Monday, November 17, 2014

Research

A few weeks ago I realized that the 1692 Salem witch hunts weren't quite in a First Turning after all. I skipped merrily past the period at the time, because it can take a while to identify a date that really represents an era.

Not always, of course: The most recent First had other choices including Kennedy Calling the Moon Shot, while in the previous second there were multiple other options for 1896. And Crisis periods are really easy, since there's always something happening somewhere.

The Augustan Age of Empire, though, is not one of those. It does feel like a First Turning, although the main indicator it has is unforgivable dullness. Not only is it difficult to find something appropriate to what is expected from a First (e.g. exploration, infrastructure, corruption, witch hunts) it takes some work to find anything interesting at all. The process being used may be part of the problem, although it's too convenient not to try:
1) Look up the first year of the Turning - i.e 1704  - on Wikipedia
2) Check what was posted for that year, which is often a good summary of what interesting things happened.
3) If available, pick an event that matches the expectations for the Turning
4) And then start turning it into an interesting and amusing post.

After going through every year through 1727, I found the following:


The best option right now appears to be The Longitude Prize. We'll see.






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