through them. One might consider the song alone that way - as a remembrance of a younger self and an earlier time - but the video seems very much a part of the late Awakening.

1933

Crisis - 1933 - The Securities Act of 1933

There are many theories about what caused the Great Depression: Insufficient money supply, excess money supply,  low government spending, high government spending, being on the gold standard, not adhering to the gold standard...But it is generally accepted that it started with the stock market crash of October 1929, and that the crash was due in some part to concerns about the stocks that were traded. In 1932. the Senate established a commission (later known as the Pecora Commission) to investigate how securities were issued and traded in order to determine appropriate actions to take. 

Securities such as stocks and bonds are a common way for companies to raise money for new projects. Bonds guarantee the holder a specific interest rate on their investments.  An investor might purchase a bond with a face value of $1000 and an interest rate of 5%, and would then receive $50/year over the life of the bond. Bondholders normally have first claims on the company's assets in the case of bankruptcy. Stocks grant the holder a share of the company's earnings. An investor that purchases one share of stock in a company with one million shares outstanding and earnings of one million dollars would, in theory, have a $1 return on his investment. The cost and value of stock shares depend on factors such as the number of shares outstanding, the amount of recent earnings, and how the company intends to distribute earnings to shareholders.  Stockholders are considered the owners of the company, and are normally allowed to vote on significant company matters, such as who will sit on the board of directors.  Stocks and bonds can become worthless, losing the holder their initial investment along with any expected gains. 

Before 1933, companies that issued securities (such as stocks or bonds) had to abide by the laws of the state in which they were incorporated. In some cases, these laws required little documentation, leading to their being referred to derisively as "blue sky laws" (i.e. security holders were guaranteed only that the sky would remain blue.) The congressional commission would eventually reveal practices used by security issuers that enriched them at the expense of their investors. Companies would issue stock to pay off bad loans; allow certain well-connected stockholders to purchase new issues of stock for quick profits; and sell bonds that were obviously going to default as if they were safe investments. The Blue Sky laws didn't prohibit these practices. The ongoing repercussions from the Crash were evidence enough that securities regulation, or its absence, was of interest far beyond the boundaries of individual states. And to the extent that securities trading crossed state lines, Congress had solid constitutional grounds for regulating them.

Similar to Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in November but was unable to take direct action until the following March. (Election and succession law was changed in the aftermath, which is why inaugurations now happen in January.) One of the first pieces of legislation Roosevelt signed was the Securities Act of 1933, which attempted to restore confidence in the stock market by ensuring that securities were adequately described to investors.  The Act required that securities be registered with the Federal government before being sold to the public. This gave the issuer the opportunity to describe the company (and by extension, how profits would be generated), how the proceeds would be used, the rights available to the holder (e.g. voting rights), and the extent to which those rights were subordinate to the holders of other securities. 

It would be decades before the stock market would recover its 1929 high point, but that would be on a much more solid base. Investors could now be certain what the securities represented and calculate from that what returns to expect. If financial wizards found other methods to destabilize confidence and the markets, that would be a problem for another day.

Bad

I will occasionally toss out the word Bad when referring to Nomads - Reactives, that is, those who were children during an Awakening, folks like Generation X. Usually I will let the word speak for itself, capitalized to indicate I Mean Something In Particular. Which I do.

 Both Generations and the follow-up The Fourth Turning have charts that aim to describe attributes of the different generational archetypes. (In the former, it's called "Peer Personalities by Generational Type" on page 365 while the latter is "Archetypes in History" on page 98.) One of the strengths of the model is the recognition that people change over time, as does how they are perceived. Some of the change is the move from one stage in life to another: Actions that are acceptable while learning life in youth cannot often be carried along when raising new life in adulthood. Other changes reflect the attitude of the current Turning, like mid-life Heroes basking in the afterglow of the High contrasted with mid-life Nomads trying to survive the Crisis.

In any case, the charts give one-word descriptions of the archetypes at different stages. To describe the Hero "reputation as child," the word given is "good," while Artists are described as "placid" and Prophets as "spirited."*

The corresponding word used for us Nomads?  "Bad."

While it may not be exactly as intended, it also works out that "bad people" in stories - whether it's books, movies, or television - are often Nomads. The elder daughters in King Lear, Beavis & Butthead, Lt.Col Cage (who tries blackmailing a general to avoid combat) in Edge of Tomorrow - the best that can be said at the start is that they may strive for redemption. And could even succeed. 

If you see a bad person, there's some better-than-usual chance you are looking at a Nomad. Which is why I'll often use Bad as shorthand for - well, for everything here in this post, and on those charts, and really in most of what Strauss&Howe have to say about these cohorts.

The U2 song doesn't really have much to do with this. It's not about Gen Xers in particular, although it seems likely that many of the heroin addicts from whom it drew inspiration were of that cohort. Although it could be a theme song for our generation.

* In Generations, the Prophet archetype is called the "Idealist" and instead of "spirited" they were "stormy." The (Boomer) authors presumably considered this change an improvement.

Research

This Fortune article about Google's research division (or one of them, anyway) isn't about how Google is replacing DARPA, or trying to act like it, or anything similar. It's more about the new leader at ATAP (Advanced Technology and Products), Regina Dugan,  who was previously the director of DARPA.

The idea that Google is doing research on that level brings to mind other research facilities, like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs. The latter was described as "the advanced planning department of the human race," with world-changing inventions like the transistor, Unix, and charge-coupled devices.  Even though AT&T was mostly unable to market the resulting products, and eventually spun it off as Lucent and associated successor companies.

Meanwhile, Google - which celebrated 10 years as a public company today - is using ATAP for their research at a modest level, rethinking cell phones and associated entertainment. There's another area for the projects that aren't quite in their core competencies, like wind energy using kites and self-driving cars. (The Google X Prize appears to be another, separate, entity.) It appears that a new "advanced planning department" has taken shape.

Bell Labs was founded in 1928, although predecessors were around as early as 1893 and formation of the division started around 1925. One coincidence - whether it's interesting is left as an exercise - is that is the same year that Fleming discovered what the penicillium mold could do. A starting date for Google's research facilities is difficult to pin down, but would appear to be soon after the IPO - as with Bell Labs, near the end of the Unraveling and the start of the Crisis.

Imbalances

Back in history classes about the Great Depression, there was always a section about farmers killing livestock because they couldn't sell them. Meanwhile people were starving because of a lack of food.

It didn't make sense at the time. Seeing something like this though makes it easier.

For anyone in Southern California, these are going to be familiar. The Inland Empire has similar developments, and were the original source of the above insight.  These photos, on the other hand, are from a photographer who found the rows of perfectly completed, yet empty and unwanted housing an intriguing subject.

These "ghost estates" are in Ireland - formerly known as the "Celtic Tiger," previous to that the source of many over-educated expatriates, and before that a backward backwater of Europe.  It did well enough, though, that housing developments such as these were built - and then abandoned as the economy went downhill.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, New York, then city is offering $1 for houses to people who are willing to move in and fix them up. Cheaper than demolition. Time will tell whether that will be required on the Ghost Estates.

Lear

An article in the Los Angeles Times discusses King Lear with regards to the aging Boomer generation. It begins with an indication that Boomers would find it a fitting role for their generation, which (as described below) doesn't seem quite right. However, the actual focus is on actors being of an appropriate age to take on the role, as the culmination of their career. The starting point was a production starring Boomer John Lithgow (b. 1945) in the title role, with Annette Bening (b. 1958) as  his daughter Goneril.

The play appears to occur during a Crisis period, with a kingdom sundered and the king wandering mad. Of course, it's Lear himself who divides the kingdom and evidently instigates the Crisis. His older daughters take advantage of their father's poor judgement to pursue their own agendas. The youngest daughter, meanwhile, allows herself to be exiled rather than engage in untoward flattery.

As an old man in a Fourth Turning, Lear would make sense as either a Prophet or Artist, but his actions point toward the latter.  Like the Compromise Generation in the mid-19th century, he takes actions that can be considered fair (Why shouldn't all his daughters be given an equal share? Why shouldn't we let the individual states vote up-or-down on slavery?) but which exacerbate existing problems and rivalries to the point that the nation collapses. Further, his decision isn't for any purpose more noble than to avoid future trouble and retire easily:

Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now.

The rest of the characters appear to fit, as well.  Goneril and Regan behave exactly as Nomads could be expected, practical but amoral. They indulge their father's request for words of love, receive their part of the kingdom, and then plot against him.  It's feasible that the youngest, Cordelia, could be a Hero, as a child born late to an Artist generation parent might be.  Her actions, at least, show a Hero story: She loses her share of the realm when she refuses to humor her father,  works with others to help him ... and ends up as a sacrifice (in all but name) for her troubles.

Which doesn't mean Boomers or other Prophets would be unable to handle the part. Although the Times' McNulty does not seem overly impressed. Although he goes on to say, as others have in the past, that Lear is better as literature than on stage. He does mention three exceptional filmed versions: two by Heroes (Scofield and Olivier) and one by an Artist (Ian Holm). If no recent Artist portrayal on stage has changed his mind, perhaps that's correct.

Trek

A short item here about an essay from 20 years ago about Star Trek (The Original Series). It looks at how the events of the late 60s affected what made it to the screen. It references four episodes that had something to say about the Vietnam War. The first two (The City on the Edge of Forever and A Private Little War) are seen as supporting the governments plans and actions. The latter two (The Omega Glory and Let That Be Your Last Battlefield) are put forth as critical of them.

The implication is that the writers and producers of Star Trek - no few of whom were GI Generation - went from being in favor of intervention to opposition. The Tet Offensive is suggested as being the change point between the two. A problem with that is the timing: The second and third episodes were shown only a month apart, the first only a few days after Tet - not really long enough for a complete change in attitude. Especially since the episodes would have been written and filmed several months before. (According to one source noted on the Memory Alpha link above, The Omega Glory was written years earlier, in 1965, and filmed in December 1967.)

One additional surprise is that the essay doesn't mention The Way to Eden - the "space hippies" episode. First broadcast about a month later than the last one above, it shares an outlook similar to what the essay attributes to the first: While well-meaning and even sympathetic, those involved in the counterculture are naive, misled by their leaders.  As a result, it suggests that the attitudes of the producers and writers had changed much less than this essay infers.

Antibiotics

"What medicines do you have?"
"Three of the neosulfas and verdomycin"
"Give him all three and pray."
"He might be allergic to one of them!"
"He'll be more allergic to dying."

Like other Heinlein Juveniles, Tunnel in the Sky appears to be in a postwar period of exploration and discovery. The "tunnel" refers to a technological advance ("Gates") that allow you to walk literally from Earth to another planet. It has opened up possibilities for colonization across the galaxy. The characters here are high school seniors taking their final exam in Advanced Survival:  Gated onto an uninhabited planet with minimal supplies, they pass if they can get to safety.

(Anyone who wants to become a colonist is required to take the normally college-level class. Earth is becoming crowded enough that leading a colony on uncharted worlds is what the cool kids want to do.)

This quote from the 1955 novel shows some fascination in the availability of cheap and effective antibiotics. The students, who are trying to save a fellow student with a high fever, mention evidently new and improved versions of sulfa drugs and a bacterially derived aminoglycoside. This fascination could be because the first antibiotics were only about 20 years old at the time.

Some of the initial important discoveries were:

1928: Alexander Fleming notices that one of his bacterial cultures has been contaminated by a penicillium mold that inhibits further growth. He conjectures that an antibacterial substance is being produced by the mold.

1931: Bayer chemists begin trials on Prontosil, the first of the sulfa drugs. It is found to be very effective at combatting bacterial infections.

1935: Scientists at the Pasteur Institute determine the active ingredient in Prontosil, sulfanilamide. The compound had been discovered almost 30 years before, making any patents worthless, and removing any hope of massive profits away from Bayer. Soon after, generic sulfas are mass-produced.

1942: The Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston kills 492 people. Survivors are among the first people treated with penicillin, in order to avoid infection in skin grafts.

1943: Streptomycin is first isolated at Rutgers university. Also, a new strain of the penicillium mold - one that yields superior results to Fleming's - is found....on a moldy cantaloupe.

1944: Mass production of penicillin means millions of units are available for the Allied invasion of Normandy.

1946-47: Tuberculosis is shown to be curable using streptomycin, although some side effects are noted.

If you are using The Grid for any of this ... well, you probably aren't, because it hasn't been updated to this point yet....you will see that that the starting point (1928) is between 1927 (Unraveling: Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis) and 1933 (Crisis: The Securities Act of 1933). The Cocoanut Grove fire was not quite a year after Pearl Harbor,  so much of this is happening before World War II. Still, a lot of advancement occurs during this short period.  One could also note that Alexander Fleming is about the only well-known person here, and he shows up during the Third Turning - once the Fourth takes hold, it's all corporations and governments taking a hand.

1861

Crisis - 1861 - The Secession Winter

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter begins on December 21. In the United States, presidential elections are held every four years. In 1860, on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November that year, Americans cast votes that would result in an electoral win for Abraham Lincoln. The very thought of this Ilinois Republican holding power over the South inspired South Carolina to openly secede on December 20, the day before the start of winter. Five more states would secede in January, and Texas would secede on February 1, 1861. 

The decision to secede wasn't sudden. The Republican Party had risen from the ashes of the Whig party, drawing together diverse interests with the unifying principle of ending the extension of slavery. (Not its abolition, at least not initially, although it was regarded as an abolitionist party by at least some in the South.) That the party hadn't existed 8 short years before - that it had won the presidency on only the second such election in which it had existed - showed that there was a strong interest in such a party.

In half of the country, anyway.

While easily winning the Electoral College, Lincoln had only received 40% of the popular vote countrywide - and practically none in the South. Opposing slavery in new territories and states, it was clear, meant that the slave states would become a less powerful bloc as they become more of a minority. The success of Lincoln and the Republican Party made obvious to the southern states that this result was inevitable, as long as they were part of the United States.

At the time, the oath of office was not given until the start of spring - March 25. After South Carolina's secession,  the sitting president, James Buchanan, still had nearly 3 full months to take action. The seizure of eleven federal forts and arsenals would have been reasonable grounds for a military response. What he did, though, was...nothing. As more states seceded, he continued to do nothing, eventually leaving Lincoln with a sundered country and no Federal response. The American Civil War would begin in April at Fort Sumter, and would last through Lincoln's presidency, past his re-election and second inauguration. Four long years of war.

Predictions

Just because this guy was right before, doesn't mean he's right now. There were plenty of predictions about which way the economy was headed in the mid-Oughts.  Some were going to be very right, and some were going to be very wrong - but nobody remembers the wrong ones.

For that matter, Mister Rajan throws a lot of possibilities at the wall, here. Something is bound to stick.

Having said that...yes, the stock market is in a state that can make one uncertain of the meaning of "value." There are assets out there that appear improperly priced. Cheap money may be behind it all. Bull markets don't last forever - even when they represent an economy that has barely recovered from five or six years ago.

And if the economy was to go into decline from here, the effect might be akin to one of those aftershocks that knocks down buildings weakened by the main earthquake.

In any case, his prediction last time took two to three years (depending on who's counting) to come to pass. There might be time to prepare, for anyone concerned.



Note: Do not watch this video before reading the Time article because you will not be able to get the cadence of Brawndo catchphrases out of your head.

Negotiations

This is not really Crisis-driven as such, although it is an unexpected combination of two recent posts:

Amazon is in a dispute  - or negotiations, hard to tell the difference sometimes - with Disney over the pricing of DVDs Blu-rays physical copies of movies for home use. Like Hatchette, some Disney-sourced products -- pre-orders of Captain America: The Winter Soldier being specifically mentioned - are not currently being offered for sale. Unlike Hatchette, Disney is a household name that Amazon is not going to be able to sneak under the radar. (Coincidentally, Hatchette recently purchased former Disney publishing house Hyperion.)

Also unusually, the article includes the following sentence:

A particular concern of Amazon, those people noted, is that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and other brick-and-mortar retailers sometimes charge less than the wholesale price for a new disc to lure people into stores so that they will purchase other, more profitable items. Amazon often tries to match those prices, but doesn't reap the benefits of drawing customers into a physical showroom.

Usually, when "Amazon" and "warehouse" and "brick-and-mortar" are in a sentence, it's to note that a brick-and-mortar store is being treated as an Amazon showroom. This often includes a note about the costs of having a physical location, which Amazon doesn't have to deal with. In this case, however, the advantage of an actual store is touted - and, indeed, Amazon is trying to get something like preferential treatment to allow for it. While it isn't exactly like slowing down your customers because you don't like the deal you gave them any more, it's also not exactly a "let the market decide"tactic.

And while it's not clear how much it has to do with the Crisis, it's also mentioned that Amazon may be using these hardball tactics because it's under pressure from its stockholders. Evidently the stock dropped after the most recent earnings were released with a larger-than-expected loss. There are times it seems like Amazon is still living in the dot-com Third Turning, and is only now realizing the Crisis has arrived.

Robin

There's a post from a while back that notes that while Generation X may discount the importance of the Awakening, there were still unavoidable influences that weren't always adversarial or otherwise negative.

Similarly, while Boomers may be Gen X's least favorite people as a group, many of them had a direct and positive influence. Including the late Robin Williams.

There are people who think Dead Poet's Society is not only a great but an important film.  There are probably fewer that consider Hook a compressed microcosm of the post-Awakening Boomer mindset, even if it seems like an example to Gen X of What Not To Do When You Grow Up. (It does, however, have a Prophet who succeeds without sacrifice, based on pure moral superiority, in an effort to save the next generation....)

If there was one undeniable chunk of his art that touched us when we were willing to listen, though, it was the comedy album Reality ... What a Concept. Frequently played at parties or wherever people were together in the early 80s,  the source of its subversive attitude wasn't easy to pin down.  It was definitely different from the albums put together by the previous generation of comics. The only similarity was in having cuts where one section ended and another began, usually where a specific persona was started or stopped. The rapid-fire references, and lightning moves from one line to another, all said that How Things Were Done didn't have to be the only way. It was funny where you knew what he was saying, it was funny where you didn't, it was funny when he was ridiculing Old(er) Hollywood ("send in the clowns") or then-active televangelists ("I know you can walk without that chair!").

Prophets are supposed to rebel against What Came Before, tearing down so that a new world can be built up again. Some, Robin Williams, do it more thoroughly than others.  Nobody will quite be able to walk in his footsteps, for he made quite a mark.

Throttling

Simply because the government may be a focus of this Crisis doesn't mean the rest of our society will get off easy.

"All the kids do it" was never something that worked with me when I was growing up and it didn’t work with my kids.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on Verizon's defense of its plan

for handling heavy users of unlimited data plans. 

Verizon had previously set up unlimited data plans for use with smartphones. These were okay when a common use was web access and the occasional file download. As apps with heavy data usage requirements became prevalent - video apps like Netflix and Youtube, audio like Pandora and iTunes Radio - "unlimited" started to become a significant issue.  In fact, you can no longer buy unlimited data plans.  If you have one, though, and you don't mind not signing a new contract - which also means paying full price for any replacement phone - you can continue using it. Evidently, some people are using it more than Verizon would like. The company plans to slow down these users when the network is busy.

Chairman Wheeler doesn't consider this a reasonable limit for "unlimited" users. Verizon responded that it has become a standard industry practice. And that's where Wheeler's comment above comes in.

Is it right for Verizon to change the rules on people with unlimited plans? Is it right for people who have a pre-existing agreement with Verizon to pay the price because the company didn't do a proper assessment of the true costs of their offers? Is it right for the government to insist that the company update its infrastructure to support the offers made to, then accepted by, their customers?

There are people who will say the market is right, and the government should stay out of it. There are those who say that it is the responsibility of the government to support the enforcement of contracts, and that the market doesn't mean much if contract terms can be ignored simply because they have become more expensive than when the contract was signed.  The force of the Federal Government is not something that any company can withstand for extended periods, regardless of whether the government's case has merit. On the other hand, an individual user does not normally have any leverage over a company like Verizon, except as made available through government actions.

There appears to be a need, ultimately, to balance out the power differentials in both equations.The government needs to enforce lawful contracts, while avoiding abuses. And companies cannot be allowed to hide behind its customer's relative ignorance of their rights. It is easy to imagine these becoming the focal point of the Crisis - that people will demand more accountability from the government while also expecting companies to do the right thing.

It's not like Corporate America has a higher approval rating than the Feds.

Paperback

As previously noted, when a phrase comes up in the background frequently, it's often because it's in the news. So it is with "paperback," today.

There's a mashup of Paperback Writer with My Sharona on Youtube:




The song came up recently because of the dispute between Amazon and the publishing house Hatchette. Amazon is trying to charge lower prices for ebooks, Hatchette and others are resisting something they expect to cut into profits. At least some authors are concerned about their cut, as well.

Amazon is comparing the situation with what happened when paperbacks came out. Penguin Books started publishing paperbacks in 1935, for a much lower price than the hardcovers before them. Amazon trots out George Orwell as someone who opposed what was effectively a lower price for his products. The implication was that Hatchette was objecting to ebook publishing for similar reasons.

A continued reading of the Penguin Books wikipedia article indicates that the company was able to use its initial success to be a major publisher during World War II. It then took advantage of its privileged position in paper rationing to continue expansion after the war. Evidently their paper availability made it possible for them to acquire publishing rights more easily in the post-war era. Which may be where Amazon is looking. And it's worth noting that 1935 is about the same point in the last Crisis that we are in now.

Paperback Writer was released as a single in 1966. Being roughly 30 years after the launch of Penguin Books, whatever may have been the popular perception of paperback books, it probably wasn't quite the same as Orwell's, any more. The story goes that Paul McCartney's aunt wanted to hear a song that wasn't about love. Seeing Ringo with a book soon after, he wrote a song about writing a book.  So perhaps no deeper meaning about paperbacks, there.

Note that this story is attributed to A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song by Steve Turner - published by Harper Paperbacks.

Trust

A CNN poll, just in time for the 40th anniversary of Nixon's resignation, says hardly anyone trusts the government.

Just 13% of Americans say the government can be trusted to do what is right always or most of the time, with just over three-quarters saying only some of the time and one in 10 saying they never trust the government, according to the poll.

There is a mention of a generational divide with regards to Watergate, although it's marked at "older than 40" and "under 40." This is less a generational divide than a division between those who remember the time and those who do not.  Generation X would be those 53 or younger; Millennials 33 or younger. It's hardly a surprise that Boomers would consider Watergate a "very serious problem." Nixon was GI Generation, so they might have had his back, except that few are left.

A bigger question is whether the government can effectively continue with numbers like these. Go outside, find 10 people, and one of them will say never to trust the government. Not ever.  Only one of them - perhaps two - believes the government will usually do the right thing.   It makes clear that one serious possibility of this Crisis is a Jeffersonian revolution - not necessarily with as hopeful an ending as Jefferson expected.

And while trust is being discussed, take a look at Bitsy Bear. A young monkey isn't careful, and his parents lose track of him for a moment, so he naturally ends up kidnapped by a bear with a banana. Strauss & Howe mention "neurotic" as one of the negative attributes of Artist generations, and this sort of misplaced concern is probably how they end up that way.

Not that it's surprising that parents will be especially protective, even to a fault, during a Crisis.

1675

Another entry for The Grid.

Much of what is described below is summarized from Charles C. Mann's great book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.
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Crisis - 1675 - King Philip's War

There are a number of reasons why the native Americans might not have immediately resisted encroachments of European settlers after 1492. There appear to have been enough of them to have effectively prevented settlement, if desired.  It's likely that the original settlement attempts by Vikings failed due to just such resistance. It was many years before firearms would be as accurate and quickly loaded as bows and arrows, and steel armor would not have been sufficient when (as initially happened) the new arrivals were outnumbered hundreds to one. 

The Europeans who followed Columbus, however, could count among their advantages the diseases of the old world.  When the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth, it was barely two years after an epidemic had nearly wiped the area clean of any natives that might have resisted. The elimination of whole towns destabilized the native political landscape. Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag tribe, thus had ample incentive (and little choice) to ally with the Pilgrims against the other local tribes. 

Massasoit continued the productive but increasingly uneasy peace with the Plymouth Colony  for about 40 years, until his death in 1661. His son Wamsutta (who had been given the English name Alexander, as in "the Great") ruled for only a year before he suddenly died after visiting with English officials. Metacomet, Massasoit's second son (known also as Philip, as in "of Macedon") , was suspicious of the timing and may have believed that his brother was poisoned.   Over the next ten years, "King Philip" would begin to organize a rebellion against the colonists. After years of simmering disagreements, unyielding combat would began in 1675.

The effort had some successes at first. Through the winter of 1675, King Philips's forces were able to force the colonists from outlying settlements and concentrate them in their larger towns. The natives' store of food and other supplies were limited, however, and they were greatly outnumbered by the colonists. By summer of 1676, Metacomet's forces switched from offensive to defensive operations, and many of his allies deserted him. He was forced to hide in Assowamset Swamp, near Providence, Rhode Island. On August 12, 1676, he was shot and killed by John Alderman, a Wampanoag who had allied with the English.  His death ended the war, although a few minor skirmishes followed.

During this short period of just over a year, perhaps 800 colonists and 3000 Native Americans were killed. Looking only at the number of casualties, King Philip's War appears to be an easy win for the colonists. However, the colonial losses were a significant percentage of all the English colonists in the new world, and was probably a personal loss for every colonist remaining. For the first time, the colonists had a common experience that was not shared by their fellow English in the Old World. King Philip's War can thus be seen as the start of a distinctly American personality.

Prevail

The famous high-water mark description in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shares an important word with the 1984 commercial for Macintosh. And it turns out that's an early word in Al Gore's Turning Point article in Rolling Stone as well:

Our energy would simply PREVAIL.

...we will ultimately prevail...

We shall prevail!

While Hunter Thompson (born 1937) was Silent, that bit of prose was all about the counterculture and What The Sixties Meant.  Al Gore is practically the Platonic ideal of the Boomer. While Steve Jobs didn't write the 1984 commercial, it's still such a dose of revolutionary exuberance that it seems very much a Prophet sentiment. Even if (or because?) Big Brother is saying those words, scant moments before a sledgehammer flies through his telescreen.

"Prevail" carries the tone of inevitability and eternal success. It takes confidence to pull it off - people may think you are bluffing, unless you really believe it. Gore, at least, seems to have that confidence, only a few years after An Inconvenient Truth.

Hunger

Let's just say it again: The Hunger Games is such a Crisis novel/movie/universe, and Katniss is such a Hero. She volunteers to save her sister at risk of her life,  gives her (likely-Nomad) mother the what-for after the Reaping, and changes the world just through trying to survive. Nomad Haymitch - winner of the games 24 years before - displays Bad qualities so perfectly while also being the best hope of Katniss and Peeta, with his practical and honest assessment of the situation and what is really needed to have a chance. The victory is won through the teamwork of the two District 12 tributes, plus of course Katniss' working with Rue - while the Careers work together as well.

Then the events of the first part lead into a massive change in the way the world works, in part with a "revival of civic authority," as "people begin to locate themselves as part of a larger group." No coincidence, again, that it is happening roughly 80 years after the Treason that started the Games in the first place, placing these events where a new Crisis would be expected.

Green

Also included in Al Gore's Turning Point article in Rolling Stone is a reference to the Green Tea Coalition. One of the worst political puns ever, it is an "unholy alliance" between the anti-government Tea Party and the Sierra Club. They have particularly worked against the Koch brothers, who have been opposing rooftop solar generation. The Sierra Club wants more solar, the Tea Party wants less government intervention in the market (as the Koch brothers are pushing for, in order to preserve their monopolies) - it works.

One could look at How We Really Know We're In The Crisis and see ... nothing that sounds quite like this. Maybe "Cultural Expression Finds a Community Purpose" as plenty of these folks see this as a group effort. It does seem significant that there is a definite decision, here, to triumph over a common enemy through teamwork.

Confirmation

A few different things going on, so a couple of other notes from the Crisis before going back to the Al Gore article:

A previous post mentioned Manhattan Project workers going skiing. Although it doesn't include the specific photograph referenced there, Nuclear Secrecy has a post that is probably related to it. It points to local television coverage of film footage found in early 2012.

Guardians of the Galaxy had a very good opening weekend: 94 million dollars worth. Evidently Star-Lord is a late Gen-Xer, born in 1979 or close to it, and the film goes primarily with the Nomad story. As might be expected based on the "bad" attributes of the title characters.

There were occasional showers in the Los Angeles area today. It is supposed to be a Mediterranean climate, so summer humidity and showers are not at all common. This could be because of global warming, or could be short-term variation - detailed weather records based on direct experience only go back about one hundred years. While there is evidence that climate change is real and is human caused and is based on the burning of fossil fuels, there is that concern that confirmation bias is not limited only to the deniers.  It can seem like everything that happens is taken as evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming... unless everything that happens is evidence against it.

Really, it's probably part of the Crisis itself that there will be disagreement - over the real problem(s), over the appropriate solution(s), over who is engaging in ad hominem and who is ignoring obvious evidence  - until such time as the options collapse to the specific problems that can be fixed, the specific solutions that can be implemented, and the evidence can be generally accepted.

Solarization

In a recent article in Rolling Stone, Al Gore notes some good news with regards to climate change: Solar energy is being used more and more as generation costs decrease. Some countries are "skipping" the carbon-based part of energy generation as they go from burning wood and manure directly to installing and using solar cells for electricity.

(Yes, certainly, those are carbon-based energy forms. They don't release previously sequestered carbon dioxide, though, but only what was stored when the grass-which-became-manure and the trees were grown, in the recent past. They are carbon neutral over a short time period.)

There is actually quite a bit in there to mention. To start, Dick Morris, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore had all read Generations in the lead-up to the 1992 election. Dick Morris specifically mentions that Clinton choosing Gore as a way to solidify their appeal as a generational bloc. It seems at least possible that Gore is incorporating a generational perspective here.

One possible reason for the sudden drop in solar prices: Investment in solar companies by people who either thought it was important, or thought other people thought it was important. That Solar Bubble started in the early days of the 21st century as governments in Europe and elsewhere supported green energy.  When it popped, companies went bankrupt, investors lost money, but the equipment had been purchased and was available for reuse.

While this is speculative, it does seem likely that equipment for creating solar cells is very specific to that use, not easily repurposed. If so, anyone purchasing that equipment (at a discount) from bankrupt companies would have used it to create solar cells. If the price for the equipment was lower, the effective cost of creating the cells was lower, and the minimum sales price as well.

This can be tied together to note that simply having enough people willing to invest, in a sufficiently efficient market, can bring about change - even if those people lose money, on companies that can't manage to continue as going concerns.  The generational model gives a way in which that might happen - and might have happened in this case.

Heroics

The following inference floated out of a quick view of the How to Train Your Dragon animation world: The hero begins as an outsider trying to fit in who transforms the world without directly trying to (at least at first.) 

Is this a common Hero attribute? Examining a few recent and well known texts:

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (The original, that is, later renamed A New Hope): YES. He’s trying to get a few droids working one day, rescuing a Princess the next, streaking over a massive battle station and reinvigorating a nearly extinguished warrior tradition soon after.  Seems to match when looking only at this, although he later appears to fit the Prophet mold better - at which point he is acting with much more direction and determination.

Anakin Skywalker: UNCERTAIN. Similarly fits about as well as Luke does, but not in a good way. As Luke appears (eventually) to be a Prophet, Anakin naturally would be of a Hero generation. The existing movies don't work well in the Saeculum model, though.

George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life: YES. Saves Bedford Falls from an alternate reality as Pottersville despite spending at least half of his life trying to leave it behind. That might not quite count as a transformation, although the point is that the world would have been quite different without him.

Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games trilogy: YES. She volunteers to save her sister, and does what’s needed to “win” for her own survival. Soon after - and evidently without her involvement, much less desire - she is the symbol for change across the continent.

Harry Potter: YES. Outsider trying hard to fit in, without understanding of how the world works, but with a number of advantages that allow him to transform from a world with the threat of Voldemort to one without him or other Death Eaters.

Wall*E: NO. Fits as well as the others, which is unfortunate, as previous analysis suggests he’s an Artist rather than a Hero. It doesn’t fit well for The Apartment (noted here as having similarities to Wall*E), though.

Indiana Jones: YES. He's a Nomad, and does not fit this description. His efforts lead to a largely unchanged world, and everyone is happier for it.

Captain America (and The Winter Soldier): YES, in both. 

Still, it might be that this is a common way to structure a story, so there shouldn’t be too much read into it.