A friend at Talk Polywell posted a link to this bit which is a cyclical theory of disorder.
I have a different theory.
Wars cause breakdowns in order. For one thing regular patterns and flows get disturbed. Wars are murder, robbery, rape, and theft. No surprise that they encourage such behavior generally.
But the same thing happens from an effort to impose too much order. See ’76, 17. The attempt to impose too much order not only broke down order but caused a civil war as well.
Alcohol prohibition is instructive. Some disorder must be accommodated to avoid too much disorder. Something the “Law and Order” folks forget. All too frequently. That begets acts of revolt both open and covert.
In any case disorder is built in. Chaos theory guarantees it. We get fooled by the periodic nature of chaotic systems. They seem so regular. So roughly predictable. And they are. Until the system jumps. During the time of the jump very little about the future of the system is predictable. It is in very complicated systems path dependent. Some one decides that going flying is more important that starting a computer program negotiation and the whole future of the world changes from CPM to DOS.
And of course we in America understand the dangers of gun control (most of us anyway). We understand that allowing for the occasional disorder of nearly universal arms availability prevents the disorder (well new strange attractor actually) of mass murder.
And to get back to my favorite topic. The universal legal availability of drugs (those that are currently illegal) prevents the chaos of a country run into the ground by drug cartels. A prime example being the 50,000 dead from the Drug Wars in Mexico. There are worse things than people getting addicted (if addiction is even possible – but that is a topic for another day) to drugs. Mass random murder. Which is very bad for business. People living in fear is not a strong foundation for a civil society.