From: Keith Henson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Meta Level was Winning the War on Terror Date: Wed, 07 Apr 2004 20:12:43 -0400
We know that you don't get wars if economic disaster comes on too fast.
So the impending economic disaster in Japan during WW2 was one that wasn't coming on too fast? I thought that was a contributing factor for Japan entering the war...
The example I was thinking about was the Irish potato famine. The virus not only wiped out the potatoes in the field, but rotted the stored ones as well. Happened over a period of a few weeks. There were other factors, like they were so poor that a war would have been extremely hard to support. Two generations later they did revolt. It would be interesting to plot the economics leading up to that time.
The time constant is based on how fast xenophobic meme can spread in a population. This can be very fast if the population is attacked, but much slower--on the scale of several months to a year--if they are just suffering an economic downturn.
You could probably get confirmation of the time constant for memes to spread in a population by looking at the spread of fads. Of course, in a tribe of 100 people memes would spread to everyone and have effect in days to a few weeks. (Modern communication may shorten up the spreading time of a nation to be more like a tribe.)
Perhaps as important as actual economic downturn is the perception that things are going to get bad in the not so distant future. I think that might have been the case in the South before the Civil War. Japan was already at war at the point they decided to attack the US so that might have shortened the process. Anyone know the time between when the US slapped economic sanctions on them and Dec. 7? I seem to remember that it was under a year.
Keith Henson
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