PREDICTIONS – 10 Years Later - Santa Fe Institute

8. A COSMIC HEARTBEAT
Finally, there is also a form of sexual discrimination resonating with
the same frequency, the ratio of male to female victims in homicides in
the United States. There is a pronounced tendency to kill men—mostly
stabbings—when times are tough and recession becomes more and
more of a reality. Women are a more frequent target of killings—mostly
shootings—during the growth years. The number of female victims
reaches a peak just as we enter a boom.
All the cases we have seen in this chapter point to recurrent patterns
of behavior in approximately fifty-six-year intervals. I am convinced
that more such patterns could be found if one becomes sensitive to this
underlying pulsation; for example, a revival of anti-Semitism through
neo-Nazi activities in Europe can be seen as a fifty-six-year echo of the
late 1930s. But using only the patterns of behavior that have been
charted in this chapter, I might venture to paint a picture of the behavior
of society as it is rocked by the fifty-six-year wave. The sequence of
events is disturbing, if familiar, even though chronological succession
may not necessarily be indicative of a causal relationship:
During periods of economic growth, criminality is low and so are bank
failures. People seem to be busy working, building, increasing their prosperity.
As we enter the boom years women become the preferred target
for murder. Living through the prosperous years sees people starting to
like guns, drink more alcohol, and break running records. Affluence by
now does more harm than good, for life expectancy hits a low in its improvement.
At the end of the boom, guns are ten times more popular
than knives as murder weapons. A little afterwards, energy prices flare
up like fireworks signaling the end of fun and games. Later feminism
flourishes and then we enter the recession. Well into the recession bank
failures soar and so do murders. Killings reach a maximum as life becomes
difficult; the targets are men this time and the killers are gradually
developing a taste for the knife. There is no bad without some good in it,
however. By the end of the recession, life expectancy shows the highest
gains, even if competitive sports have suffered. Technological discoveries
and innovations abound again, while criminality decreases.
The overall sobering up of the society serves as a natural preparation
of the next growth phase lying ahead. And thus the cycle begins to
repeat itself.
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