I have received a series of really amazing responses to my most recent post about the possibility of a D-M mode from David Hayes and “Steve D,” which are contained in the comments to the previous post on Carter and Obama. I highly recommend reading what David and Steve have to say. I really appreciate their contribution.
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Scott:
Thanks for kindly highlighting my comments in this post. While I have an audience, I’d like to add two additional related but points which I deem crucial.
First, I believe that Peikoff has given us, not merely an academic theory to explain how society changes over time but more importantly, a more detailed description of the complexity of societal change than we could glean from Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. In other words, he’s added more precision to Objectivism’s theory of history (and he did this by induction) which to a scientist like myself is mind candy. Peikoff has zeroed in on crucial causes which might, if we can learn to apply the knowledge correctly, allow us to consciously direct a modal change or at the very least move closer to being able to do this. BTW: That was the point of my allusion to psychohistory which Peikoff may have in a (so far non-mathematical) sense made possible.
Second, a point which I mentioned briefly in an earlier comment, we need to examine history very carefully to learn the causes of modal change. Most particularly, we have to understand why and how twice in history, the I mode has become dominant and the detailed steps by which that happened. Can we reproduce them, again? This is work for a historian like you, not a biochemist like me but I would be happy to help.
I don’t use Face Book but I use Linked In, Research Gate, etc. I’d like to contact you also, since I think continuing this conversation is crucial.