The Latest Generation

• Prompt the First: Four years later. In the time of Covid.
  • It's four years since COVID lockdowns. That seems significant to me, in a way that the four year anniversary of 9/11 didn't. But the 1 year anniversary of 9/11 was important, and 4 years wasn't. What's the difference?
• Prompt the Second: Saving the MCU with Generational Analysis
  • A previous look at one small part: http://stories.generationalize.com/2019/06/
  • Iron Man
  • Infinity War - Thanos' Snap
  • Endgame - the Blip and Attack on Avengers Compound, which (i'd say) should be, really, the end of this 4th Turning.
    • "This is the battle of our lives" - Steve Rogers
• The Matrix (1997)
  • The initial tweet https://x.com/petreraleigh/status/1768708381064175908?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA
  • https://x.com/pataphysician/status/1768730842270982520?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA " don't have the attention span for tv"

Re-upping this one, because I've let it go for a bit and coming back to it now.

Consider this one a reminder of things to come.

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The atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - also known as Trinity - occurred only 3 weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and only 7 weeks before the end of the war. Looking at it as the midpoint of that summer, it was only one of many signficant events in the last three months of World War II.

I've started a project looking at each of those days, to create a view of that time, to better understand what went into the decision to create and use the atomic bomb, and how people around the world reacted to it. Starting from Memorial Day, at the end of May 1945, and continuing through Labor Day- the day after the official Japanese surrender - it will look at every single day, finding something something signifcant, or at least noteworthy.

There's Klaus Fuchs, meeting with Harry Gold in Santa Fe on June 2, to pass atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Or Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner, killed on Okinawa on June 18. The first troops returning from Europe on July 1. President Truman leaving for Potsdam on July 7. Clement Atlee winning the election in the United Kingdom on July 26, replacing Churchill as Prime Minister. The bombing of Hiroshima. The August Revolution in Vietnam. The Occupation of Japan starting on August 28. The short ceremony ending the war on September 2nd - a quiet Sunday in a Tokyo Bay, not unlike one four years earlier.

A final episode for the initial Mapping History consolidation, asking the questions "What's Left" and "What Next?"

In Third Turnings we can expect to see

• Less powerful societal structures
• More freedom for individuals to do what they consider worthwhile
• Exciting (if bubbly) economies as individuals explore new opportunities
• Names we still recognize as some individuals make themselves known

As we draw the final side of our map - the Third Turning, or Unraveling - we'll be looking at people like Nicolaus Copernicus, who suggested that the Earth rotates around the Sun. The Unraveling is a time of individual freedom, when people make discoveries, inventions, or achievements - generally without the assistance of governments, in a way that attaches their own names to what they've done.

Stuck at home during the plague year of 1666, young Isaac Newton considered important scientific issues of the day, and quickly made amazing advances in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and general understanding of the universe.

Benjamin Franklin was well known for a number of reasons, but even today "flying a kite in a thunderstorm" is one of the first that comes to mind.

This is a landmark that everyone knows about, and one reason for having it here is to give a specific date to it (1752, that is). There's also the concern over how authentic to consider it - the descriptions here are definitely from Franklin and in that year, even if he was neither to first to try it nor confirmed to have actually done it.

Viewing slavery as a moral or economic issue makes it easier to talk about, since it removes people from the conversation, allowing opportunities for compromise, ways to get along, ways to talk past the difficult conccept of people being used. That was often how such discussions of slavery in the Uniited States had gone for a while.

Harriet Beecheer Stowe's story of enslaved people in the South moved the conversation in a less comfortable direction, by making the suffering of slaves personal and specific.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Northup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_of_the_Life_of_Frederick_Douglass,_an_American_Slave

It's the Roaring '20s, and there are new ways of making money, new technologies, new ways of becoming famous. Charles Lindbergh had learned to fly airplanes, and would use his understanding of this new technology to become rich and one of the most famous people on the planet.

The dot-com era happened when it did because of the invention of the World Wide Web, which made it easier to use the connected network of computer networks we call The Internet.

https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/WorldWideWeb.html

Prompt the First: Put on Your Sunday Clothes

Hello Dolly: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064418/

Wall*E: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/

Prompt the Second: The Young Adult Suicide Chart

Here's the tweet with the initial chart

https://x.com/armanddoma/status/1758375001030627750?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA

Shows increase and peak to 1994, sharp drop through 2003, then mostly show increase to 2013, spiking from there to 2017

• CDC says " ● The suicide rate among people aged 10–24 remained stable from 2001 through 2007 and then increased 62% from 2007 through 2021 (from 6.8 deaths per 100,000 to 11.0) (Figure 1). "
• That's "in the United States"
• CDC version is 10-24, and peaks at 11/100K in 2021
• There is, incidentally, no noticeable bump from Covid; the recent peak is one the trend
• The chart is really rather misleading, as it shows a change from about 12/100K to 14/100k

Prompt the Third: The Starship Troopers discourse

This tweet appears to have kicked it off this time around

https://x.com/HariSel57511397/status/1758251273617375340?s=20

But this is more my attitude.

https://x.com/hEnereyG/status/1758926167376368089?s=20

Still, not complaining if it works for you. It mostly didn't for the professional film critics who viewed it in 1997.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)#Reception

Prompt the first: What my dad did in the war

• He was right about 30, with 3 kids, working to make Vietnam the best war possible. So he was Young Adult, G.I. were Midlife/managers, Lost (a few of the younger ones) were Visionaries.

Prompt the Second: The Producers and the limits of acceptable parody

Released in 1967 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063462

The U2 album was Achtung Baby

Prompt The Third: Important Inventions

https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1753433550148206696?s=20

The memorable and noticeable events in First Turnings particularly include

* Infrastruture

* Exploration

* Seeking out corruption, in whatever form it's expected to exist.

Rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica falls under the first category, especially when it's being rebuilt for the first time in over 1000 years.

Americans learn of the founding of Jamestown as part of their country's history, as the first successful English colony in the New World and the precursor to the Thirteen Colonies that would eventually rebel against the British. It can also be looked at as the start of the British Empire, and as embodying a spirit of exploration in the aftermath of the victory over Spain.

All of which make it an appropriate instance of a First Turning landmark.

In 1714, the British Parliament approved The Longitude Prize, which offered monetary rewards to anyone who could make it possible for ships to effectively determine their longitude. The smallest prize was £10,000 - the equivalent of millions of dollars today.

The Kingdom of Great Britain was created by The Acts of Union in 1707. Before then, one would properly refer to the English Parliament, and after to the British Parliament. This epsode crosses over that point in time between the start and the end, so the incorrect adjective may have slipped in once or twice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707

The Global Positioning System (GPS) might be considered a comparable sort of infrastructure, but it was created over a long enough period that associating it with a specific Turning is difficult. It also required infrastructure (namely rockets that could put satellites in orbit), and was implemented in short order once those were available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

In 1804, Lewis and Clark's "Corps of Discovery" heads north and west from where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet, attempting to find a way to the Pacific Ocean. The First Turning encourages Exploration, which continues to use the governmental infrastructure set up during the previous Fourth Turning, but avoids the complications of a open warfare....

Expanding infrastructure is one of the key indicators of the First Turning, and the transcontinental railroad was an infrastructure priority for the United States in the 19th Century.

The organizational strengths and focus that enable infrastructure and exploration are not always aimed at such noble pursuits. Sometimes they find internal enemies, or at least try to seek them out. The fear of Communists infilitrating the entertainment industry led the U.S. Government to pursue a group that became known as The Hollywood Ten.

As this hits the edge of the map for the First Turning, we continue on with a short description of our final historical period, the Third Turning, and how we'll be choosing our landmarks there.

Welcome to The latest for January 28, 2024\

Prompt the First: On The Growth of Stranger Danger

https://x.com/_tedks/status/1742610446065000771?s=46&t=h3SDrddBzjyl2UOHr9Q3xA

"Over the 20th century, mass media reporting of child abductions spread the "stranger danger" concept. From the Lindenburg baby, to milk cartons, to satanic ritual abuse, this leads to a curtailment of freedom and an increase in parental surveillance."

Prompt the Second: Secret Invasion and Director Carter

Why do I think an Agent Carter reboot - a game of cat and mouse between Carter and Zola - would work better than Secret Invasion?

Prompt the Third: On the world passing away according to St. Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians

But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;

those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_to_the_Corinthians

https://www.bibleref.com/1-Corinthians/7/1-Corinthians-7-31.html

This episode was originally published 3 years ago, on December 31 2020.

It seems longer.

This is a short summary of that year, and what the Crisis meant at that exact moment, and what we might have considered was going to come next.

And yes, much of that was wrong as well.

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A look back at 2020, what The Crisis of 2020 might have been, and what Crisis really means, here.

Unforced Errors was episode 49, and was posted in April 2020

The Crisis of 2020 was a prediction in the original book, Generations. It was used as a focus of episode 34 ("The Crisis of 2020") in January 2019, and followed up in episode 44 ("When 2020 Came Early") in October 2019.

I really wanted to review this episode and others related to the then-happening Crisis of 2020, because it's far enough out to consider if that really was the start of the peak of this current crisis or, if more is on its way.

An hour or so of reviewing what was happening at that time indicated it was not something I could through together quickly on the last day of 2023, so for now I'm going to simply repost them and let people see what was on my mind at the time.

This was Episode 44, first published in November 2019, and is mostly about the Ukraine Scandal that led to Trump's first impeachment. It seemed clear that this HAD to be what the Crisis of 2020 was going to be about...and, well, no, not really.

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Observing that the Crisis of 2020 appears to have begun, and what it might mean for the events and outcome of this Fourth Turning.

Anzio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio

Eric Fletcher Waters' body was never found, but the location of his death has been determined:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10371269/Found-the-spot-where-Pink-Floyd-musicians-father-died-in-battle.html

Everyone has discussed Turkey and the Kurds, so search it out.

The Glorious Revolution, Charles II and James II and all the rest, is also all out there, including frequent mentions on this podcast.

The "music at the Pentagon gym" tweet:

https://twitter.com/Msummerslowe/status/1188799181386850306

World War II in Real Time on Twitter - finished its first cycle in August 2017 with the surrender of Japan, then started up again two weeks later with the invasion of Poland in 1939

https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

FiveThirtyEight impeachment poll tracker.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/

And the Republican Strategy podcast episode

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000455331767

"The Crisis of 2020 will be the time when the people of the United States decide what their values really are." - end of the Crisis of 2020 podcast episode. Not sure if it's still applicable, but worth considering.