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Upgrade Your Memory: How to Quickly Memorize Lists - 0 views

  • You can improve your memory by learning memory techniques that are thousands of years old. That's what Nelson Dellis did to train for the USA Memory Championship, and you might know that Nelson has won the top prize for two years running. We have teamed up with Nelson to create this "Upgrade Your Memory" video that teaches memorization techniques that can enhance your business and personal life. Since we all have the same "hardware," it's really an upgrade of our "software," or brain, that makes all the difference.
  • years running. We have teamed up with Nelson to create this "Upgrade Your Memory" video that teaches memorization techniques that can enhance your business and personal life. Since we all have the same "hardware," it's really an upgrade of our "software," or brain, that makes all the difference. Fusion-io talked to Nelson to discuss the value of memory in our lives. Check out our interview with Nelson on the Fusion Blog: www.fusionio.com/blog/Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fusionioOr Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/fusionio Category: Science & Technology Tags: Nelson Dellis upgrade your memory mental athlete USA Memory Competition USA Memory Championship USA Memory champion list memorization memorizing lists memory techniques Alzheimer's Climb for Memory Fusion-io fusionio fusion i/o Fusion IO @fusionio Licence: Standard YouTube Licence 261 likes, 3 dislikes Show more Show fewer Link to this comment: Share to:
Innovation Blues

Boost Your Creativity by Improving Your Working Memory - 0 views

  • Boost Your Creativity by Improving Your Working Memory
  • In one study, the researchers actually explored the creativity of improvisations played by cellists with no formal training in improvisation. At the start of the study, they measured everyone's working memory capacity. Then, participants were given the chance to perform three 3-minute improvisations based on a theme (such as Winter or Spring). Each improvisation had a different theme. The improvisations were recorded in a studio, and then professional musicians rated them for their originality and creativity. The creativity of the first improvisations people performed was about the same regardless of their working memory capacity. However, the people with high working memory capacity played better improvisations as they progressed through the study, while those with low working memory capacity played worse improvisations. So, by the end of the study, the people with higher working memory capacity were playing significantly more creative improvisations than those with low working memory capacity.
Innovation Blues

Meditation Can Improve Your Memory, Focus, and Productivity at Work - 0 views

  • Meditation Can Improve Your Memory, Focus, and Productivity at Work
  • If you haven't given meditation a try yet, despite the many advantages we've already seen (including chronic pain and stress relief, reducing information overload, and building a better brain), here's one more argument for trying the practice: meditation may help you get more done at work.
  • A recent study by University of Washington researchers (PDF) found that meditation training helped workers concentrate better, remember more of their work details, and stay energized and experience less negative moods.
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  • The meditation group outperformed the others when it came to reduced stress, greater focus, and improved memory. The waitlist control group didn't have reduced stress until after they did the meditation training eight weeks later. The relaxation group, oddly enough, wasn't any less relaxed at work. Although the meditation training involved a two hour session each week, you could probably see similar benefits from just a two-minute daily meditation habit or regular use of tools like Buddify to help you get started meditating.
Innovation Blues

Memory News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - Lifehacker - 0 views

  • Remember More Without Trying Too Hard
  • Memory is a tricky beast. You might sit and study for hours on end, but for some reason it never seems to stick with you. However, as Time points out, implicit learning relies on three factors that are easy to control.
  • You'll need to do three things when studying or learning a new skill: Give your mind a ton of material: This might seem obvious, but immersing yourself completely in what you're trying to learn is the first step to actually learning it. You don't have to actively try to memorize things, just expose yourself to the skill or material as much as possible. Practice: We tend to stop practicing a skill or stop studying when we think "we've got it." However, well after we learn something we still continue to refine that skill. Sleep: It's thought that sleep is essential to learning and remembering. Some studies have suggested that the brain identifies patterns in our memories and consolidates them to make them permanent when we're sleeping. In essence, a good night of rest might be better than an all-night study-fest.
Innovation Blues

Caffeine: A User's Guide to Getting Optimally Wired - Developing Intelligence - 0 views

  • Caffeine: A User’s Guide to Getting Optimally Wired
  • Caffeine is the most widely used stimulant in the world, but few use it to maximal advantage. Get optimally wired with these tips.
  • 1) Consume in small, frequent amounts. Between 20-200mg per hour may be an optimal dose for cognitive function. Caffeine crosses the blood-brain barrier quickly (owing to its lipid solubility) although it can take up to 45 minutes for full ingestion through the gastro-intestinal tract. Under normal conditions, this remains stable for around 1 hour before gradually clearing in the following 3-4 hours (depending on a variety of factors). A landmark 2004 study showed that small hourly doses of caffeine (.3mg per kg of body weight [approx 20 mg per hour; thanks digg!]) can support extended wakefulness, potentially by counteracting the homeostatic sleep pressure, which builds slowly across the day and acts preferentially on the prefrontal cortex (an area of the brain thought responsible for executive and “higher” cognitive functions).
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  • 2) Play to your cognitive strengths while wired. Caffeine may increase the speed with which you work, may decrease attentional lapses, and may even benefit recall – but is less likely to benefit more complex cognitive functions, and may even hurt others. Plan accordingly (and preferably prior to consuming caffeine!)
  • Recall from memory may be improved by caffeine (here and here), possibly due to enhancements in memory encoding rather than retrieval per se. Another study shows caffeine can actually impair estimates of “memory scanning” speed (in the Sternberg paradigm), so the failure of many studies to find recall-related effects of caffeine may reflect a speed-accuracy tradeoff at the time of retrieval.
  • 3) Play to caffeine’s strengths. Caffeine’s effects can be maximized or minimized depending on what else is in your system at the time. The beneficial effects of caffeine may be most pronounced in conjunction with sugar. For example, one factor analytic study has shown caffeine-glucose cocktails provide benefits to cognition not seen with either alone.
  • Withdrawal symptoms can onset within 12 to 24 hours of caffeine consumption and last between 2 and 9 days.
  • some studies show grapefruit juice might keep caffeine levels in the bloodstream high for longer, though others have found no such effect
  • Similarly, nicotine may speed the metabolism of caffeine.
  • 4) Know when to stop – and when to start again. Although you may not grow strongly tolerant to caffeine, you can become dependent on it and suffer withdrawal symptoms. Balance these concerns with the cognitive and health benefits associated with caffeine consumption – and appropriately timed resumption.
  • Long-term ingestion of large quantities of caffeine (by way of coffee) is associated with a variety of health benefits – not only cognitive enhancements but also reduction in risk for type 2 diabetes (c.f.), Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s . These beneficial effects may be related to the neuroprotective role of adenosine.
  • Caffeine’s effects might be masked by green tea extract, Kava Kava or St. John’s Wort – all of which contain theanine and are associated with subjective feelings of relaxation – but other preliminary evidence indicates the opposite effect: theanine might actually potentiate the benefits of caffeine on some tasks (reported in longer format here).
  • In addition, there are well-established cognitive effects where recall is best when it matches the context of encoding – so if you’re caffeinated when you study for the test, you better be caffeinated when you take it.
  • 5) Finding good sources of caffeine Despite the huge variety of sources of caffeine – including caffeinated soap, candy, and of course chocolate – the optimal use of caffeine is likely to involve small, hourly doses along with some cardioprotective agent. Given the high solubility of caffeine, absorption time should not be an issue (but if for some reason it is, try gum). Otherwise, why not enjoy a cup of green tea (coffee-flavored, if you must), as the Chinese have for nearly 5000 years? It’s hard to come by a better longitudinal study than that.
Innovation Blues

Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four is a novel by George Orwell published in 1949. It is a dystopian and satirical novel set in Oceania, where society is tyrannized by The Party and its totalitarian ideology.[1] The Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public mind control, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (Ingsoc) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as thoughtcrimes.[2] Their tyranny is headed by Big Brother, the quasi-divine Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality, but who may not even exist. Big Brother and the Party justify their rule in the name of a supposed greater good.[1]
  • George Orwell "encapsulate[d] the thesis at the heart of his unforgiving novel" in 1944, and three years later wrote most of it on the Scottish island of Jura, from 1947 to 1948, despite being seriously ill with tuberculosis.[4] On 4 December 1948, he sent the final manuscript to the publisher Secker and Warburg and Nineteen Eighty-Four was published on 8 June 1949.[5][6] By 1989, it had been translated into sixty-five languages, more than any other novel in English at the time.[7
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four is on Spacious Planet's list of "21 most surprising banned books" for having being banned in Russia and very nearly banned in the UK and the US.[29]
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  • The effect of Nineteen Eighty-Four on the English language is extensive; the concepts of Big Brother, Room 101, the Thought Police, thoughtcrime, unperson, memory hole (oblivion), doublethink (simultaneously holding and believing contradictory beliefs) and Newspeak (ideological language) have become common phrases for denoting totalitarian authority. Doublespeak and groupthink are both deliberate elaborations of doublethink, while the adjective "Orwellian" denotes "characteristic and reminiscent of George Orwell's writings" especially Nineteen Eighty-Four.
  • In September 2009, an album entitled The Resistance was released by English Alternative rock band Muse, which was based entirely on 1984[citation needed], including songs such as "Resistance", "Uprising" and "United States of Eurasia". The album resulted in Muse receiving a Grammy for Best Rock Album at the 53rd Grammys.
  • In November 2011, the United States government argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that it wants to continue utilizing GPS tracking of individuals without first seeking a warrant. In response, Justice Stephen Breyer questioned what this means for a democratic society by referencing Nineteen Eighty-Four. Justice Breyer asked, "If you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States. So if you win, you suddenly produce what sounds like 1984...."[65] In 1984, the book was made into a movie. In 2006, the movie V for Vendetta was released, which has many of the same running themes and principles.[66][67] In Nineteen Eighty-Four, John Hurt portrays Winston Smith, while in V for Vendetta he plays the Big Brother-like figure.[68][69]
Innovation Blues

The Science Behind Why Power Naps Help You Stay Productive and Creative - 0 views

  • The Science Behind Why Power Naps Help You Stay Productive and Creative
  • Even if you don't work in a job where napping is acceptable, there's a very clear reason why the best naps are the ones that are usually around the half-hour mark.
  • The video above, from ASAP Science (worth subscribing to on YouTube if you dig videos like this) explains how sleep cycles work, and how power naps—or those naps that do the most to boost cognitive function during the day—take advantage of the first two phases of your sleep cycle: stage one, where you're probably "dozing," or feel relaxed but if someone woke you you probably wouldn't even notice you'd been asleep, and stage two, where your brain starts to consolidate memories, organize its biological bookshelves, and shuts the brain off from external, non-dangerous stimuli. If you're the type who says "It takes me 10 minutes just to fall asleep," that 10 minutes is probably leading you into stage one—after that, you're in stage two. The trouble comes in stage three, or the part where we're sleeping deeply, and waking is difficult. That's when you start to feel groggy, and hate the idea of getting up. If you hate mornings, you're probably waking up during this phase. So the key to getting all of the benefits of naps without the drawbacks is to sleep only for about a half-hour, or the time it takes your brain to go through the first two stages, but not enter the third.
Innovation Blues

How to Memorize - Learn to memorize and increase memory | Productivity501 - 0 views

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    Practice Recall, Not Repeating to Memorize Large Blocks of Text
Innovation Blues

What Caffeine Actually Does to Your Brain - 0 views

  • affeine is one seriously misunderstood substance. It's not a simple upper, and it works differently on different people with different tolerances—even in different menstrual cycles. But you can make it work better for you.
  • Luckily, one intrepid reader and writer has actually done that reading, and weighed that evidence, and put together a highly readable treatise on the subject. Buzz: The Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine, by Stephen R. Braun, is well worth the short 224-page read. It was released in 1997, but remains the most accessible treatise on what is and isn't understood about what caffeine and alcohol do to the brain.
  • caffeine actually binds to those receptors in efficient fashion, but doesn't activate them—they're plugged up by caffeine's unique shape and chemical makeup. With those receptors blocked, the brain's own stimulants, dopamine and glutamate, can do their work more freely—"Like taking the chaperones out of a high school dance,"
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  • Normally, when adenosine levels reach a certain point in your brain and spinal cord, your body will start nudging you toward sleep, or at least taking it easy. There are actually a few different adenosine receptors throughout the body, but the one caffeine seems to interact with most directly is the A1 receptor.
  • it functions as a supremely talented adenosine impersonator. It heads right for the adenosine receptors in your system and, because of its similarities to adenosine, it's accepted by your body as the real thing and gets into the receptors.
  • Caffeine Doesn't Actually Get You Wired Right off the bat, it's worth stating again: the human brain, and caffeine, are nowhere near totally understood and easily explained by modern science. That said, there is a consensus on how a compound found all over nature, caffeine, affects the mind.
  • caffeine very clearly doesn't press the "gas" on your brain, and that it only blocks a "primary" brake. There are other compounds and receptors that have an effect on what your energy levels feel like—GABA, for example—but caffeine is a crude way of preventing your brain from bringing things to a halt. "You can," Braun writes, "get wired only to the extent that your natural excitatory neurotransmitters support it." In other words, you can't use caffeine to completely wipe out an entire week's worth of very late nights of studying, but you can use it to make yourself feel less bogged down by sleepy feelings in the morning.
  • The effectiveness of caffeine varies significantly from person to person, due to genetics and other factors in play. The average half-life of caffeine—that is, how long it takes for half of an ingested dose to wear off—is about five to six hours in a human body. Women taking oral birth control require about twice as long to process caffeine. Women between the ovulation and beginning of menstruation see a similar, if less severe, extended half-life. For regular smokers, caffeine takes half as long to process—which, in some ways, explains why smokers often drink more coffee and feel more agitated and anxious, because they're unaware of how their bodies work without cigarettes.
  • amines or cocaine; its effect on your alertness is far more subtle.
  • The general consensus on caffeine studies shows that it can enhance work output, but mainly in certain types of work. For tired people who are doing work that's relatively straightforward, that doesn't require lots of subtle or abstract thinking, coffee has been shown to help increase output and quality. Caffeine has also been seen to improve memory creation and retention when it comes to "declarative memory," the kind students use to remember lists or answers to exam questions.
  • What's important to take away is that caffeine is not as simple in effect as a direct stimulant, such as amphet
  • regular caffeine use has also been shown to decrease receptors for norepinephrine, a hormone akin to adrenaline, along with serotonin, a mood enhancer. At the same time, your body can see a 65 percent increase in receptors for GABA, a compound that does many things, including regulate muscle tone and neuron firing. Some studies have also seen changes in different adenosine receptors when caffeine becomes a regular thing.
  • A 1995 study suggests that humans become tolerant to their daily dose of caffeine—whether a single soda or a serious espresso habit—somewhere between a week and 12 days. And that tolerance is pretty strong.
  • You start to feel caffeine withdrawal very quickly, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours after your last use. That's a big part of why that first cup or can in the morning is so important—it's staving off the early effects of withdrawal. The reasons for the withdrawal are the same as with any substance dependency: your brain was used to operating one way with caffeine, and now it's suddenly working under completely different circumstances, but all those receptor changes are still in place. Headaches are the nearly universal effect of cutting off caffeine, but depression, fatigue, lethargy, irritability, nausea, and vomiting can be part of your cut-off, too, along with more specific issues, like eye muscle spasms. Generally, though, you'll be over it in around 10 days—again, depending on your own physiology and other factors.
  • Beyond the equivalent of four cups of coffee in your system at once, caffeine isn't giving you much more boost—in fact, at around the ten-cup level, you're probably less alert than non-drinkers.
Innovation Blues

You Could Be Better at Remembering Names, If Only You Gave a Shit - 0 views

  • You Could Be Better at Remembering Names, If Only You Gave a Shit
  • ome people are more tuned in to personal relationships—like politicians or teachers—and they're more apt to be good at remembering people's names because they're have an interest in remembering them. But for the rest of us, we may just simply not be that engaged when we meet someone.
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    Something I have always realised, if people don't engage me, I cba to remember their name :)
Innovation Blues

Information asymmetry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • In economics and contract theory, information asymmetry deals with the study of decisions in transactions where one party has more or better information than the other. This creates an imbalance of power in transactions which can sometimes cause the transactions to go awry, a kind of market failure in the worst case. Examples of this problem are adverse selection,[1] moral hazard, and information monopoly.[2] Most commonly, information asymmetries are studied in the context of principal–agent problems. In 2001, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to George Akerlof, Michael Spence, and Joseph E. Stiglitz "for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information."[3]
  • Information asymmetry models assume that at least one party to a transaction has relevant information whereas the other(s) do not. Some asymmetric information models can also be used in situations where at least one party can enforce, or effectively retaliate for breaches of, certain parts of an agreement whereas the other(s) cannot.
  • In adverse selection models, the ignorant party lacks information while negotiating an agreed understanding of or contract to the transaction, whereas in moral hazard the ignorant party lacks information about performance of the agreed-upon transaction or lacks the ability to retaliate for a breach of the agreement. An example of adverse selection is when people who are high risk are more likely to buy insurance, because the insurance company cannot effectively discriminate against them, usually due to lack of information about the particular individual's risk but also sometimes by force of law or other constraints. An example of moral hazard is when people are more likely to behave recklessly after becoming insured, either because the insurer cannot observe this behavior or cannot effectively retaliate against it, for example by failing to renew the insurance.
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  • This idea was originally studied in the context of looking for a job. An employer is interested in hiring a new employee who is "skilled in learning." Of course, all prospective employees will claim to be "skilled at learning", but only they know if they really are. This is an information asymmetry. Skill in learning is malleable, and depends upon many factors, including diet, exercise and money. Spence proposes, for example, that going to college can function as a credible signal of an ability to learn. Assuming that people who are skilled in learning can finish college more easily than people who are unskilled, then by finishing college the skilled people signal their skill to prospective employers. No matter how much or how little they may have learned in college, finishing functions as a signal of their capacity for learning. However, finishing college may merely function as a signal of their ability to pay for college, it may signal the willingness of individuals to adhere to orthodox views, or it may signal a willingness to comply with authority.
  • Signaling Michael Spence originally proposed the idea of signaling. He proposed that in a situation with information asymmetry, it is possible for people to signal their type, thus believably transferring information to the other party and resolving the asymmetry.
  • Screening Joseph E. Stiglitz pioneered the theory of screening. In this way the underinformed party can induce the other party to reveal their information. They can provide a menu of choices in such a way that the choice depends on the private information of the other party. Examples of situations where the seller usually has better information than the buyer are numerous but include used-car salespeople, mortgage brokers and loan originators, stockbrokers and real estate agents.
  • Examples of situations where the buyer usually has better information than the seller include estate sales as specified in a last will and testament, life insurance, or sales of old art pieces without prior professional assessment of their value.
  • Because of information asymmetry, unscrupulous sellers can "spoof" items (like replica goods such as watches) and defraud the buyer. As a result, many people not willing to risk getting ripped off will avoid certain types of purchases, or will not spend as much for a given item. It is even possible for the market to decay to the point of nonexistence.
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Science of morality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Even the Buddhist ideal of having no desires, and hence no unsatisfied desires, is extremely difficult to achieve and maintain for a whole society – not least of all for younger people (who, Daleiden says, have less self control). Science of morality could never yield a utopia. Nevertheless, science of morality could greatly increase well-being for very many people.[54]
  • Daleiden's last factor in prosocial training, mental associations, is quite familiar: he says it has been traditionally understood as the conscience – where the student learns to feel empathy, and to feel regret for harming others. Unless an individual can, and begins to feel empathy, it may be unlikely that any amount of reasoning, or any coherent moral system will motivate them to behave very altruistically.
  • it should be the intention of adults to shape children, or presumably "indoctrinate" them, to think critically. He adds that the focus is on especially socially relevant values (e.g. kindness, sharing, reasoning) and not the more personal
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  • Religion, although it is not the best method of determining moral norms, has often been very effective at promoting them. Religions often satisfy many of Daleiden's criteria for raising people to be conditioned egoists, especially by practicing the aforementioned elements of prosocial training. He suggests that this is what they are doing when they instill a sense of virtue and justice, right and wrong.
  • Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984 imagine dystopian future societies that control the populace by advanced scientific techniques. Harris argues that moral scientists approaching truths does not imply an "Orwellian future" with "scientists at every door". Instead, Harris imagines data about normative moral issues being shared in the same way as other sciences (e.g. peer-reviewed journals on medicine).
  • Science of morality should identify basic components required for human flourishing, drawing heavily on findings from positive psychology. In a proto-scientific example, Abraham Maslow suggested a hierarchy of needs: basic physical survival, then social and self esteem needs, and lastly philosophical and self-actualization.
  • self-
  • Research looking for optimal ethical systems can draw on all the methods of science, especially those used by positive psychology. While this might include obvious methods like asking people to self-report what they think they need to flourish in life – psychology has shown that people are often surprisingly incorrect on these matters (particularly when it comes to making predictions and recollections). Some cases in point: having too many varieties of consumer goods actually creates consumer choice anxiety; when it comes to removing bandages, Dan Ariely's research suggests that "getting it over with as quickly as possible" may cause more negative memories than if one went slowly (with breaks) while being careful never to reach a 'peak' in pain; stress is not always harmful (such stress is called eustress). While very careful use of self-report can still be illuminating (e.g. bogus pipeline techniques), in the end, unconscious methods of inquiry seem to be more promising. Some unconscious methods of data collection include the Implicit Association Test and neuroimaging. In these ways, science can further our understanding of what humans need to flourish, and what ways of organizing society provide the greatest hope for flourishing.
  • Extensive study of cooperation has shed some light on the objective (and subjective) advantages of teamwork and empathy. The brain areas that are consistently involved when humans reason about moral issues have been investigated by a quantitative large-scale meta-analysis of the brain activity changes reported in the moral neuroscience literature.[76] In fact, the neural network underlying moral decisions overlapped with the network pertaining to representing others' intentions (i.e., theory of mind) and the network pertaining to representing others' (vicariously experienced) emotional states (i.e., empathy).
  • There is evidence to suggest that a risk factor for becoming victims of bullying is deficient moral development. Examples of deficient moral development may be something like neglecting an agent's intentions during an action, or blaming them for accidents. In other words, victims of bullying may be more likely to make less accurate moral assessments, for some reason. The researchers also found that, in contrast, bullies were just as morally developed as victim defenders. The difference is that bullies are more able to disengage themselves. That is, for whatever reason, bullies end up suppressing their feelings of compassion and conscience.[77]
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Human cycles: History as science : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

  • Advocates of 'cliodynamics' say that they can use scientific methods to illuminate the past. But historians are not so sure.
  • Turchin has been taking the mathematical techniques that once allowed him to track predator–prey cycles in forest ecosystems, and applying them to human history. He has analysed historical records on economic activity, demographic trends and outbursts of violence in the United States, and has come to the conclusion that a new wave of internal strife is already on its way1. The peak should occur in about 2020, he says, and will probably be at least as high as the one in around 1970. “I hope it won't be as bad as 1870,” he adds.
  • Cliodynamics is viewed with deep scepticism by most academic historians, who tend to see history as a complex stew of chance, individual foibles and one-of-a-kind situations that no broad-brush 'science of history' will ever capture.
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  • Most think that phenomena such as political instability should be understood by constructing detailed narratives of what actually happened — always looking for patterns and regularities, but never forgetting that each outbreak emerged from a particular time and place. “We're doing what can be done, as opposed to aspiring after what can't,” says Daniel Szechi, who studies early-modern history at the University of Manchester, UK. “We're just too ignorant” to identify meaningful cycles, he adds.
  • Goldstone has searched for cliodynamic patterns in past revolutions, and predicts that Egypt will face a few more years of struggle between radicals and moderates and 5–10 years of institution-building before it can regain stability. “It is possible but rare for revolutions to resolve rapidly,” he says. “Average time to build a new state is around a dozen years, and many take longer.”
  • it seems that indicators of corruption increase and political cooperation unravels when a period of instability or violence is imminent.
  • they call the secular cycle, extends over two to three centuries. It starts with a relatively egalitarian society, in which supply and demand for labour roughly balance out. In time, the population grows, labour supply outstrips demand, elites form and the living standards of the poorest fall. At a certain point, the society becomes top-heavy with elites, who start fighting for power. Political instability ensues and leads to collapse, and the cycle begins again.
  • What is different is the scale — Turchin and his colleagues are systematically collecting historical data that span centuries or even millennia — and the mathematical analysis of how the variables interact.
  • when it comes to predicting unique events such as the Industrial Revolution, or the biography of a specific individual such as Benjamin Franklin, he says, the conventional historian's approach of assembling a narrative based on evidence is still best.
  • “You certainly can't predict when a plane is going to crash, but engineers recover the black box. They study it carefully, they find out why the plane crashed, and that's why so many fewer planes crash today than used to.”
  • “We can tell you in great detail what the grain prices were in a few towns in southern England in the Middle Ages,” he says. “But we can't tell you how most ordinary people lived their lives.”
  • Turchin's approach by throwing light on the immediate triggers of political violence. He argues3, for example, that for such violence to happen, individuals must begin to identify strongly with a political group. One powerful way for groups to cement that identification is through rituals, especially frightening, painful or otherwise emotional ones that create a body of vivid, shared memories. “People form the impression that the most profound insights they have into their own personal history are shared by other people,”
  • Elites have been known to give power back to the majority, he says, but only under duress, to help restore order after a period of turmoil. “I'm not afraid of uprisings,” he says. “That's why we are where we are.”
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