It is linear in time, and cyclical in happenstance. Meanig most events repeat temselves in a linear fashion....
************* M*W: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can think of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernyobol, Bopal and Three Mile Island??? This is not my area of expertise, though. ************* M*W's Friendly Atheist Quote (FAQ) of the Day: "Peacefully they will die... and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity." ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky ************* M*W's Anti-Bitterness Comments (ABCs) of the Day: "In future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms. The first is the freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... The fourth is freedom from fear." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882-1945, President of the United Sttes of America
a small portion of a circle is factually a line, and a large portion of a line could end up in a circle by returning to initial conditions.. it is also the scope, in which we view and perceive things, that draws the correct model of our absorbed reality.
Examples? Not very good at history? OK, everybody dies. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Every empire dies sooner or later. They go through a cycle getting power, maintaining that power then slowly degrading and giving their power to another empire. Man, that was hard...
So? Every (neo) Empire gets power in unique (considering available resources, geographical region, knowledge&technology, religion, culture etc. way), every Empire maintains&gives away power in its unique way, considering all of the above. Thus, saying that history repeats itself is the same as saying that you repeat the life of Britney Spears. You&she are born, learn to walk, learn to speak, get pubic hair, learn some kind of trade, eat, shit, fuck, grow old and die. Besides, there is much more to history than rise&decline of empires. When will transition from slavery to feudalism to capitalism repeat itself? When traditional societies will disappear under attack of the atomized, "democratic" mass societis for the second time? Etc., etc., etc., etc. As armed you are with deep understanding of the cyclic ways of history, could you tell me when and how USA will give up its place to the next hyena in line? I'll buy stocks and/or make some bets.
You kind of got it right. There is nothing new under the Sun. Now when we say it repeats itself we don't really say that in every aspect it would happen. On the other hand, I could say that from Greek democracy, we went through feudalism, socialism and we are back to democracy, and who is to say there won't be feudalism again? Thus as you can see, the repetition continues... It has been already happening. The USA passed its zenith under Clinton and the dot.com bubble. It would have been wise for you to convert to Euro, buy gold and invest in oilstocks.... Jim Rogers a famous investor moved to China and teaches his daughter to speak Chinese. They would be a good bet for the next superpower.... Also invest in watercompanies, clean water is going to be a scarcity...
Yup, there are the same 112 chemical elements for billions of years. Yet, the number of their combinations (including evolving ones) is enourmous and ever changing. Sure, by going into the real depths of generalization (to make the saying about repeating history true) one could conclude that there is no much difference between you and, say, monkey, spider, tree, mountain, planet, solar system, etc., etc., etc. (not only Britney) since you and them die. Greek democracy and whatever you call democracy today share just the same name. More exactly, the name and de facto rule of olygarchy under democratic banners. But since rule of olygarchy (under different names) is around for thousands of years, pointing at Greek democracy as some kind of proof of some kind of cyclic nature history is ridiculous. That's profound. Feudalism doesn't mean that there was no "democracies" at that time. Au contre, city states, pirate states, outlaw regions were quite democratic in the most modern sense. With mighty strokes of super generalization you can find similarities anywhere. Wow. China built 12 carrier attack groups and I've missed that? there is nothing behind Euro except exhausted continent and branding. I bet on a plot of land and a gun. Gee, imagine you've found golden mine (for real), a real good gold mine to boot. Lemme guess, the first thing you do, go back to village and say "hey, everybody let's go and get some gold". Yeah, right. On the other hand, if mine returns are not what they've been expected and you need to get somebody to share the burden (or to create a mine crazed bubble), you'll spread the news about the miracle mine, that's for sure). You see, your investment rights will NOT be honored just because you have a paper saying something, if clean water (or food) going to be scarcity.
Oh boy, we have a genius on hand... There is no point in replying line by line, so just take it, China was once great, it could be great again. Saddam made 20% just by switching to Euros. The USA can collapse economically just like the Roman Empire did, there is no need for a militarily stronger country... You asked for investmnet advice, since you obviously don't know much about it, it would be wise for you to listen or get educated on the subject. Otherwise just take my word, in history what goes around comes around>>>cyclical... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! For further reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/30/fossilfuels.water
I feel generous tonight, so I decided to share a few examples: World War 1 was followed (you guessed it right) by WW 2 with the same countries. Gulf war 1 was followed by Gulf war 2, again, mostly the same players. If you clicked on the link you see that the Great Game of the last century is repeated again, for the same resource, oil. One big empire the US got his big loss from a tiny Vietnam, just to be repeated by Russia in Afghanistan. Speaking of Afghanistan, since the Britts from the 19th century, nobody ever learns that you can not win there. After the Russians now the US will learn that you can not control tribal areas forever. How about economics? In freemarkets the Feds stepped in a few years ago to bail out LTCM and what did just happen a few days ago? The same Feds helped Bear Stern not to go under. I won't even mention business cycles, that would be too obvious... Oh we might get another boycotted Olympic games, wait a minute, when did that happen already? There was an oilshock in the early 70s, just to be followed by the 2nd oilshock a few years later and since the US learnt nothing from it, we are having the 3rd one and it will be worse than the previous 2... I won't even make a parallel between Pearl Harbour and 9/11 because it is so obvious. Life is cyclical, we are born, grow up and get educated, start a family and make babies, get old and die.... And on and on and on... There is nothing new under the Sun, but I think I already mentioned that. P.S.: I will contradict myself, just for fun. In history we finally reached a point where: 1. We could eliminate ourselves. 2. We finally effect our own global climate. 3. We are running out of resources on the global scale. 4. We are polluting in such a scale that it might be irreversible.... Not to be completely contradictory, it is entirely possible that we will have a WW3 and we go back to the stoneage and start the whole thing all over again... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"history is like a helix, it seems to go in circles but something changes...And on grand scale that history is part of another bigger helix..." I agree. I've always thought of history as like a coil or helix, as I don't believe it's linear, which suggests never changing, nor is it cyclical, because I don't believe history ever exactly repeats itself, but we do see parallels throughout history.
It only appears that way to you gnat-brains because you're circling the drain. Sorry, I'm just filling in for Mr. G.
Britney was Cleopatra in a past life and I was Mark Anthony. We don't seem to have met in this incarnation yet.
