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How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with

How many of his predictions have failed? How many are timebound and falsifiable? I am not specifically familiar with Zehain, but I am very well acquainted with figures who generate many predictions, have a small number become true, and then get treated as oracles for years before the truth is exposed: predicting the future in massive, chaotic systems is nearly impossible.

kapp_in_life 4y ago
Also some of these seem like almost vacuous statements. Predicting food insecurity(or any other type of insecurity) in the developing world is not a groundbreaking prediction.
- puranjay 4y ago
  He didn’t just say there will be food insecurity in the developing world; he said there will be food insecurity in the developing world because of competition between nation states far, far away. A much more specific prediction. And that’s precisely what’s happening right now - countries like India and Indonesia stopping exports to safeguard their own interests.
- MR4D 4y ago
  Here’s one for you: He predicted the invasion of Ukraine back in this video from 2017 (actually earlier, but this was the easiest source for me to cite): https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo The whole video is pretty short, but he mentions Ukraine about 2 1/2 minutes in.
  - kapp_in_life 4y ago
    Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014. This is similar to claiming the US would invade some N+1 Middle eastern country. He makes a lot of claims and some of them happen to be right.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    I predicted the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 after no one gave a shit about the Crimean invasion. Plenty of other people did too, it wasn't even a difficult prediction to make, Putin has been very clear about his Ukrainian ambition for a long time. Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine, all of the state department officials were bewildered because they knew about the impending invasion.
    - andi999 4y ago
      If it was so clear, then tell me, why did putin wait for so long.
      - colinmhayes 4y ago
        Many reasons, waiting for people to forget about the crimean invasion, waiting for people to be distracted, waiting for an especially cold winter that would cause europe more harm if they instituted sanctions, waiting for his health to deteriorate.
      - tomp 4y ago
        Because Trump threatened to strike back. Putin was afraid of Trump, but he knows that Biden has no spine. https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-talks-threatening-putin-mocking-merkel-at-mar-a-lago/ https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-talks-threatening-putin-... > “If you move against Ukraine while I’m president,” Trump is said to have told the Russian leader, “I will hit Moscow.” > Putin reportedly scoffed, “No way,” leading Trump to say, “All those beautiful golden turrets will be blown up.”
        hattmall 4y ago
        People don't want to believe this because they hate Trump. But there's no denying he was unpredictable and that's not something you want from the most powerful man in the world if you are trying to destabilize the world. There's no way Putin invades with Trump in power.
        Paradigma11 4y ago
  - notahacker 4y ago
    To be fair to Zeihan, he apparently got the year for the Ukraine invasion everyone knew Putin ideally wanted but didn't think he'd dare. But he also predicted the economic collapse of China in the last decade, and Japan being involved in a major crisis or possibly a regional conflict due to its [already established] ageing population issues, and those predictions which definitely didn't happen are arguably much more important to his core ideas about demographic trends.
  - csomar 4y ago
    I don't think he "predicted" the Russian invasion. I think everyone denied it. Just remember a few weeks before this invasion, everyone was not believing the USA alarms about an imminent invasion; including high-ranking leaders in supposedly powerful EU countries. Just shows how blindness can affect anyone.
puranjay 4y ago
His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you have to agree that in the face of declining populations and ageing demographics, we will have to shift to a new economic model where growth isn’t the only goal. And any large scale shift in economic models comes with some grief, at the very least.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  People like to point at Japan and its lack of growth pointing out to various degrees how awful that is, but if you’re actually Japanese, you’re pretty much fine for these decades of zeroish growth. Not to say Japan is an idyllic place free from problems, but the economics of a zero growth society has at least that example of a distinct lack of doom. If the rest of us experience it like that, it’s not really anything to worry about unless your worries revolve around earning money from capital.
  - lostcolony 4y ago
    "People" might, but the post you're replying to didn't. All they said was "Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order" which implies a change is necessary, not whether that change is good/bad/whatever.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      But Japan experienced that change already and it wasn't apocalyptic by any means. Puranjay's claim here is almost literally "change will happen, and it will bring grief." So change happening without much grief runs right against that. Meanwhile, the US has had any number of highly-adversarial, occasionally-violent political fights in the last decade while still in that "grow the top line" mindset. You could make a plausible argument that those additional few decades of "growth" has a lot to do with the violence and unrest, even, not the other way around. (For instance, see any of a number of takes from all over the political spectrum blaming increasing stratification of elites.) Hell, wasn't Marx predicting internal upheaval and self-defeat of capitalist economies many, many decades ago based on the same sort of demographics/populations/resources economic arguments? Things will change is an easy prediction, they haven't ever been stable. But it's also a meaningless one if you can't convincingly show that it's this decade not "any time between 10 and 200 years from now."
wmeredith 4y ago
Here's a skeptical look at some of his claims: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/peter-zeihan-makes-bad-predictions-with-bad-premises.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/peter-zeihan-makes-bad...
- mooreds 4y ago
  Thanks! I appreciated this. Some of the links are especially good, where the author goes back to Zeihan's STRATFOR days and talks about how they've been predicting the end of China for years. Note that this is from 2018. I looked at the site briefly and didn't see any more recent predictions.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  > Zeihan has an implicit prediction that neither China or any other power would step into any power void left by the withdrawal of the USA I believe this has already been proven wrong with the One Belt Road. It’s ridiculous to think that no one will step in once there’s a power vacuum. > Japan, Turkey and Argentina will Rise as Future Great Powers I have a really hard time believing this, especially with Japan. It’s under threat from climate change and its xenophobic, anti immigration stance paired with its aging population. Still, not all of his ideas are bad.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
I have the feeling that we might be in our current predicament because a few billionaires are reading the same books, and trying to bring about some ideological nonsense into reality.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Blaming billionaires is like like any sport: fun, but nothing to do with real life.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    Politicians are there to provide cover so you don't blame the billionaires directly. But you would be surprised how much Politicians bend over backwards to protect them when it matters. Putin went after some US connected oligarchs to clean up corruption in his country. US policy towards Russian literally changed overnight and US imposed sanctions, and we have everything that followed. In Michigan a billionaire started building a bridge on public park land. Judge sent him to prison for contempt. Michigan legislature had an emergency midnight session to get him out.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      A quick Google shows you're cherry-picking: - Bernie Madoff was worth $20bn and is in jail for 150 years - Eike Batista was worth $30bn but was jailed for bribery - Alfred Taubman was fined $7m and jailed for a year - The Kwok brothers were worth $16bn but were jailed and fined for bribery Etc etc. There's no point forming a worldview based on cherry picking. Nothing is simple. Politicians, billionares, or any other line you care to draw around people to define a group, are not homogenous. Some will be individually moral and upright, or guilt-ridden but greedy, or pyschopathic and power-hungry.

kapp_in_life 4y ago

Also some of these seem like almost vacuous statements. Predicting food insecurity(or any other type of insecurity) in the developing world is not a groundbreaking prediction.

puranjay 4y ago
He didn’t just say there will be food insecurity in the developing world; he said there will be food insecurity in the developing world because of competition between nation states far, far away. A much more specific prediction. And that’s precisely what’s happening right now - countries like India and Indonesia stopping exports to safeguard their own interests.
MR4D 4y ago
Here’s one for you: He predicted the invasion of Ukraine back in this video from 2017 (actually earlier, but this was the easiest source for me to cite): https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo The whole video is pretty short, but he mentions Ukraine about 2 1/2 minutes in.
- kapp_in_life 4y ago
  Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2014. This is similar to claiming the US would invade some N+1 Middle eastern country. He makes a lot of claims and some of them happen to be right.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  I predicted the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 after no one gave a shit about the Crimean invasion. Plenty of other people did too, it wasn't even a difficult prediction to make, Putin has been very clear about his Ukrainian ambition for a long time. Remember Trump's first impeachment? It was literally about withholding military aid to Ukraine, all of the state department officials were bewildered because they knew about the impending invasion.
  - andi999 4y ago
    If it was so clear, then tell me, why did putin wait for so long.
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Many reasons, waiting for people to forget about the crimean invasion, waiting for people to be distracted, waiting for an especially cold winter that would cause europe more harm if they instituted sanctions, waiting for his health to deteriorate.
    - tomp 4y ago
      Because Trump threatened to strike back. Putin was afraid of Trump, but he knows that Biden has no spine. https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-talks-threatening-putin-mocking-merkel-at-mar-a-lago/ https://nypost.com/2022/02/22/trump-talks-threatening-putin-... > “If you move against Ukraine while I’m president,” Trump is said to have told the Russian leader, “I will hit Moscow.” > Putin reportedly scoffed, “No way,” leading Trump to say, “All those beautiful golden turrets will be blown up.”
      - hattmall 4y ago
        People don't want to believe this because they hate Trump. But there's no denying he was unpredictable and that's not something you want from the most powerful man in the world if you are trying to destabilize the world. There's no way Putin invades with Trump in power.
      - Paradigma11 4y ago
- notahacker 4y ago
  To be fair to Zeihan, he apparently got the year for the Ukraine invasion everyone knew Putin ideally wanted but didn't think he'd dare. But he also predicted the economic collapse of China in the last decade, and Japan being involved in a major crisis or possibly a regional conflict due to its [already established] ageing population issues, and those predictions which definitely didn't happen are arguably much more important to his core ideas about demographic trends.
- csomar 4y ago
  I don't think he "predicted" the Russian invasion. I think everyone denied it. Just remember a few weeks before this invasion, everyone was not believing the USA alarms about an imminent invasion; including high-ranking leaders in supposedly powerful EU countries. Just shows how blindness can affect anyone.

puranjay 4y ago

His core arguments focus on geography and demographics, both of which are “hard” problems. Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order. Even an advanced country like Japan with plenty of automation and high productivity rates hasn’t see any growth in two decades since its population itself doesn’t grow anymore. Even if you don’t go by his more alarmist arguments, you have to agree that in the face of declining populations and ageing demographics, we will have to shift to a new economic model where growth isn’t the only goal. And any large scale shift in economic models comes with some grief, at the very least.

colechristensen 4y ago
People like to point at Japan and its lack of growth pointing out to various degrees how awful that is, but if you’re actually Japanese, you’re pretty much fine for these decades of zeroish growth. Not to say Japan is an idyllic place free from problems, but the economics of a zero growth society has at least that example of a distinct lack of doom. If the rest of us experience it like that, it’s not really anything to worry about unless your worries revolve around earning money from capital.
- lostcolony 4y ago
  "People" might, but the post you're replying to didn't. All they said was "Declining populations simply cannot maintain the “grow at all costs” current economic order" which implies a change is necessary, not whether that change is good/bad/whatever.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    But Japan experienced that change already and it wasn't apocalyptic by any means. Puranjay's claim here is almost literally "change will happen, and it will bring grief." So change happening without much grief runs right against that. Meanwhile, the US has had any number of highly-adversarial, occasionally-violent political fights in the last decade while still in that "grow the top line" mindset. You could make a plausible argument that those additional few decades of "growth" has a lot to do with the violence and unrest, even, not the other way around. (For instance, see any of a number of takes from all over the political spectrum blaming increasing stratification of elites.) Hell, wasn't Marx predicting internal upheaval and self-defeat of capitalist economies many, many decades ago based on the same sort of demographics/populations/resources economic arguments? Things will change is an easy prediction, they haven't ever been stable. But it's also a meaningless one if you can't convincingly show that it's this decade not "any time between 10 and 200 years from now."

wmeredith 4y ago

Here's a skeptical look at some of his claims: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/peter-zeihan-makes-bad-predictions-with-bad-premises.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/peter-zeihan-makes-bad...

mooreds 4y ago
Thanks! I appreciated this. Some of the links are especially good, where the author goes back to Zeihan's STRATFOR days and talks about how they've been predicting the end of China for years. Note that this is from 2018. I looked at the site briefly and didn't see any more recent predictions.
chaostheory 4y ago
> Zeihan has an implicit prediction that neither China or any other power would step into any power void left by the withdrawal of the USA I believe this has already been proven wrong with the One Belt Road. It’s ridiculous to think that no one will step in once there’s a power vacuum. > Japan, Turkey and Argentina will Rise as Future Great Powers I have a really hard time believing this, especially with Japan. It’s under threat from climate change and its xenophobic, anti immigration stance paired with its aging population. Still, not all of his ideas are bad.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

I have the feeling that we might be in our current predicament because a few billionaires are reading the same books, and trying to bring about some ideological nonsense into reality.

robertlagrant 4y ago
Blaming billionaires is like like any sport: fun, but nothing to do with real life.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  Politicians are there to provide cover so you don't blame the billionaires directly. But you would be surprised how much Politicians bend over backwards to protect them when it matters. Putin went after some US connected oligarchs to clean up corruption in his country. US policy towards Russian literally changed overnight and US imposed sanctions, and we have everything that followed. In Michigan a billionaire started building a bridge on public park land. Judge sent him to prison for contempt. Michigan legislature had an emergency midnight session to get him out.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    A quick Google shows you're cherry-picking: - Bernie Madoff was worth $20bn and is in jail for 150 years - Eike Batista was worth $30bn but was jailed for bribery - Alfred Taubman was fined $7m and jailed for a year - The Kwok brothers were worth $16bn but were jailed and fined for bribery Etc etc. There's no point forming a worldview based on cherry picking. Nothing is simple. Politicians, billionares, or any other line you care to draw around people to define a group, are not homogenous. Some will be individually moral and upright, or guilt-ridden but greedy, or pyschopathic and power-hungry.