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>This is the sort of thing that ends up with rich people swinging from lamp posts. i don't understand why smart-ish people keep repeating this. there will neve

by ice109 9y ago

>This is the sort of thing that ends up with rich people swinging from lamp posts. i don't understand why smart-ish people keep repeating this. there will never be another revolution in a first-world (western) nation. it's just not happening.

djohnston 9y ago
why do you think so? i don't have strong convictions either way, but i don't think i'd count it out as an impossibility.
- icelancer 9y ago
  A lot of reasons, but one solid one is that there is a pretty strong anti-pattern in that the ones that desire wealth redistribution the most are the most likely to support gun control and/or the banning of private ownership of weapons.
  - atemerev 9y ago
    Wealth inequality is not the only reason for revolutions. There are also dictatorships, human rights abuse, corruption, disregard of laws for the elite, and other fine things that might warrant the direct action.
    - icelancer 9y ago
      While true, those values are highly correlated - at least in Americans, and most of the developed world - with people desiring lower access to guns for the private citizenship. Low access to force multipliers makes it much harder to spark and win a revolution against the state.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  Looking at the Roman Republic, there was exactly one revolution in 500 years, led by the Elder Gracchus, and that wasn't successful. The Secession of the Plebeians came close (but is semi-legendary), greater success in the Conflict of Orders was had through working within the political system and all of this (Twelve Tables, opening of high office to plebeians) happened in the early republic.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    You are forgetting about Julius Ceasar.
    - HarryHirsch 9y ago
      I'd say that Caesar was a very successful warlord, but there were others before him, Sulla and Marius come to mind. The real revolutionary figure was Augustus, he made conscious choices not to reestablish decisionmaking in the senate.
- Numberwang 9y ago
  Our sickness is that we have it good enough now. Most people live through sugar watered days of evolutionary affluensa stopping any chance of future revolutions. At most we show our apathy in disapproval. The only way we will improve from now on is through technology which rips apart old structures.
  - djohnston 9y ago
    This is my hope for blockchain tech. I know it's becoming a meaningless buzzword but I do hope that it challenges traditional financial/state institutions in a way that gives the average participant more power than they currently hold.
atemerev 9y ago
I am on the other side of the discourse (hopefully, not of the lamp post -- just yet), but I politely disagree. Why do you think the revolution (or even a civil war) is impossible these days?
jacquesm 9y ago
Never say never. I'm sure Marie Antoinette felt much the same and we all know how that ended, France was very much a first-world nation when it did. What's interesting about revolutions is that it doesn't necessarily take much to trigger one, all it takes is a large enough initial event and you're off to the races. Just like chemical reactions require activation energy so do revolutions. We already know that shooting black kids in the back doesn't seem to be enough, and there are plenty of other things that have been tried by now that apparently are not enough to trigger a major escalation. But I really would not rule it out from ever happening again. Rather the opposite, it is a miracle that we've held out this long without one, which translates into a lot of latent pressure building up.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  > we've held out this long without one, which translates into a lot of latent pressure building up I agree with the rest of your comment, but I would like to point out that absence of evidence of a revolution can't be evidence for an impending revolution (since you can't have it both ways). Relevant article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o...
tzs 9y ago
If you had said that there would never be another successful revolution in a first-world western nation, you may have been correct. From the point of view of the person playing pendulum on the lamp post, though, it doesn't matter if the revolution is successful or not. All that matters is that the revolution attempt, no matter how ill conceived and doomed, started where that person happened to be. It doesn't even need to be an attempt at revolution. It just needs to be a sufficient build up of anger in a local region. We KNOW this can happen in a first-world western nation because we've seen it happen several times.
- ice109 9y ago
  >We KNOW this can happen in a first-world western nation because we've seen it happen several times. oh? do tell?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Soviet Union
    - ice109 9y ago
      are you talking about the october revolution or all of the fall of the soviet union or the revolutions in the soviet friendly states? because none of those fit first-world (literally) or western.
      - Spooky23 9y ago
        I was specifically thinking of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Point being, however you scope it nations and empires fall. There's no magic that says the the United Kingdom or France will be here 200 years from now. Given current events, it isn't a sure thing that a map of the U.K. wont be very different in a few decades time.
  - tzs 9y ago
    Some examples of modern incidents in first-world western nations where anger has built up sufficiently in a local area or region for crowds to violently go after people: Los Angeles riot, 1992. Paris, May 1, 2017 riot. (May day protests also turned into riots in several other cities that day). December, 2015, Corsican riots. August, 2016 riot in Kalgoorlie, Australia.
Spooky23 9y ago
Why do you think that is so? Revolutions aren't about armies.

by ice109 9y ago

djohnston 9y ago

why do you think so? i don't have strong convictions either way, but i don't think i'd count it out as an impossibility.

icelancer 9y ago
A lot of reasons, but one solid one is that there is a pretty strong anti-pattern in that the ones that desire wealth redistribution the most are the most likely to support gun control and/or the banning of private ownership of weapons.
- atemerev 9y ago
  Wealth inequality is not the only reason for revolutions. There are also dictatorships, human rights abuse, corruption, disregard of laws for the elite, and other fine things that might warrant the direct action.
  - icelancer 9y ago
    While true, those values are highly correlated - at least in Americans, and most of the developed world - with people desiring lower access to guns for the private citizenship. Low access to force multipliers makes it much harder to spark and win a revolution against the state.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
HarryHirsch 9y ago
Looking at the Roman Republic, there was exactly one revolution in 500 years, led by the Elder Gracchus, and that wasn't successful. The Secession of the Plebeians came close (but is semi-legendary), greater success in the Conflict of Orders was had through working within the political system and all of this (Twelve Tables, opening of high office to plebeians) happened in the early republic.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  You are forgetting about Julius Ceasar.
  - HarryHirsch 9y ago
    I'd say that Caesar was a very successful warlord, but there were others before him, Sulla and Marius come to mind. The real revolutionary figure was Augustus, he made conscious choices not to reestablish decisionmaking in the senate.
Numberwang 9y ago
Our sickness is that we have it good enough now. Most people live through sugar watered days of evolutionary affluensa stopping any chance of future revolutions. At most we show our apathy in disapproval. The only way we will improve from now on is through technology which rips apart old structures.
- djohnston 9y ago
  This is my hope for blockchain tech. I know it's becoming a meaningless buzzword but I do hope that it challenges traditional financial/state institutions in a way that gives the average participant more power than they currently hold.

atemerev 9y ago

I am on the other side of the discourse (hopefully, not of the lamp post -- just yet), but I politely disagree. Why do you think the revolution (or even a civil war) is impossible these days?

jacquesm 9y ago

Never say never. I'm sure Marie Antoinette felt much the same and we all know how that ended, France was very much a first-world nation when it did. What's interesting about revolutions is that it doesn't necessarily take much to trigger one, all it takes is a large enough initial event and you're off to the races. Just like chemical reactions require activation energy so do revolutions. We already know that shooting black kids in the back doesn't seem to be enough, and there are plenty of other things that have been tried by now that apparently are not enough to trigger a major escalation. But I really would not rule it out from ever happening again. Rather the opposite, it is a miracle that we've held out this long without one, which translates into a lot of latent pressure building up.

StavrosK 9y ago
> we've held out this long without one, which translates into a lot of latent pressure building up I agree with the rest of your comment, but I would like to point out that absence of evidence of a revolution can't be evidence for an impending revolution (since you can't have it both ways). Relevant article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_o...

tzs 9y ago

If you had said that there would never be another successful revolution in a first-world western nation, you may have been correct. From the point of view of the person playing pendulum on the lamp post, though, it doesn't matter if the revolution is successful or not. All that matters is that the revolution attempt, no matter how ill conceived and doomed, started where that person happened to be. It doesn't even need to be an attempt at revolution. It just needs to be a sufficient build up of anger in a local region. We KNOW this can happen in a first-world western nation because we've seen it happen several times.

ice109 9y ago
>We KNOW this can happen in a first-world western nation because we've seen it happen several times. oh? do tell?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Soviet Union
  - ice109 9y ago
    are you talking about the october revolution or all of the fall of the soviet union or the revolutions in the soviet friendly states? because none of those fit first-world (literally) or western.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      I was specifically thinking of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Point being, however you scope it nations and empires fall. There's no magic that says the the United Kingdom or France will be here 200 years from now. Given current events, it isn't a sure thing that a map of the U.K. wont be very different in a few decades time.
- tzs 9y ago
  Some examples of modern incidents in first-world western nations where anger has built up sufficiently in a local area or region for crowds to violently go after people: Los Angeles riot, 1992. Paris, May 1, 2017 riot. (May day protests also turned into riots in several other cities that day). December, 2015, Corsican riots. August, 2016 riot in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

Spooky23 9y ago

Why do you think that is so? Revolutions aren't about armies.