The Attack on Charlie Hebdo

Twelve were killed at a French satirical newspaper called Charlie Hebdo.  It was targeted by Islamic terrorists, because the staff published caricatures of Mohammed.

While this was far from the most deadly terrorist attack, it may turn out to be one of the most significant. Although the attack is much different from the Sony hack, it's inspiring a similar response: People aren't standing for it.

John Minchillo / Associated Press

As a society, we are not willing to die for freedom of speech - yet - but we are becoming very concerned about infringement on freedoms. Theaters not willing to show The Interview led to Sony Pictures pulling the film from distribution, which led to people objecting to it, which led to it being released anyway. And now this attack has led many more people to Charlie Hebdo's site, to what they do - to the very images which the attackers opposed.

This is also known as the Streisand Effect: Barbra objected to a picture of her house being included in a web-based survey of the California coastline. She threatened to sue, not wanting everyone in the world to know exactly what her house looked like. Unfortunately, this led to the lawsuit being published in newspapers, which led people to the survey, which led to many more people gaining access to this information. Sony says it won't show a movie, so everyone demands it be shown. And an obscure French satire site displaying pictures that nobody would really have cared about, is now getting . And those caricatures? Available all over the Internet, and soon to be on t-shirts.

The question comes up sometimes: How can the coddled, protected Heroes become the saviors of civilization? They've never known suffering, they don't have inherent moral strength, they never had to be strong and tough....but they do know what they have, and they trust in their friends, and they know their friends have their backs, too.  Millennials who have been able to express themselves - pamphleteers of everything they think or act or do - appear to take this seriously, perhaps enough to war against it. The war may be starting already.

Today in Apocalypse

Still lurking about?

Last time I searched the news for Apocalypse, all that showed up was a new X-Men movie. It still shows up - but not at the top of the list.

Today, "Apocalypse" gets you footage of the legendary CNN video planned for the end of the world.




Seems like cheating a bit, doesn't it?

Gremlins 2 has a bit of fun with this as well: The Turner-esque head ("Casablanca! Now in color! And with a happier ending!") of Clamp Cable Network has a similar video, which seems appropriate for the threatened gremlin invasion.

Because of the end of civilization, the Clamp Cable Network now leaves the air. We hope you've enjoyed our programming, but more importantly, we hope you've enjoyed... life.

Chapel

It is a perhaps deluded expectation that art can reveal the Turning in which it was produced.

At the risk of confirmation bias here is one example that worked :



This is the United States Air Force Academy Chapel.  For a place of worship, this is really quite radical architecture. For one at a service academy - what could be expected as a conservative bastion - even more so.

On second view, though, it is also aspirational, pointing to the heavens and looking to the future. Perhaps it is more a product of an age when anything is possible.

And from that came the conclusion that it is First Turning, but late enough for the radical design to be accepted. (Note for comparison that the barracks are very functional and limited in appeal ... although they also can be seen as a version of mid-century modern.)

The answer, as it turns out, is that the Air Force Academy Chapel was completed in 1962 - near the end of the American High (First Turning), just before the start of the Consciousness Revolution (Second Turning).

Privateers of the Data Wars

How My Mom Got Hacked is a description of an attack using Crypto Wall, a type of malware that encrypts your files then demands a ransom to decrypt them.

It's another possible way a Data Wars scenario could play out. Encourage a bunch of your guys to set up offensive operations like this and...well, that's really about it. Privateers didn't need to pay back their letters of marque; those were a help to their issuing government simply by decreasing enemy resources. (That it carried a negligible cost to that government was another advantage.)

Evidently there was a requirement for privateers to treat those captured "courteously and kindly." For reasons straightforward, and not necessarily altruistic,  this is followed by the folks behind this aforementioned hack, too - when the payment was made just a little too late for reasons outside of Mom's control, the ransomers accepted it anyway, upon explanation.

1776: Adam Smith

"Nothing important happened today."

Purported diary entry of King George III on July 4, 1776 

The year 1776 has at least two important events: The Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies, and the publishing of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.

Note that one event refers to governments, organizations, while the other refers to a single person by name. Adam Smith is synonymous with capitalism and classical economics, where an "invisible hand" hidden within markets causes supply to handle demand and demand to regulate supply.  For the Declaration, Jefferson is known for drafting it, Hancock for his signature, Franklin for being, uh, himself...but mostly it's thought of as "what the Founding Fathers did." And that's likely because its impact goes beyond what was written - not just ideological ("we're independent because we can be")  but also military tactics ("so we're all-in on this war because we're going to be executed for treason if we lose") and diplomatic ("we are accepting help from any nation who wants to support freedom ... or annoy Great Britain.") Even if the writing was mostly one person, the implementation involved anyone involved in the American Revolution.

Which is a way of suggesting that in 1776, Britain was still in its Third Turning, while the United States was in its Fourth. This seems to correlate with the 1783 speech in Highlander, where historical figures are named with regard to Austria (Mozart) and France (the Montgolfier brothers), suggesting they are in a Third Turning. Meanwhile the United States as a group is referred to concerning the recognition of independence - a Fourth Turning indicator.

This could help to show that Europe and Britain and the Colonies had been drifting out of sync with each other for some time. The Colonies entered their Fourth Turning by 1773, while Britain (still in a Third) might have been unable to focus resources until they were too late to be of help.

Today in Crisis

Russia's financial crisis continues although the Russians are taking it in stride.

The UK's National Health Service in crisis ahead of what is expected to be a rough winter.

A review of a book on the coming retirement crisis (with a bonus "apocalypse" as well).

Greece in a political crisis  - or financial - or maybe both.

The Ebola crisis should be over in 2015. Or could be, anyway.

More variety in Crisis than has shown up recently.

Collapse isn't showing much, although there's a nice satire of what people are thinking on Forbes. And a surprising number of references to the Cotton Bowl. And a parcel delivery service called City Link, which is down for the count.

Nothing new for Cloverfield, incidentally.

Finishing the Grid

With a flurry of activity over the last week, I was able to finish up The Grid - which is to say, a system of dates and memorable events that enable context for most of the last 500 years of history. An additional advantage is being able to recreate it easily once the rules are known: Start from a known 4T/Crisis date, move along at about 100-year intervals to find previous and following crises; halfway between those dates you'll find 2T/Awakening events; and then split the remaining intervals to get 1T/High and 3T/Unraveling events.

This last burst was to finish up the Third Turning, which ended up mostly about technological advancement. Not too surprising, since its a way that individuals can distinguish themselves enough to be personally known. 

(It might be the case that Third Turning politicians also are well-known enough - we know Clinton and Bush; Coolidge and Hoover...the notion falls down before the Civil War, though.)

In any case, the final entries were

1752 - Benjamin Franklin experiments with electricity

1852 - Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin

1927 - Lindbergh flies solo from New York to Paris

1990 - Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web

The largest gaps left now are about - well, the largest one is between 1629 and 1666, 37 years. The 3T items ended up being close to the 4T events, making them often distant from the 2T ones. Still, the distance between any potential event in these last 522 years is roughly 20 years. Which makes it possible to identify other events by their distance from one of these, and be generally within a couple of decades of a known item in the Grid.

Which is, hopefully useful, if only by allowing one to be aware of the larger flow of history while looking at specific happenings.