PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

8. A COSMIC HEARTBEAT
It is equally questionable whether it is an economic boom that
provokes outbursts of feminism, as may be reflected by an enhanced
percentage of women among Nobel prize laureates. In Figure 8.4 we
also see the percentage of women Nobel laureates oscillating with
time. The period is compatible with fifty-six-years. The two peaks
occur in the 1930s and again in the 1980s, coinciding with outbursts
of feminism and trailing the corresponding booms. According to the
energy clock, prosperity will reach a maximum again around 2025.
Whether or not it stems from economic prosperity, the next rise of
feminism should also be expected sometime halfway through the
twenty-first century.
The energy-consumption clock does not tick only for happy events.
Society is anthropomorphic in its moods. In that respect it resembles its
constituents, the people. It can be happy, depressed, passive, or aggressive,
and this is reflected in the behavior of people who act out roles
expressing the current mood of their society. It should be no surprise
then to see that homicides are at their peak during desperate times and that
homicide rates have gone up and down in tune with the fifty-six-year
cycle. 13
Figure 8.5 shows that homicides in the United States reach their low
during the growth years, the rate decreasing by a factor of two between
recession and growth years. Even more pronounced—a factor of three
between peak and valley—is the shift in preference for the murder
weapon. The ratio of firearms to knives oscillates with practically the
same frequency. Guns become prevalent toward the end of a boom.
Stabbings become prevalent during recessions and reach their peak at
the end of the dark days.
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FIGURE 8.4 (next page) The graphs on life expectancy and the one-mile-run
record have been obtained in a way similar to the energy consumption, namely,
as a percentage deviation of the data from a fitted trend. The number of women
Nobel laureates is expressed as a percentage of all laureates in a decade. ∗ For
the case of cirrhosis the annual mortality is used. The black dots connected by
an intermittent line represent updates.
∗ The graph for women Nobel Laureates has been adapted Theodore Modis, “Competition and
Forecasts for Nobel Prize Awards,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol.
34 (1988): 95-102. Copyright 1988 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc.
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