dohboi wrote:Thanks for the overview of elements of the history of the last couple centuries. I couldn't glean from it where you thought what pendulum was swinging from what pole to what other pole, but then I tend to be a bit dense about these things.
By the way, as my comments above indicate, I tend to think that you are right when you say, "we are heading for an increasingly Authoritarian style of government"
I just don't think that there is anything totally deterministic about it. Events could change that trajectory, as could effective people's movements of various sorts.
And if there was some overriding basic human need for structure that was overwhelmingly more powerful than human needs for freedom, I can't quite see where the frequent rebellions and revolutions against said 'structure' throughout history would have come from.
As some philosopher or other once said, iirc, "Structure and lack of structure are equally lethal to the human spirit."
ROFL the Pendulum I was pointing out is the agricultural one. Without super cheap energy and chemicals we can not maintain the mechanical agriculture paradigm and many or even most people will have to go back to working in the fields to feed all of us. Modern Americans tend to sneer at the self sufficient farm, but in the real world wherever energy is expensive farming is what people do.
As part of that swing from excess free time today we will be back to seasonal free time like farmers had before industrial farming became the rule. My prediction, Farmers in 2200 AD will be like farmers from 1850 or earlier. Life for those living then will be structured around the seasons with planting tending and harvest just as it was for all of recorded history. The 50 percent of the current world population who produce 10 percent of the pollution are all small time subsistence farmers, or people in slums in the third world who have even fewer opportunities than the farmers. By Farmers I don't mean the owner-class who manage the labor of others exclusively, I mean the people who get dirty and sweaty actually working to produce the food of the region where they live. If you own a small farm and work with your employees to get things done you are a farmer. If you sit in an office all day 'managing' without ever getting out and doing something then you are at best someone who worked their way up from labor, but in many cases you are just a business type with little appreciation of the actual process of food production. I would bet Pops appreciates beef a lot more today than he did 30 years ago because he spent time raising cattle and learning the ins and outs.