Source: 2012 Is Bullshit; 2020 Is When We’ll Really Be in Trouble – VICE

Oh oh.  This guy studies the underlying structural factors that lead to instability in societies.  The article was published in 2012.

I went and looked further into his publications, starting with his blog.  He’s moonlighting from his UConn job to do work at something called the Complexity Science Hub in Austria.  Particularly interesting are the slides accompanying a talk at a similar institution in Utrecht, which show the underlying analysis that informs his theory:

• wage stagnation (proxied by increasing societal inequality)
• more and more “elites”, competing for a fixed set of power resources

and the possible outcomes:

• violence
• collapse of the state
• many people dropping out of the “elite” classes

Going to go find a copy of his book and dig a little deeper.