19 August 2013

Whence Afro criminality?



[This will be the final of our three-part series in reaction to the 2012-13 Trayvon Martin Affair.]


The country has been in an uproar in the wake of the trial for the shooting of an Afro teenager by Floridian George Zimmerman.  The question being asked by many Blacks is, 'Why are we profiled?'  Having looked at the data,, Those Who Can See concluded: 'You are profiled because Afro crime is very high relative to other groups.'

If such is the case--and we believe the data points in that direction--one may ask, 'Why is Afro crime high relative to other groups?'  Blackness experts have proposed several hypotheses, of which the most popular is:

'The history of slavery and exclusion makes us commit crime.'

As we have seen, the opposite is the case: As slavery and Jim Crow recede further into the past, black crime is increasing, not decreasing.


(Data Source: National prison census data for 1926-1986, 1990, 1995,
2000, 2005, 2010, also 1979 and 1984)



As well, Afros who emigrate to countries that never practiced slavery or colonialism still commit more crimes  than other groups there.

Disproportionate Afro immigrant crime in France, Switzerland,



Furthermore, many Sub-Saharan countries are well-known to be dangerous places inside and outside the cities.

The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security reports on Haiti, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Liberia, and Ethiopia.



In addition, other ethnic groups who've suffered oppression, such as Asian-Americans, not only don't commit more crime than Euros--they commit less.




'Oppression makes us criminal' does not seem, then, as an argument, to hold water.

So where do the real causes lie?





We at Those Who Can See propose that on average, Afros possess a suite of character traits that, under the right circumstances, can lead to higher criminality relative to other groups.

Which character traits?

Richard Lynn has gathered a great deal of data on the question. Let us see what he has turned up.




1) Narcissism


Narcisissm, a trait often associated with criminal personalities, is found to be higher in Afros than in other groups.  Zeigler-Hill and Wallace:

'Black individuals have been found to report the highest levels of self-esteem of any racial group in the UnitedStates .The purpose of the present research was to examine whether Black individuals also report higher levels of narcissism than White individuals. Study 1 (N= 367) found that Black individuals reported higher levels of narcissism than White individuals even when controlling for gender, self-esteem level,and socially desirable response tendencies.'




2) Conduct Disorders

Richard Lynn has also gathered the data on conduct disorders in children, which can be a predictor of future antisocial behavior:



He has done the same for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), which also has an association with criminal behavior.





Possibly linked to the above two factors, we see that Afro students are disciplined at higher rates than others:






3) Psychopathy

Conduct disorders in children often become psychopathic personalities in adults, which are strongly correlated with criminality.  Richard Lynn:

During the 65 or so years following its publication, the MMPI [Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory] has been administered to a great many groups. Mean scores have been published by different investigators for a number of samples of blacks, whites, Asian-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians. All of these studies show a consistent pattern: Blacks and [American] Indians have the highest psychopathic scores. Hispanics come next followed by whites. Ethnic Japanese and Chinese have the lowest scores.



4) Child Abuse

Child abuse, as well, has been associated with criminality later in life.  Afros, again, seem to engage in it more than other groups:




5) Future orientation


The inability to delay gratification is also linked to criminal behavior.  As a group, Afros seem to have this inability in higher levels than others. Lynn:

The first study to demonstrate differences between blacks and whites in the delay of gratification was carried out by W. Mischel in Trinidad in the late 1950s. He offered black and white children the choice between a small candy bar now or a larger one in a week. He found black children were much more likely to ask for the small candy bar now.

These results were replicated in 1966 by Seagull, in 1971 by Zytkoski et al., and in 1974 by Price-Williams and Gutierrez.

Other circumstancial evidence that Afros are less future-oriented is given by LynnReimbursing one's creditors:




Availing oneself of contraception, to prevent unwanted pregnancies...



...as well as to prevent sexually transmitted diseases:




6) Risk Taking


Closely related to future orientation is risk-taking.  A propensity for risk-taking has been linked to delinquency, and it appears that Afros have this trait at higher levels than other groups.

This is seen by this survey of teenagers from the 1990s:




                   
                                                                                                                                                         Data Source 

  

As well as Afros' relationship with road safety:







7) Logical aptitude

 


Though we at TWCS are extremely wary of the 'IQ cult' which seems to have grown up in HBD circles, and prefer to focus on character traits, we would be remiss to not address this factor in criminality.  Though the reasons are not clear, it has been shown that low IQ and criminality are in fact correlated.  It has also been shown that relative to other groups, Afros score lower on IQ tests:




For those who feel IQ tests are an unconvincing measure of general intelligence, there are a number of other pencil-and-paper tests which can serve as its proxy.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress testing for American schoolchildren, for example:




We also have the SAT exam, given to university-bound high school students:

Reading:


Math:



These students are also given the ACT exam:



We may observe a similar trend in the MCAT, or medical school entrance exam:


As well as in the LSAT, its law school equivalent:



Or the famous Bar exam:




Various civil service exams tell the same story:

Data source: Military entrance exam, California teachers' exam, the infamous
 Supreme Court-reviewed New Haven firefighters exam



Again, general intelligence level is no magic key to understanding crime, but its frequent correlation means it must be considered at least one piece of the pie.

*     *     *



If such myriad character differences really exist between Afros and Euros at the group level, we are led to ask, Why?  From where do these differences come--Genetics?  Outside influences? Can we change them? Should we change them?

Different theories on the question have been put forward by HBD thinkers.  The best-known is the R-k selection theory, originally used to talk about the animal kingdom, but appropriated by the late J. Philippe Rushton to chart Asian-European-African biological differences:

According to Rushton’s theory, [...]  Blacks tend to be more ‘r’, having smaller brains and more offspring but investing less emotionally and otherwise in each of them while East Asians are more ‘K.'  They have larger brains and fewer children but invest more in them.  Whites come somewhere in between.  Such characteristics, and those associated with them such as intelligence, taken in the mass, have profound effects on the kinds of societies these racial groups produce.
Why did northern peoples become more 'K' ?
Thanks to the challenge of dealing with the colder winters and scarcer food supply of Europe and North East Asia, the Oriental and White races moved away from an r-strategy towards the K-strategy.  This means more parenting and social organisation which requires larger brain size and a higher IQ’ (‘Race, Evolution and Behaviour’ p 89).

This theory is appealing because it appears to explain, with relatively simple origins, a great many character traits we see today.





In a similar vein, Edward Miller has proposed a concept called 'Parental Investment Theory.' He suggests that

'In cold climates males were selected for provisioning, rather than for mating success. In warm climates, where female gathering made male provisioning unessential, selection was for mating success. Male hunted meat was essential for female winter survival. Genes that encouraged mating success were selected for in warm climates. Negroids (blacks) evolved in warm climates, while Caucasians (whites) and Mongoloids (Asians) evolved in colder climates. Mating is assisted by a strong sex drive, aggression, dominance, sociability, extraversion, impulsiveness, sensation seeking, and high testosterone. Provisioning is assisted by anxiety, altruism, empathy, behavioral restraint, gratification delay, and a long life span.'


Plausible?  Looking at the long list of character traits on which Euros and Afros visibly differ, clearly manifested in the types of societies they create, one is left to wonder...

If there are in fact differences between these groups at the genetic level, it is likely they will be discovered sooner or later.  Genetic science is barreling ahead at break-neck speed.  The Unsilenced Science, for example, has written about the so-called 'warrior gene':

'I am referring to a gene called monoamine oxidase A, or MAOA [the "warrior gene"]. This gene produces an enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitters that activate many of the brain’s circuits. [...] A pair of studies in 2008 found that the 2-repeat allele is associated with twice the rate of violence without child abuse coming into the equation.

Two small studies gave hints that the especially dangerous 2-repeat allele [of MAOA] might be more common among African Americans. One study [Widom and Brzustowicz] wrote that 6% of their non-white (but probably mostly African-American) male subjects had this allele. The other [Rosenberg et al]  had 5 of 37 (14%) African-American men possessing “rare MAOA alleles.” Those percentages are remarkable given that studies of white men have suggested that 1% or fewer have this gene.

[...] Well, at long last, Reti et al determined that 0.5% of white MAOA genes and 4.7% of African-American MAOA genes are this 2-repeat allele, almost a ten-fold difference. 


If a single gene could offer some explanation as to why African-Americans commit roughly five times as many violent crimes per capita as whites, then wouldn’t studying it potentially save countless lives and deserve a Nobel Prize?'

(For more information on these genetic links, see the data JayMan has gathered as well as his incomparable bibliography on the subject.)

*       *       *

This tantalizing glimpse into the biology of crime is just that... a glimpse.  For the moment, all we can say with confidence is that on average, Afros and Euros differ markedly on a spectrum of character traits.  One of the ways this manifests (according to the circumstances) is by higher average crime among the former than the latter.  As to the possible biological causes of such a state of affairs, the theories are in, but the laboratory proof is still to be found.

As far as delinquency goes, it is impossible to say how much Nature and how much Nurture goes into the criminal class.  Let us hope that biology as well as the social sciences continue to unlock these puzzles, so that we may in turn create safer societies for ourselves.  Thank you for reading.



Previously:

28 comments:

JayMan said...

Great job! Excellent work assembling the data, as usual.

As for the identified genetic links to racial differences in behavior, see my post:

How Much Hard Evidence Do You Need? « JayMan's Blog

It would seem that Anthony Wiener's new theme song (Danger by Mystikal) exemplifies what you talk about here.

Four names can explain why sub-Saharan Africans are the way they are, all of which can be found here:

HBD Fundamentals: On the evolution of modern advanced civilized peoples | JayMan's Blog

1. Peter Frost (the role of sexual selection in group-wide differences; the role of strong states in genetic pacification of people over time)
2 & 3. Gregory Clark & Ron Unz: (Internal population replacement in cold-farming societies thanks to the success of middle class farmers)
4. HBD Chick: (The role of outbreeding in reducing sectarian conflict and violence; also the role of manorialism)

Because of the difference histories of sub-Saharans from Europeans and East Asians, we see the different results we have, in all the categories you mention.

Anonymous said...

M.G.
You do an excellent job of pulling together data to support your points. I especially like your posts that show that black criminality has always been a thorn in the side of civilized men and possibly the reason for Jim Crow laws. I have linked to your posts on many occasions.

You are providing a great service by opening more eyes. I believe that you and PK of SBPDL are the driving forces in exposing the truth.

Californian said...

Another point to consider: how much of black criminality has a political component. i.e., you have an agitprop machine which tells blacks that they are "oppressed" and that white people are the "oppressors." Black-on-white crime is therefore justified as a revolutionary act.

Add to this the refusal of the liberal establishment to hold blacks accountable for their criminality. Rather, the mainstream media covers up every manner of black criminality from flashmobs to drivebys to torture-murders. And at the same time, it beats the drum on isolated white-on-black cases, no matter how fraudulent (e.g., the Duke University Three). Add to this the usual race hustlers claiming that blacks who burn down neighborhoods in Long Hot Summer riots (or more recently in Europa) are really "victims" engaged in uprisings against "racism."

We've seen this get really deadly in the new rainbow nation of South Africa, with its ANC minions chanting "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer." And then doing just that, often in grisly ways.

It's as if there is a race war going on...but only one side if fighting.

Anonymous said...

It's funny how much data you have to collect on an afrikanus ignoramus to validate the opinion we all have. Meanwhile all it takes is a couple emotionally charged anecdotes to drive social science forward about YT and his many racist hang ups.

-focal joker-

M.G. said...

JayMan--

I was actually looking for a good wrap-up on the question and I should've known where to go! I even have that link bookmarked! I've now added both your links to the original post, thank you.

M.G. said...

Californian--

Yes, that's why I added the caveat 'under certain circumstances' these traits can lead to Afro criminality. The current context is really ripe for black-on-white violence in particular. In the past, whenever such violence has gotten unusually high (during Reconstruction in the South, during the Great Migration to the North, after the 1965 Civil Rights Act), Whites have counter-reacted with great force. But then, I don't think Euro-American men have ever been so emasculated as they are today... So perhaps this time they really will completely turn over their streets to 'random' (wink wink) black aggression, retreating ever further into the exurbs?

focal joker--

Yes, empirically speaking it's an uphill battle. But what we're dealing with is religious belief, really; most blank-slatists are not interested in facts or in scientific enquiry. They are interested in having their consciences soothed by pretty lies. Hard to blame them though, the truth is pretty ugly.

Anon--

Thank you for reading. May I gently ask you to use a 'handle' if you choose to comment again? It's so nice to put a name to a comment. But no worries if you don't want to.

Mustapha Mond said...

MG: "this time they really will completely turn over their streets to 'random' (wink wink) black aggression, retreating ever further into the exurbs?"

At some point, probably soon, there will be no place left to retreat to. America's a big place but White Flight can't go on forever. You must have heard of HUD's latest plans to diversify the suburbs? (A process which has been going on for years already - the suburbs ain't what they were in the 70s or even 90s.)

"Fight or flight" is the standard response to danger. When the second option is removed, well you can fill in the blanks yourself.

Anonymous said...

Hersh
So, regarding "narcissism," the establishment is doing exactly the wrong thing with the Black History Month, Tuskegee Airmen, etc. Lifting black self esteem is exactly wrong as they are disadvantaged by having too much self regard to begin with.

Also contributing to black anger problem that they feel unappreciated, "disrespected" for what they perceive to be their true worth.

M.G. said...

Mustapha--

Yes, from what I understand, the Section 8 program was modified in the 1990s, making it much easier for its beneficiaries to move into neighborhoods that were 'safe' from them before. This has really become a merry-go-round for white Amercians, ever running away from the black tide, but as you say, at some point space runs out. Will Euro-Americans fight, as they have before? The elite will stay as insulated as ever, it is the great white middle that may lash out...or may not.


Hersh--

Exactly. It is a widespread myth that Afros lack self-esteem; quite the opposite is true. Even without the empirical studies, observers have noted this quality for a long time--I run into it often in 19th century texts on 'the Negro question.'

edjukatedbywiki said...

Growing up in a bluecollar environment that was "integrated" the two things that struck me were

1) Black people on the whole weren't exactly more aggressive than the white bluecollar people but they were much more impulsive about it. The white bluecollar people who liked to fight saved it up for the weekend whereas the black equivalent could kick off anywhere, anytime.

2) By far the biggest difference was lethality. There's a certain kind of person who under normal circumstances i.e. if the police aren't swamping an area with stop & search, will *always* carry a weapon, will use it at the drop of a hat and will go from neutral to lethal in one go without any intermediate stages.

On the estates / projects i knew i always saw it as maybe 1% of white kids were like that and 10% of black kids. What that meant was in every 100 fights 90 would be just fights, 1 would end with the black kid stabbed or killed and 9 with the white kid stabbed or killed. It was that difference in *lethality* rather than violence per se which was the main driver for white flight.

(This is not to contradict your list just to point out that when the gap between a black and a white population is closest i.e. if you compare a violent white working class population with a violent black working class population then the biggest differences between the two stand out more.)

(The lethality thing is particularly bad when combined with the narcissism you mention - which is something you'd expect from a display orientated male population - and which i've seen hundreds of times.)

Anyway - hence my belief that this MAOA gene could be the key to the lethality aspect. If it is then it should correlate with three distinctive behaviors:

1) always carrying a weapon (except when suppressed by police swamping)
2) unusually low hesitation in using a weapon
3) rapid transition from neutral to lethal with none of the intermediate stages common to normal people

And the ratio found

"[...] Well, at long last, Reti et al determined that 0.5% of white MAOA genes and 4.7% of African-American MAOA genes are this 2-repeat allele, almost a ten-fold difference."

fits my experience also.


.

The other interesting thing is looking at your top graph is although black criminality may have started out higher than white it's incredible how much worse black criminality has got over time.

If it is genetic then that implies the environment changed in some way that led to violent traits becoming more reproductively successful e.g. maybe the 1965 immigration act, the subsequent descent of the black population into mass unemployment with the subsequent creation of a gang-ruled underclass eco-system where violent traits became reproductively successful because the gang members got first choice of the females.

Anonymous said...

Many American Blacks are descended from brutal white slave owners, overseers and rapists. This bloodstock is never mentioned or questioned. I bring this up on forums about reparations wherein I state that blacks should pay themselves because it's their ancestors who owned slaves. . I also pointed this out to an hispanic lefty co-worker, that it was she who was descended from the conquistadors and spoke the language of the oppressors. The fact is, most blacks in this country are descended from Africans who were not advanced enough to keep from being taken as slaves by their fellow Africans and whites who were extremely violent, cruel and callous. I read an account of a slave owner from the Carribean who engaged in practices so heinous that reading about them has affected my mind. He would punish slaves for stealing food by having another slave defacate into the offenders' mouths and then he would gag the victims for hours in order to prolong the torture. I am sure that this slave owner has many black descendents.

M.G. said...

edjukatedbywiki--

Interesting anecdotes about white and black working-class groups, especially about the hair-trigger nature of the violence. This was one reason Southerners were so averse to Afros carrying weapons. Re: the post-Reconstruction South, historian A.B. Hart wrote in 1910:

'Not so genial is the usual relation of Negro with Negro; both in town and city there is an amount of crude and savage violence of which the outside world knows little, and in which women freely engage. ... Practically every negro man carries a revolver and many of them bear knives or razors; hence, once engaged in a fracas, nobody knows what will happen. ... There is constant negro violence against the Whites, and they occasionally engage in pitched battles with white gangs.'

Re: your second point, yes, it seems the environment has changed radically for Afro-Americans since 1965. Strict outside controls on their behavior and movements (apartheid in the south, de facto segregation in the north) have been removed. Their least-functional are now sent a check by the government every time they pop out a new kid (with dysfunctional absent fathers). The brightest black women seem to be dropping out of motherhood. The 'talented tenth' used to chastize and shame the less-functional class into better behavior; today we have black leaders (including our mulatto Attorney General) practically agitating them into a race war. Altogether it looks like Afros are falling into a full dysgenic spin. And we're all paying the price. Thanks for your comment.

Artur said...

Bonjour MG glad to see you posting again.

Look, this is slightly O/T but I urge you to check out this afro-germanic grievance porn docu entitled :

"Yes I Can."

The similarities between all of these stupid, self-hating, newly-liberated (back in the 70s) white German women and Barry O's own mother Stanley Anne are absolutely stunning.

It's a little long. If you don't have time to view it, let me know I will provide a summary (which I should already do for COTT).

I haven't checked out your post yet, will do shortly, but I'm really glad to see that TWCS is back at it.

Best,

- Arturo

crimesofthetimes.com

JayMan said...

Here you go:

Since you're versed with sort of stuff, check out these posts by Peter Turchin:

The Strange Disappearance of Cooperation in America

The Strange Disappearance of Cooperation in America II

I've notice that the surges in disunity seem to coincide with (sometimes time shifted by a few years) surges in immigration. We see a rise in trouble from 1880-1920s. We see another after the 1960s. The timing doesn't always line up to follow immigration patterns, but if you also superimpose the periods of Black expansion out of the Deep South (post Civil War, post WWI, post WWII/Civil Rights era), the "fit" improves a bit.

I though that this would be something for you to think about. :)

Ivan .M said...

The g factor may be an imperfect construct, but it retains significant predictive power as long as we're talking about non-Northwest Euro groups inhabiting NW Euro countries. Complex high-tech societies demand abstract reasoning and mathematical function. If IQ testing yields reasonably accurate measurements of these traits, then IQ matters.

Of course, a myriad of psychological and behavioral differences between populations is what decides things in the long run.

It seems that even immigrant Afros are becoming quite aware of the dysgenic abyss into which their American cousins are careening. On no shortage of occasions have I witnessed such newcomers (especially women) refuse association with Slavery's poisonous fruit. Those that don't marry within their cohort tend to marry non-Afros.

And any hopes for genetic pacification continue to dwindle . . .

M.G. said...

JayMan--

Very, very interesting graphs at Peter Turchin's blog. I think the line-up with immigration is quite strong. Look at when 'cooperation' is at all-time lows--right there around 1900-1910, when anti-immigrant feeling was at fever pitch. It comes back up again until 1965 (Immigration Act) and boom, down it goes again. Who knows what sent it down in the 1830s.

That is actually related to the subject of my next post, your timing is uncanny. Thank you for sharing the wealth!

M.G. said...

Artur--

I've responded at your blog. Merci pour tes bons voeux!

Ivan M.--

IQ unquestionably matters. It is simply of much less interest to me personally than character traits, which is why one sees such a focus on the latter at the expense of the former at this blog.

Re: African immigrants, I have heard similar stories about new arrivals being horrified by the state of the U.S. Afro underclass. It's also worth noting that many of these immigrants are a product of 'brain drain,' i.e. their countries' highest-functioning layer. It must be quite a shock getting off the plane and butting heads with the product of fifty years of intense dysgenic black fertility.

JayMan said...

@M.G.:

Awesome, I'm glad I could come in handy. I look forward to your upcoming post!

I agree, the immigration thing – along with Black movements – have to play some role in this pattern.

As for the 1830s decline, here's one guess:

Missouri Compromise

Perhaps things started to go south between the various American nations at that point because that was the time when they've reached the limits of each's expansion, and their interests began to really run up against each others' at that point?

Anonymous said...

back in the 1700-1800s the gap between black/white means would've been higher (say, 1.5 standard deviations) than the 1 (or 1.1) std. dev. of today. as the inflow of white genes into black admixture increased, the black mean rose (to be higher than their brethren in africa). so the statements of pre civil war southerners about their very real fear of crime by suddenly freed slaves was based on an even bigger difference between black-white than exists today. & the one that exists today is not pretty.

M.G. said...

benjamin david steele--

Per the FAQ, the comments section of this blog is reserved for those who can see. We'll see you when you get there, and good luck on your journey.

m said...

Aw, darn, M.G., I was gonna eat him for a midnight snack.  Alive.  He was such a weak, soft little mind, I didn't even see any tough chewy spots.

Anonymous said...

eugenics is the only way to tame or domesticate feral blacks - just as it was the only way to tame or domesticate wolves - turning them into dogs - one can't tame them merely by giving them treats, "educating" them, & shaping their behavior thru reward & punishment. Biology (eugenics) works - education does not. Occam's razor is recommended to posters who blame black's behavior on da turrible legacy ub slabery. Biology, "g," & lack of frontal lobe inhibition predict & explain very well, without convoluted psycho-socio-economic father-less (gee, just like george washington) psycho-babble. cheers!

Anonymous said...

Since part of the purpose of this site is to, as I undersand it, to figure out how public policy should address afro criminality, I would like to hear more about some of those suggestions. Even if the only answer is tougher penalties and more incarceration, that hardly prevents law-abiding people from having to pay and pay and pay for the privilege of allowing incorrigible people to live among them. In olden days, of course, they would *not* be permitted to stay within town borders.
If we cannot do that, are we doomed to have to pay for the police protection and incarceration?

M.G. said...

Anon--

TWCS's belief is that good policy is 90% knowing what is actually going on, and 10% knowing what to do about it.

As we live in such an indoctrinated age, our policy-makers fail mostly because they are clueless about the former, not the latter. So this blog seeks to bring as much empirical data forward as possible, in the hope it will become mainstream and help our Deciders to cast off their blinders. From there, real policy debates can happen.

As far as specific policy proposals, one can often find them in the comments section. Afro crime in the U.S., for example, has led commenters to call for, among other things: Expansion of the 'Stand your ground' law, an end to Section 8 housing, an end to dysgenic welfare policies, a return to segregation, a black 'homeland' being set up within the U.S., repatriation to Africa, or (in the comment just above yours) eugenics.

If you have any suggestions of your own to add, please do!

M.G. said...

Steven--

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, but, per the FAQ, the comments section of this blog is reserved for those who can see. All the best to you on your journey.

Mr. Rational said...

Sooner or later I am going to catch one of these clueless comments before it's deleted, and fisk it so hard that the author's head winds up scattered in bits of bone, scalp and gray matter all over the walls and ceiling.

One of these days, M.G.  One of these days.  (rubs hands gleefully)

Anonymous said...

The prisoner numbers from 1926-1986 are those prisoners admitted or prisoners as of a certain date. I believe it is the former. If this is so than the numbers are not an apples to apples comparison to the data from the other report.

dc.sunsets said...

For 20 years I've found Robert Prechter's Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior relatively compelling. His thesis builds on R.N. Elliott's work in the 1930's & 1940's and shows that humans, exhibiting clear herding tendencies of social animals, demonstrate non-random social behavior that occurs in a patterned fractal.

The animating force, a pre-conscious, shared social mood, is measured indirectly by watching aggregating social outcomes, the most real-time and numeric of which is the stock market. Much is published about this all at http://www.socionomics.net but one anecdote pertinent to this site is that our past two decades have largely set new records for social optimism (as evidenced by the Great Credit Bubble and Great Asset Mania.) This collective optimism coincides with peak trust of the "We Are The World" variety, which helps explain the irrational political Narrative dominating replacement-level, civilization-destroying, open-borders immigration.

I find your blog's title (TWCS) particularly fascinating in this context. We are creatures who emotion-centers of the brain dominate the centers of reason, and so "seeing" counter-Narrative facts is quite nearly unnatural, and certainly rare. I hope to synthesize for myself insights from TWCS and the HBD crowd with the Socionomic Insight to illuminate the path(s) into which we rush headlong.

Prechter has long opined that in the fractal pattern of social mood's up and down we were nearing the peak of a rally in optimism that dated at least to 1784 (as measured in stock prices back to the London Stock Exchange.) In terms of they hypothesis, this meant we were on the cusp of a commensurately large "correction," the likes of which should yield social strife a degree of trend larger than that which set off the world wars of the 20th century. Whether this Cassandra's forecast is rock solid or not, there's no shortage of rationale for concern. I find that life often imitates art, and the ubiquity of the Zombie Apocalypse genre is worrisome indeed. Large numbers of people are accumulating and hoarding ammunition at levels very few people realize.