So, what did happen in 2016?

[MadImmortalMan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSWJq-jUTMc

Explains it all.

[Eddie Teach]

Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   

One of his more succinct posts.

[grumbler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSWJq-jUTMc

Explains it all.

That wasn't bad at all.  Loved the Jeremy Corbyn bit.

[grumbler]

Oh sorry, I didn't realize that Jos was suppose to learn from a scenario that was constructed such that you could only consider what was stated in the scenario and then use in-scenario logic to then learn a lesson about our reality.  Had I realized that, I wouldn't have said anything but just filed it under useless posts.

  Yes, the most basic principal of economics is declared by you to be "useless," so I guess all those economists and economics professors can just get another job.

Unless, of course, it is you who is making the useless posts.  Ever consider that?  Ever think that maybe, contrary to what you and Jos believe, demand really IS infinite, like all of the economists (and, really, all the educated people) say?

That would explain a lot that you and Josq are confused about.

Not the principal, McVain, your post with its 'lesson'.

Principal McVain? Who is he?  What does he have to do with economic concepts you don't comprehend?

[Razgovory]

Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   Whoosh!   

One of his more succinct posts.

Grumbler is more fun, interesting and coherent when I imagine him just making whooshing sounds.  It's better than Grumbler the super lawyer-economist-codebreaker-admiral-celebrity chef.  He also multi-classed as Fighter/Cleric/Bard.

[Ed Anger]

I used to have 96 hit points. 

[CountDeMoney]

Ed used to have a Bag of Holding.  Now he's just Holding a Bag.

[PRC]

*I believe that before someone sticks their fingers up your butt, he at least should take the time to properly kiss you on the lips first.

That's usually an extra charge.  They'll list it as GFE in the classified ad.

I only let female doctors give me that exam. Not gay then.

I ask for a second opinion and she gives me two fingers.

[alfred russel]

*I believe that before someone sticks their fingers up your butt, he at least should take the time to properly kiss you on the lips first.

Tell Christian Wilkins (Clemson defensive tackle) that.

He is just a young man experimenting with things that are still illegal in South Carolina.

[DGuller]

*I believe that before someone sticks their fingers up your butt, he at least should take the time to properly kiss you on the lips first.

Tell Christian Wilkins (Clemson defensive tackle) that.

[Oexmelin]

Ever think that maybe, contrary to what you and Jos believe, demand really IS infinite, like all of the economists (and, really, all the educated people) say?

You should expand your reading list.

[grumbler]

Ever think that maybe, contrary to what you and Jos believe, demand really IS infinite, like all of the economists (and, really, all the educated people) say?

You should expand your reading list.

Alas, while my demand for reading is infinite, my supply of time for reading is finite.  I'd be glad to consider some suggestions, of course.  Especially from economists who don't think the demand is infinite, and that there is therefor no (or a different) Economic Problem and, thus, another explanation for such things as The Tragedy of the Commons.

[Jacob]

I can't shake the feeling that something monumental is happening, and it's happening over much of the Western world.  Trump may not just be an awful accident of history, he may be part of a trend.  When history will be written (if we survive long enough to have history written about contemporary times), it would almost surely identify the current times as the beginning of a period, at least on the scale of something like an Arab Spring.

But what is behind it?  Is it that the values the western civilization is promoting have grown to be too far out of sync with what people really are believing?  Did we just completely get surprised by the power of social media to create alternate realities, and there were no underlying tensions there until they just randomly mutated in that environment like cancer cells (with a little help from Saint Petersburg)?  Has the world been too stable geopolitically and now everyone is getting overwhelmed by pent up tension to resolve simmering conflicts?  Is the effect of globalization producing too much social instability and it manifests itself in wildly irrational and self-defeating ways?

Any thoughts?

Some semi-connected thoughts - mostly covering the same points you brought up:

I think there's been a shift in the way that ideas are propagated and consequently in the way that public opinion is shaped. In terms of deliberate state actors, both China and Russia (and others) are - I believe - committing heavily to control and influence opinion online both internally and externally. Conversely, in the West that is all - as according to our ideology - left in the hands of private interests which primarily is chasing commercial success. The days of the CIA backing abstract expressionist art seems to be long gone, and the influence of the Hollywood mythmaking machine and American rock 'n roll are fading too, it seems to me. I have a hard time identifying deliberate influential champions for the values of post-WWII Western liberal democracy these days. It may work out - maybe we don't need those champions.

It does seem we are well into a significant social and economic shift with automation and computers making a number of jobs redundant. In the long term I'm sure that'll be fine and we'll adjust - but in the short and medium terms plenty of people will suffer real economic harm and that will generate significant political consequence both in terms of conflicts and solutions. Stepping back, it'll be fine; but living through it will suck for many people (and some people, of course, will benefit immensely).

Definitely it feels to me that we've come to a bit of a crisis point in terms of the multivalent open Western society, with strong reactions gaining traction across many different countries in many different ways.

There are plenty of good points too, of course - the complete integration of social media into everyday life for many people is pretty damn phenomenal in terms of quality of life. The fact that my son can see, talk to, and interact with his grandparents regularly even though they are in China or on the opposite coast (more or less) in Canada is frankly amazing.

There are also lots of other bad points - I'm a little concerned about the rise of anti-vaccine movement, f. ex.

How will this be read in the future in terms of trends/ ages/ movements? Honestly, I think that'll be almost entirely up to the immediate needs of the people doing the reading which is hard to predict for us. Will they care about Trump or Brexit or militant anti-modern Islam? Maybe - but if they do, it'll be to make some argument about what's going on for them in the moment.

If I were to make some sort of analysis of the direction of the world at large, I'd say we're entering into the phase where the lessons - good and bad - of WWII and the conclusions we drew from it are beginning to significantly dissipate. We're getting to the time where the generation of people who were raised by people who personally experienced that time are getting on in years.

[garbon]

If I were to make some sort of analysis of the direction of the world at large, I'd say we're entering into the phase where the lessons - good and bad - of WWII and the conclusions we drew from it are beginning to significantly dissipate. We're getting to the time where the generation of people who were raised by people who personally experienced that time are getting on in years.

I don't know. I mean is there evidence that youth are generally the one's leading these 'negative' changes? Aren't the Boomers playing a significant role?

[Jacob]

I don't know. I mean is there evidence that youth are generally the one's leading these 'negative' changes? Aren't the Boomers playing a significant role?

I'm sure they are - more so when the influencers are people with accumulated economical and political power (since old people tend to have those), less so when they're about rejecting currently established orthodoxy (since that's what young people tend to do). Looking at the "alt right" f. ex, there are plenty of crusty old true believers in various forms to lead and lend an air of continuity to the disparate movements, but they've been significantly buoyed by a swell in gadfly lolsters raised on Nazis-as-uber-cool-villains and auto-didactic historical analysis etc.

I'm not really going to get into a discussion about the qualities and responsibilities of "generations". I find assigning personalities and collective responsibility to ill-defined cohorts of people fairly uninteresting and unproductive. It could as well be that old people have started finding the lessons less relevant than young people learning different things, or it could be that the historical moments and course of events means the lessons have less resonance altogether. To the extent that what I said could be interpreted as blaming "young people", please consider that retracted.

More to the point - the EU has been one of the guarantors of keeping Europe at peace, and it's getting a little shaky. Similarly, flirting with - or embracing - Fascist inspired imagery and language is gaining a fair bit of traction in various parts of Europe as well; something which was pretty unthinkable a decade or more ago, I think.

In the US, the hegemony in global culture seems to be winding down and the US as guarantor of the global order is increasingly coming into question as well. Both of those were, IMO, strongly defined by WWII and the results there of.

In China, the legitimacy of Communist rule rested squarely on the credentials for fighting the Japanese during WWII (credentials largely stolen from the Nationalists as I see it), but now it has largely been replaced by providing economic opportunity and security for the populace which I think is a significant shift. The adherence to Communist ideology - both in China and the former USSR and across the world has pretty much dissipated as well - and Communist states were definitely a fixture of the aftermath of WWII.

The existence and context of Israel has shifted too. The relevance of WWII to the Jewish state has largely faded except as a historical fact.

Now this is obviously an overly broad generalization and plenty of counter examples can be found I'm sure, but if I had to make one that's the one I'd make - unless a better one was offered, of course