4 ms·

I read Turchin's site extensively... and I can say this is NOT what this is about. Turchin is talking about when you have too much elite in general, not necess

I read Turchin's site extensively... and I can say this is NOT what this is about. Turchin is talking about when you have too much elite in general, not necessarily smart or educated elite, compared to spots where the elite can fit, and then what happens because of that. This applies to any leadership role. For example, what happens when there is only one Emperor spot, but a handful of candidates? They murder each other. Now, what happens when you have THOUSANDS of candidates, as China once did in the past? Well... then you end with civil war, in China's case more than once centuries-long civil war. Now larger scale, what about non-king nobility? Like Dukes, Counts, and so on? Again, same thing, if you have too many nobles compared to physical places for them to rule, you end with more and more wars, as the nobles without a fief start to recruit people to attempt to take a fief by force or cunning. Turchin mention advanced university degrees as a symptom of this, in a world where nobility doesn't exist anymore properly... what would be the USA equivalent of aristocrats or king candidates? ---- a non political example: Suppose you have a military. What happens if you start to promote a ton of people to be general? If you have 10 high command spots, but 200 generals, how the 200 generals will sort out what 10 of them will rule?

treeman79 5y ago
In college many years ago. I worked at a small pet store. Managers wore red shirts rest of us blue. Customer walked in, looked at 4 of us. Other 3 wore red I had blue. Customer went to me as I was clearly the manager. That was the day I realized 75% of the staff was managers.
nradov 5y ago
Well the US Navy has 232 Admirals for only 254 commissioned warships. Job title inflation is also common in many businesses. You have huge numbers of "Directors" and "Vice Presidents" with no direct reports and little real responsibility.

treeman79 5y ago

In college many years ago. I worked at a small pet store. Managers wore red shirts rest of us blue. Customer walked in, looked at 4 of us. Other 3 wore red I had blue. Customer went to me as I was clearly the manager. That was the day I realized 75% of the staff was managers.

nradov 5y ago

Well the US Navy has 232 Admirals for only 254 commissioned warships. Job title inflation is also common in many businesses. You have huge numbers of "Directors" and "Vice Presidents" with no direct reports and little real responsibility.