Summary: In Part 1 I shared an exchange with my friend Santiago about my observation that we are entering into a period of negative social mood, and that in the past similar periods have had some dark consequences for humanity. This has stirred things up quite a bit, don’t you think? (If you haven’t read Part 1, I suggest that you do, including the comments people have posted, and my answers to those comments, which contain a lot of important information.) By the way, I haven’t shared any of the math involved in wave theory, or the details about the fractal nature of these waves because, though interesting, it would probably put everyone to sleep, and it’s rather complicated. If you really want to go into this more deeply, buy Robert Prechter’s books, or go to socionomics.net. At any rate, Santiago wasn’t convinced by what I said in my first communication with him (though he seems to be more convinced now that he actually went and read up on the subject). Here is his reply to my original post, and my answer (Santiago, I’m making you famous—I hope you’re happy): FROM SANTIAGO: The Socionomic theory is great and Bob Prechter’s predictions have a lot of ground. And of course, whenever we find a theory that makes sense for us we tend to cling to it as THE THING. We all live in bubbles and as usual we always see others bubbles before we see our own. This happens a lot in my experience with the people in the US, they are so focused in their own history that is very hard for them to see a more wordily perspective without comparing it with what has happened there. Although they tend to think they do. What you suggest is something that CAN happen, – it would be nice to see some numbers on the probability of it happening – And everybody should research about it, just like everybody should research about the new waves of consciousness that are arising and their impact on society (please don’t confuse this with new age magical thinking). This among many other things creates a new context for the world in which history CAN BUT NOT NECESARILY WILL happen again. To say “just look at history” can be pretty blind sighted. We haven’t yet developed a unified theory that can completely predict what will happen in the future. To say that we are moving towards a utopia is as deluded as to say that the end is near. There are people who say “follow me to utopia” this is very dangerous, there’s also people who say “the end is near” very dangerous as well. But probably the most dangerous are the ones that say “I KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT and the rest of you are just plain stupid for not seeing it.” Like I said, everyone should do their own research and draw their own conclusions, but I think is unhealthy (and naive) to remove all doubt and not leave some space for the possibility of those conclusions being (at least partially) wrong. FROM BILL: I’ll be willing to bet you ANYTHING that some version of what I’m describing IS going to happen. It’s ALREADY happening. Multiple things happen every day, and have been happening for quite a few years, that are predicted by Socionomy, and which (based on what I know about social mood) I predicted would happen–to my wife, my employees, and my friends. Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t say to me, “You said this would happen three (or whatever) years ago” (regarding something in the news at the time: the debt crisis, the crises in Egypt, Libya, Tunesia, and other Middle Eastern countries, the situation with the public employee unions in Wisconsin, etc.) This is not a “thing” I’m clinging to. It’s a pattern some very intelligent people have noticed, and which has been studied extensively and backed up with a massive amount of data. Understanding the wave-like nature of changes in social mood has great predictive ability. I’m watching before my eyes, day after day, the unfolding of what this pattern predicts, and [...]
