The Past Predicts the Future It Doesn't Determine the Future

“History is just one damned thing after another.”  – Attributed to historian Arnold Toynbee, who said it as a criticism of other historians who did not believe in the cyclical nature of history.

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." – Attributed to philosopher George Santayana.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." – Attributed to Mark Twain

Analytics have become all the rage in fields far from mathematics and science.  Corporations and athletic teams have embraced the concept of big data and its analysis as critical to both short and long term success.  Hundreds of companies have sprung up to both gather and perform analysis of the mountains of data that are publicly available.  And, the computer power for this analysis that once may have only belonged to governments or wealthy corporations, can now be accessed through our smart-phones.

One academic discipline that has remained skeptical of the application of mathematics formulas and scientific analysis has been the study of history.  Some historians have raised strenuous objections to reducing their work to a series of equations that suggest that events occur in both measurable and even predictable cycles throughout human existence.  These objections became quite loud in 2010 when respected biologist Peter Turchin ventured to propose that his analysis of historical, social and economic data suggested a mechanism to use data from the past to predict the future.  In a letter to the then new publication, Nature, he suggested that the year 2020 might not be remembered for its great advances but instead he issued a warning. 

… that all these advances could be derailed by mounting political instability, which was due to peak in the US and western Europe around 2020. Human societies go through predictable periods of growth, the letter explained, during which the population increases and prosperity rises. Then come equally predictable periods of decline. These “secular cycles” last two or three centuries and culminate in widespread unrest – from worker uprisings to revolution.

Since that letter was published Turchin’s analytical process has become a valid mechanism for the cross discipline study of history and the uses to which that study can be employed to model potential future events.  The data that supports the cyclical theory of history has been greatly expanded over the years, which leaves only two major variables that greatly influence the extent and dislocation of the eventual social upheaval.  First, the extent and magnitude of some external factor – say rapid anthropomorphic climate change.  And second, the response of  governments and social elites to that pressure?  

Of course, our experience with the climate crisis suggests that even if we can predict the future the way we can forecast the weather, and come up with a set of preventative measures to stave off social collapse, that does not mean we will be able to muster the political will to act on such recommendations. But while it is true that human societies have in general been far better at reconstruction after disasters than preventing them in the first place, there are exceptions. Turchin points to the US New Deal of the 1930s, which he sees as a time when American elites consented to share their growing wealth more equitably, in return for the implicit agreement that “the fundamentals of the political-economic system would not be challenged”. This pact, Turchin argues, enabled American society to exit a potentially revolutionary situation.

The climate emergency could easily become the global climate disaster over the next decades.  How we respond to that impending disaster will determine the quality of human life on this planet for generations.