Thoughts on Coming Apart and the Coming Great Reset
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Kit Webster
Themes and Theses
Why I'm Contemplating Out Loud
(Initially formulated in the early 90s, following decades of reading history, philosophy, religion, psychology and a lot of contemplation, particularly on the subject of cycles. In the end, this is a relatively straightforward story about human nature and of history rhyming.)
The US will enter a period of crisis in the early 2000s. In the late 90s, I incorporated Strauss' and Howe's terminology of the Fourth Turning (without incorporating their generations paradigm) and agreed with Howe that the end stage of the crisis began with the Great Financial Crisis and would last into the early 2030s. We are now at the beginning of the end stage of the crisis.
The crisis will be serious and could be existential.
Internal strife will increase, up to and including secession and civil war.
International conflicts will increase as the vacuum created by the weakening of the US is filled by other players.
There will be many threads to the crisis, but the primary thread will be debt, deficits and entitlements. Other factors include, eg, demographics, a loss of meaning and myth and a loss of self-discipline.
Politics will move leftward as citizens look for some refuge from the chaos. The US will become increasingly susceptible to a (man) on a white horse, who can come from either the left or the right.
Inflation, as the most likely way to address debt since austerity is not politically acceptable, will significantly lower standards of living, exacerbating the civil crises.
Eventually, the dollar will be inflated away and lose its reserve status.
Once the old rot is cleared out, and assuming continuity, there will be the basis for the establishment of a new order.
There will be what Strauss and Howe calls a First Turning . It will be constructed out of the physical infrastructure, wealth, energy sources, thoughts and values in the culture at the time. At this point in time, those components are unknowable. We can anticipate that the next five years or so will be increasingly chaotic. We can anticipate that there will be destruction, and then reconstruction from some level. We cannot yet anticipate the form of the reconstruction or the level from which it will begin.
(Added around 2020) The loss of faith by our youth in our founding principles means that the new order will at least partially be based on new principles. As yet, I have no visibility as to what those principles might be.
(Added in the early 00s) While humans are contributing to global warming, policies implemented to address manmade global warming will create a significant energy crisis, probably toward the end of the Fourth Turning.
(Added in 2023) The lowering / elimination of standards in education, the judiciary, law enforcement, the military and other segments of our society will create a population unable to adequately comprehend, do or respond to the challenges of democracy and culture.
This Is Getting Out Of Hand
September 19, 2025
Quotes to Contemplate
Only one person shot Charlie Kirk. But we are all responsible for the state of our country. - Jonah Goldberg
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We are beginning to witness a shift in the world order. The turning point was Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Right now, we may be living through a moment comparable to 1918, 1945, or 1989 but we don’t yet know which direction the world will take. - Finland's President
Summary of Primary Thoughts To Contemplate In This Issue
We are now beyond the fun-and-games, isn't-it-cute stage of the repression from MAGA. The firings around comments about the Charlie Kirk murder, particularly Jimmy Kimmel, are deeply, deeply disturbing.
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RFK Jr's effect on the health of this nation will be profoundly negative in the coming decades. While all of ihis deas are not bad and while I agree that we have gone overboard with vaccines, throwing the baby out with the bathwater is never a good idea.
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As our institutions and culture break down, we are creating a vacuum to be occupied by many old and new ideas. This is one of the fundamental dynamics of the Fourth Turning.
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People celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk are beneath contempt, but they are part of the incredible tapestry of human variation and not unexpected. One of my "rules" is that 5-10% of us will believe anything - anything.
Culture Abhors A Vacuum
Even a casual reading of history leads to one of several conclusions - humans like want others to their values. Monarchist, democrat, fascist, liberal, conservative, Christian, Muslim ... we have extremely varied tastes. Since each of us, no matter what we believe, thinks they are right and everyone else wrong, there is perpetual war, literally and figuratively, from books in the local library to government structures for nations. That's the way it has always been and will always be.
Sometimes, there is an unstable equilibrium, say the Roman Republic, where one set of values dominates. Those that have other values, say Julius Caesar, will one day pop up, just as the Republic ousted the Kings, but for a while - centuries even - the consensus is broad and strong enough to hold. When the consensus breaks down, lord only knows what will come next - for the Roman Empire, it was division into two and occupation by "barbarians" for half and, ultimately, defeat by Ottomans for the other half.
We are in a time during which our consensus - Judeo-Christian, constitutionally based republic - is breaking down. While it did not have to be now, it was inevitable. Essentially all cultures throughout thousands of years of history have radically changed. It's simply our time as we destroy our own foundations and institutions, creating a vacuum to be occupied by something else.
We do not know what that something else will be. Right now there is a free-for-all, including wokeism, those who want to revive the prior consensus, Trumpism, socialism.
There is no objective right or wrong here. Different cultures have come up with different consensuses. They all work, more or less, and they all will ultimately fail. Dictators get to enforce and impose values.
What are important are the objectives of a culture? Are they maximum material well being? Capitalism is your friend. An attempt at equality at a moderate standard of living? Go for socialism. Words are violence as a, or the, principal value? Wokeism is for you.
And how do we actually achieve these objectives? Vote? Raw power?
Markets
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> We are coming close to a top in the markets, which could be followed by either a simple retracement, or by a crash.​
> Always worthwhile - Louis-Vincent Gave on Macrovoices talking primarily about China.
So, You Say You Want A Revolution?
> I don't have much more to say about the killing of Charlie Kirk, except that the alleged killer having a trans girlfriend is almost too on the nose. How very 2025.
> Trump says that companies should not have to report quarterly. That may or may not be the case, but where does he come up with these things, and why does he think it is his role to get involved? He is inserting himself into every corner of our lives on which he has an opinion.
> Trump has filed a $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in his latest use of legal action targeting a major media outlet. He accused it of being a “mouthpiece” for the Democratic party and of “spreading false and defamatory content” about him. - Today, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
> Trump's attempt to fire Lisa Cook from the Fed was overruled by a court. Trump then asked the Supreme Court to let him do it.
> Pam Biondi is clueless about the First Amendment. I, for one, am shocked.​
This Is Getting Out Of Hand
MAGA is having fun and games running around getting people fired over Charlie Kirk comments. To a limited extent, I get it. "Do you want people teaching your child who celebrate murder?" There is a certain amount of weeding out of undesirables. However, every day this is looking more like an Orwellian putsch - a driving out of people who don't say the right things. Several lines have been crossed but the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel is the biggest and brightest so far (although I am not a fan and I agree that his comments were, what, poorly framed?). This is an assault on free speech and is injecting fear of reprisal into our culture. Totally, completely, unmitigatedly unacceptable.
To those who point out that the left did it first, I agree. It was wrong then and is profoundly wrong now.
It is never a good thing to have a virulent outbreak of self-righteousness.
It is also different to have a bunch of progressives running around threatening you and having it be the policy of the federal government.
Bondi is beneath contempt, but we kinda knew that already.
Some of Trump's words are beyond unacceptable.
Of all the happenings since Trump's election, this one, imo, is by far the most fundamentally dangerous.
And all in the name of a person who would have had none of it.
There is a thoughtful tweet about this at the bottom of this week's posting.
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Separately, RFK Jr's assault on the health system, particularly vaccines, in the long term will be incredibly destructive to lives. Inexcusable. There are a lot of things wrong with our health system that need review. Not all of RFK Jr's ideas are bad - just most of them. We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Short Takes
> People celebrating Charlie Kirk's death are beneath contempt.
Those canceling people celebrating Charlie Kirk's death are narrow minded and blinded by orthodoxy.
Cancelation by the right is no less abominable than cancelation by the left.
This way madness lies.
But madness is what we do best.
Charlie was not perfect by a long shot. He held conservative views that many people disagree with - many that I disagree with. But there is no universe in which his murder was justified or should be celebrated.
> The Atlantic had a great headline - The irony of using Charlie Kirk to silence debate.
> Harvard sued behavioral scientist Francesca Gino for defamation in August, alleging the former Harvard Business School professor sent the school a falsified dataset to prove she did not commit data fraud.
> Duh - Gallup headline - Record-Low 35% in U.S. Satisfied With K-12 Education Quality. We do absolutely nothing about it. One of the greatest tragedies of our time, both for the kids and for the US's future.
> Pippa Malmgren is back with a cryptic post connecting dots between the UAPs/UFOs over New Jersey and world-changing secret US technology.
> My apologies, but I think this is hilarious: Report: Kamala Passed Up Pete Buttigieg Because It Was Too Risky To Pick A Gay Man, Chose Tim Walz Instead. To me, Walz is more performatively gay than Buttigieg - leaning on stereotypes.
Miscellany
Tweet from Geoffrey Miller that got off to a great start. I then censored it, because it devolved into a left-right diatribe that was not helpful:
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A humble rant about free speech, Charlie Kirk, & 'cancel culture'
There's so much confusion about free speech in America -- because there are two different forms of it. There's 'constitutional free speech', to prevent gov't tyranny through censorship, as codified formally in 230+ years of constitutional law around the First Amendment. Then there's 'cultural free speech' -- a set of informal cultural norms, traditions, and practices to encourage people to express their true beliefs & values to each other, without fear of reprisals, ostracism, or other non-gov't forms of punishment. Constitutional free speech is grounded in clear rights, laws, precedents, & principles, centered around retraining gov't from meddling in public discourse. We should strongly protect constitutional free speech, and be very wary of gov't censorship -- whether directly, or through gov't collusion with Big Tech, social media, or AI companies. However, cultural free speech is much more complicated, nuanced, and subject to renegotiation -- which is what we've been seeing over the last ten years, and especially in the last week. Civilized people accept thousands of informal restraints on cultural free speech. For example, we use the power of informal social rewards and punishments to discourage - kids from lying - spouses from dissing each other - journalists from acting like propagandists - teachers from indoctrinating students - companies from violating traditions and trust - people from burning our flag - sociopathic trolling on social media - comedians from making false & incendiary claims - politicians from demonizing their opponents to incite political violence among their supporters All of these are restraints on 'cultural free speech', and they could be seen as micro-versions of 'cancel culture', but they're widely supported, and they're not directly related to gov't censorship or First Amendment law. Yes, the First Amendment helps establish and reinforce the social norms around cultural free speech, and cultural free speech helps reinforce the willingness of citizens, politicians, & judges to protect our First Amendment rights. But I see a lot of people, on both Left and Right, confusing the two forms of our civilization's commitment to free speech. The tricky thing about cultural free speech is that it requires a high degree of public consensus and social trust. It requires political partisans to respect some basic grounds rules when dealing with each other, including a degree of mutual respect and civility. It requires a mutual détente that minimizes the use of 'cancel culture' tactics.