The social process I Tweet about, where only catastrophe leads social change, was also seen by Arab scholar…

The social process I Tweet about, where only catastrophe leads social change, was also seen by Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun, in the 14th century. He called it Asabiyya. Meaningful change only comes from external threat. Not internal ‘politics’, which is just social team sports. 1/5 https://t.co/cqEQMdsnZ9

Also described in punctuated equilibrium theory, the equilibrium being social status hierarchies insulating themselves from internal threats, and only shifting when threatened by catastrophe from external threats. Where are we right now? 2/5

I think we’re on the brink of a shift. The social status hierarchies are using populism to cling desperately to their positions. But the threats facing us are existential. Reality will prevail. It always does. The social status hierarchies will fall, again. 3/5

Populism is always the last gasp of an old hierarchy. Bread and circuses. You can see modern leaders drunk on the apparent power populism provides, ‘politically’. It won’t last. Feed your kids ice cream to placate them every day. See how that works as a long-term strategy. 4/5

The sugar rush of populism is making modern leaders feel like masters of the universe. Rather than the rush to their own oblivion, which is what populism always is. As Nick Hanauer says, the (metaphorical) pitchforks are coming. Populism is not patient. /end