As a general rule, "Popular Science" has always struck me as a laughable oxymoron. And while this rule has served me well over the years and insulated me from all sorts of traps there are occasionally some quite fascinating exceptions. One of them is Peter Turchin and the notion of Cliodynamics. Essentially Turchin is creating a framework for understanding periods of historical upheaval in what I like to read as economic cyclicalism. Instead of viewing history eschatologically or as utopian, Turchin's 50 year cycles of upheaval and violence provide a startlingly accurate framework for understanding humanity's frustrating repetitions of the same mistakes. Its a generational thing. Turchin came to prominence by correctly predicting a long stretch of elections. Of course he is not the first to do so. Markets have been correctly predicting elections and there margins with vast accuracy for some time - take a look at IEM and Intrade , for example (Remember that old HL...