Think things are bad now? They’re going to get a lot worse, according to data nerd/pine beetle expert Peter Turchin.
“Cities on fire, elected leaders endorsing violence, homicides surging—to a normal American, these are apocalyptic signs,” writes Graeme Wood. “To Turchin, they indicate that his models, which incorporate thousands of years of data about human history, are working.”
Those models are apparently pointing to “civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced.” In fact, Turchin predicted a decade ago that things would start getting real in…2020. Yeah.
As for me, I choose to believe that we humans are far too complex for such predictions to be taken all that seriously. And even if they do come true, well…what are you gonna do? As the great philosopher Eric Idle says:
You know, you come from nothing
You’re going back to nothing
What have you lost? Nothing
