Monday, 30 April 2007
Bolivia braced for more unrest over gas field "Miguel Angel Guzmán, president of Tarija’s electoral court, said on Thursday that...the Margarita field clearly fell within the bounds of O’Connor province...This disagreement turned violent earlier in the week, when thousands of demonstrators overpowered troops at a pumping station in Yacuiba.." Internal discohesion, We expect to see more and varied examples of this theme during the 21st century, as wealth differentials within nations continue to increase.
Police chief promises change in Nablus "Abdul Sattar Qassem is a professor at Nablus University. He hopes but doubts that the gunmen can be beaten. "They are everywhere," he said in exasperation. "You go to the grocer's, they're there. At the university, they're there, with their guns. They're all over the marketplace." Internal disintegration An underdeveloped economy, no monopoly of legitimate force.
Iraq reconstruction 'not working' "Blaming ongoing unrest and spiralling corruption they said most were falling apart within as little as six months. Faulty plumbing and wiring and looting have reportedly worsened the situation. Corruption amongst Iraqi officials is cited as one of the main causes for the chaos. " Internal disorganisation To be fair, only four years have passed since the invasion. Still, it is hard to imagine that the US' efforts at reconstruction will be as succesful as they were in West Germany and Japan after WW II.
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Poland missile plan to raise tensions, Fate of Soviet statue sparks Tallinn riots International discohesion Russia may appear dangerous to those living in its neighbourhood. Yet, compared to, say, the early 1960s when Poland and Estonia were firmly under Moscow's control, the situation has altered considerably. Meanwhile, one could argue that the United States' influence is at an all time high: It has established a firm albeit costly foothold in the Middle East and Central Asia and it is preparing to set up missiles in Eastern Europe, something which would have been unthinkable during the Cold War.
Organised crime wave grips Guatemala "The most visible source of the killings is the rival youth gangs, known as maras, which also operate in Honduras, El Salvador and some parts of Mexico... Even the more conservative government figures of between 20,000 and 50,000 suggest that there are significantly more maras than policemen." Internal disintegration It appears that in many places in Latin America, the illegal economy is almost as if not more powerful than the official economy. Increasingly, the effects of this are being felt in the (southern parts of the) United States and Europe (Spain), where a high demand for drugs persists.
U.S. drug czar's letter: Cocaine prices drop "The drug czar, John Walters, wrote that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006, to about $135 per gram of pure cocaine -- hovering near the same levels since the early 1990s." International disintegration The "war on terror" is not the only struggle the US seems to be losing.
Independence not just a Scots issue " The idea of independence is a step too far for most here, but many believe that Shetland should have more power. While the young accept that they are both Scottish and Shetlanders, many of the older generation find the very suggestion offensive." Internal discohesion While this particular example may trigger some chuckles, it may also illustrate the trend of growing distrust among the members of larger social entities.
Bomb kills 22 at Pakistani rally "Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao had finished giving a speech at the meeting in Charsadda when the blast occurred, a police official said...The province lies on Pakistan's troubled border with Afghanistan." Internal disintegration
Dip in global pirate ship attacks "Indonesia's decision to bolster the number of sea patrols in its notoriously risky waters resulted in the number of attacks halving since the first quarter of 2006. But the IMB said it was worried by the increasing number of attacks off the coast of Africa." International integration (with regards to East Asia, but not as concerns the coasts off Somalia.)
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Fearful rich keep poor at bay with gated homes and razor wire "The flight into gated communities has also been a feature of post-apartheid South Africa, with the middle classes seeking refuge from crime in what critics dub the "architecture of fear". Internal disintegtion Gated communities and a booming security sector are signs that political authority is fragmenting. The state's ability to provide law and order over its territory as a whole is in decline.
China tops US over Japanese trade "China has overtaken the US as Japan's biggest trading partner for the first time since World War II, the Japanese finance ministry has revealed." Intern(ation)al organisation The United States' advantage is increasingly confined to the military sector.
Shells hit hospital in Mogadishu "Relatives and medical staff ran from the SOS hospital after at least four missiles hit. Casualties are unclear...An estimated 340,000 people have left Mogadishu since February, the UN says." African dark age
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
Statement concerning the crisis watch page
The crisis watch site is intended to keep track of evidence for a coming dark age by monitoring signs of disintegration, disorganisation and discohesion in today's world. At this point, we wish to remind readers that the term "dark age" is not to be understood not in the sense of some (quasi-)religious end-time but as
"an extended period of significantly reduced (political) integration, (economic) organisation and (social) cohesion."
However, since some readers appear to have misunderstood the term "dark age", we have decided, for the time being, to rename the successor site of the "dark age watch" into crisis watch.
The difficulty consists in deciding which developments are merely part of a short-term fluctuation and which suggest the kind of larger transformation that might constitute a dark age. For example, an individual car bomb may be a disintegrative event, but in itself it proves nothing about the way history is heading.
It is therefore important to keep in mind the long term context - not just how, for example, a particular war is developping today, but how the ability of leading nations to supply peace to the world compares with the situation fifty or a hundred years ago. When the structural similarities seem striking, attention is also devoted to empires and civilisations in ancient times. Whilst we focus on western societies, we do include news from all over the world in order to collect evidence of trends that could either foreshadow a worsening outlook in the west or counter our working hypothesis (e.g., the hopes of many people with regard to global economic prosperity seem to rest on Asia these days).
The picture is confirmed by correlations between the three categories of change, especially where developments in one area might reinforce developments in another area (e.g. declining social cohesion might have a harmful effect on economic organisation).
The attempt is admittedly open to criticism. Our observations are based on the theory of dark ages which itself might be faulty. Moreover, theories with a vast scope can perhaps too plausibly accommodate a multitude of diverse observations.
The impressionist approach also lacks the quantitative methods and systematic rigour necessary to call the undertaking scientific in the modern sense of the word. Though, to be fair, many of those methods have often failed to generate meaningful predictions within mainstream social science, where they have been extensively applied.
Even so, the characterisation of dark ages is based not on our prejudices but on the way that historians and others write about the past. For example, we consider disintegration (disorder, fragmentation) as an aspect of soccietal decline, not because we ourselves 'like' or 'dislike' such developments, but because historians themselves usually judge disorderly, fragmented societies in a such way.
Of course, individual historians in fact assess the world in different ways. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus about which were dark ages and which were ages of prosperity and stability, and a general recognition that say rising crime rates and falling incomes denote the less successful phases of a society's history.
The crisis watch site overall tries to imagine how today's events will seem to far-future historians, who will think in terms of the big picture and will not be absorbed by the detail as those of us are who happen to be living through this time.
The bottom line: moral, normative and political statements are neither a goal nor do they form a basis from which we operate.
The difficulty consists in deciding which developments are merely part of a short-term fluctuation and which suggest the kind of larger transformation that might constitute a dark age. For example, an individual car bomb may be a disintegrative event, but in itself it proves nothing about the way history is heading.
It is therefore important to keep in mind the long term context - not just how a particular war is going today, but how the ability of leading nations to dominate and supply peace to the world compares with the situation fifty or a hundred years ago.
The picture is confirmed by correlations between the three categories of change, especially where developments in one area might reinforce developments in another area (e.g. declining social cohesion might have a harmful effect on economic organisation).
The attempt is admittedly open to criticism. Our observations are based on the theory of dark ages which itself might be faulty. Moreover, theories with a vast scope can perhaps too plausibly accommodate a multitude of diverse observations.
The impressionist approach also lacks the quantitative methods and systematic rigour necessary to call the undertaking scientific in the modern sense of the word. Though, to be fair, many of those methods have often failed to generate meaningful predictions within mainstream social science, where they have been extensively applied.
Even so, the characterisation of dark ages is based not on our prejudices but on the way that historians and others write about the past. For example, we consider disintegration (disorder, fragmentation) as an aspect of decline, not because we ourselves 'dislike' such developments, but because historians themselves judge disorderly, fragmented societies in a negative way.
Of course, individual historians in fact judge the world in different ways. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus about which were dark ages and which were golden ages, and a general recognition that say rising crime rates and falling incomes denote the less successful phases of a society's history.
The crisis watch site overall tries to imagine how today's events will seem to far-future historians, who will think in terms of the big picture and will not be absorbed by the detail as those of us are who happen to be living through this time.
The bottom line: moral, ideological and political statements are neither a goal nor do they form a basis from which we operate.
"an extended period of significantly reduced (political) integration, (economic) organisation and (social) cohesion."
However, since some readers appear to have misunderstood the term "dark age", we have decided, for the time being, to rename the successor site of the "dark age watch" into crisis watch.
The difficulty consists in deciding which developments are merely part of a short-term fluctuation and which suggest the kind of larger transformation that might constitute a dark age. For example, an individual car bomb may be a disintegrative event, but in itself it proves nothing about the way history is heading.
It is therefore important to keep in mind the long term context - not just how, for example, a particular war is developping today, but how the ability of leading nations to supply peace to the world compares with the situation fifty or a hundred years ago. When the structural similarities seem striking, attention is also devoted to empires and civilisations in ancient times. Whilst we focus on western societies, we do include news from all over the world in order to collect evidence of trends that could either foreshadow a worsening outlook in the west or counter our working hypothesis (e.g., the hopes of many people with regard to global economic prosperity seem to rest on Asia these days).
The picture is confirmed by correlations between the three categories of change, especially where developments in one area might reinforce developments in another area (e.g. declining social cohesion might have a harmful effect on economic organisation).
The attempt is admittedly open to criticism. Our observations are based on the theory of dark ages which itself might be faulty. Moreover, theories with a vast scope can perhaps too plausibly accommodate a multitude of diverse observations.
The impressionist approach also lacks the quantitative methods and systematic rigour necessary to call the undertaking scientific in the modern sense of the word. Though, to be fair, many of those methods have often failed to generate meaningful predictions within mainstream social science, where they have been extensively applied.
Even so, the characterisation of dark ages is based not on our prejudices but on the way that historians and others write about the past. For example, we consider disintegration (disorder, fragmentation) as an aspect of soccietal decline, not because we ourselves 'like' or 'dislike' such developments, but because historians themselves usually judge disorderly, fragmented societies in a such way.
Of course, individual historians in fact assess the world in different ways. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus about which were dark ages and which were ages of prosperity and stability, and a general recognition that say rising crime rates and falling incomes denote the less successful phases of a society's history.
The crisis watch site overall tries to imagine how today's events will seem to far-future historians, who will think in terms of the big picture and will not be absorbed by the detail as those of us are who happen to be living through this time.
The bottom line: moral, normative and political statements are neither a goal nor do they form a basis from which we operate.
The difficulty consists in deciding which developments are merely part of a short-term fluctuation and which suggest the kind of larger transformation that might constitute a dark age. For example, an individual car bomb may be a disintegrative event, but in itself it proves nothing about the way history is heading.
It is therefore important to keep in mind the long term context - not just how a particular war is going today, but how the ability of leading nations to dominate and supply peace to the world compares with the situation fifty or a hundred years ago.
The picture is confirmed by correlations between the three categories of change, especially where developments in one area might reinforce developments in another area (e.g. declining social cohesion might have a harmful effect on economic organisation).
The attempt is admittedly open to criticism. Our observations are based on the theory of dark ages which itself might be faulty. Moreover, theories with a vast scope can perhaps too plausibly accommodate a multitude of diverse observations.
The impressionist approach also lacks the quantitative methods and systematic rigour necessary to call the undertaking scientific in the modern sense of the word. Though, to be fair, many of those methods have often failed to generate meaningful predictions within mainstream social science, where they have been extensively applied.
Even so, the characterisation of dark ages is based not on our prejudices but on the way that historians and others write about the past. For example, we consider disintegration (disorder, fragmentation) as an aspect of decline, not because we ourselves 'dislike' such developments, but because historians themselves judge disorderly, fragmented societies in a negative way.
Of course, individual historians in fact judge the world in different ways. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus about which were dark ages and which were golden ages, and a general recognition that say rising crime rates and falling incomes denote the less successful phases of a society's history.
The crisis watch site overall tries to imagine how today's events will seem to far-future historians, who will think in terms of the big picture and will not be absorbed by the detail as those of us are who happen to be living through this time.
The bottom line: moral, ideological and political statements are neither a goal nor do they form a basis from which we operate.
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