Topic: Age Of Confilct (Read 896 times)

Yes, that's true but they can't get away by riding a fistfull of pills or sacks of GMO corn if things turn rough for them. That's why I suggested building spaceships .

Anyway going to other planets could be a solution for many issues. A new age of exploration and expansion could put humanity back on track. (An could be a good way for evading the annihilation our entire race if things not panning out in a good way here in this planet.)

They seem to be primarily focused on biology and medicine, and this is understandable. Space technology is vague and risky, but pharma pays back quickly and most likely helps all those senile billionaires personally (George Soros, Warren Buffett, David Rockefeller, just to name a few).

We can call it "weimarization" and we seen where it led in the past. There is growing internal pressure in the western civilization and the elite trying to keep the lid in place by applying external pressure (russian menace, islamists, global warming, swine flu, etc.) and by a series of "safety valves" (ranging from subsidizing stuff to localized ethnic conflicts) for keeping us divided, self oriented and busy all the time. So I'd say they've learned their lessons but they are still too greedy and arrogant. In addition nowadays they are getting negligent. Perhaps the apathy of the routine or maybe they are confident in their powers.

BTW I think the elite should concentrate on space technology .

The problem is that people are seeking security and safety and think they can get something from free from the state when the state will take it to someone else who would have use it to produce more or better goods and services.
When the State takes 100, it spends 40 to 90 and only give back 10 to 60.

so fucking wrong, those parents, mothers and fathers particularly chose to fuck (primal) rather than fight against exploitation, what do you expect to happen then? Don't whine, life is hardcore where ever you are, but for the ctrl+p (in fact even for them, it's like wwz for them, answer Georgia guide stone).


when an empire start to mess it's own food supply (the one of the people) you know they know where they stand. then they get backed by the usmiic in their endeavor, you know where they stand on and on... remember when the real shtf.

Very interesting, I haven't seen this before.

How long do you think we've been in the age of conflict?

It seems like the Universal Empire phase is really just people agreeing to get along in return for a period of stability. The power doesn't become less centralized, wealth isn't spread, etc.

Some might argue that we're already in Decay...scary thought.

It's true too much wealth is in the hands of the rich and too much money is spent on new weapons, while people are starving. The world starts to look like a pot about to boil over.

I think we might be on the verge of the age of revolution.

There has been too much redistribution of wealth from the masses to the rich, most cannot afford to buy a house, pensions will be low and paid only after 75 years of age or more. I think the 'rich' countries populations will rise soon, it will start with civil disobedience, but soon change will be demanded.

Almost the same is written in the works of Lev Gumilev's. According to him, any ethnic group (which could loosely be called civilization) passes through the same stages of birth, development, climax, inertia, convolution, and memorial.

Also, Quigley presents a table of civilizations conspicuously lacking the Chinese one, which is as old as a few millenia, and obviously doesn't fit in well with his classification.

The Seven Stages of Civilization (C A R R O L L   Q U I G L E Y)

4. Age of Conflict

As noted earlier, eventually all instruments become institutions. Once this process has occurred to a substantial degree to a civilization's instrument of expansion, the civilization enters an age of conflict.

This period is marked by four trends:

a decline in the rate of expansion
an increase in class conflicts, especially in the core
an increase in imperialistic wars
an increase in irrationality and general pessimism

As the instrument of expansion becomes an institution in order to preserve the privileges of the elite, the civilization--particularly in the core--becomes more static, bureaucratized and legalistic. This tends to punish innovation instead of rewarding it, and progress in the accumulation of surplus is slowed as a result of the decline in inventiveness.

This does not go unnoticed by a civilization's members. Although it is a decline in the rate of expansion, not an actual decline in expansion (that is, a contraction), an advanced civilization is so accustomed to expansion that it cannot not expand. To put it another way, survival requires accelerating growth, and once such growth has begun, it must continue. (This is one of the primary criticisms against "progress" from both the environmentalist Left and the culturalist Right. Both have a point, but both also fail to realize that the only real-world alternative is no civilization at all.)

The declining rate of expansion pits the entrenched elite against the great mass of the people. When resources are perceived as being limited, competition between classes ensues. "The rich" hang on to their wealth and prerogatives, but, realizing that they are in the minority, divert the attention of the increasingly resentful masses with entertainment, and appease them with token gestures of wealth redistribution.

Meanwhile, resentment at not enjoying the same increase in the standard of living as their parents leads the masses to feel insecure, and this feeling manifests as social disruption and other irrational behavior. As Quigley describes it: "This is generally a period of gambling, use of narcotics or intoxicants, obsession with sex (frequently as perversion), increasing crime, growing numbers of neurotics and psychotics, growing obsession with death and with the Hereafter."

Most prominently, wars of imperialism begin. These are attempts to impose a single political structure on the entire civilization, to achieve economic expansion by political means. These conflicts usually occur from the outside in. That is, wars of imperialism are generally waged by the political entities on the periphery of a civilization against the core. As the core succumbs first to a declining rate of expansion, and as unrest peaks there first, the more dynamic peripheral states conclude (not unreasonably, from their perspective) that "the center is hollow, it cannot stand." Rather than expanding outward, the smaller boundary states first consume each other, then they turn their attention inward, fighting over the remains of the core until one state (usually one of the most peripheral) has imposed its political structure over the entire civilization.


http://www.draftymanor.com/bart/h_quigl3.htm