Out with the Old...

Our world is about to change at a pace that has never been seen before in all of human history.  A paradigm shift has begun.  For many it will be painful, for some it will be exhilarating.  The extent of our turmoil may be measured by the persistence with which we cling to the pursuit of how it's always been or to our old ideas of how things should be.  Adaptability and flexibility are key virtues that will get each of us through the days ahead.  Cooperation and community will be hallmarks of success.

The work that MoodCompass has done in tracking disasters has been successful.  We have learned that it can be done, and have demonstrated that there is connection between ourselves and our world.  However, because of where we are at in history, it does not make sense to continue to focus on disasters at this point.  There's a good chance that people will find all the disaster-type events they hear about in the news in the coming years to be overwhelming, or at least something to tune out and turn away from.  We need to find a different focus, and are trying to figure out right now what that might be.

We have discontinued our tracking of social mood's connection with the stock market as well.  The market will be quickly on its way to irrelevancy in the months ahead, as it already is for most people now.

Transformation is magical.  It can be frightening when it happens to us and our world.  Yet, as we let go of what we have clung to, either by choice or by force, we make room for something unexpected and potentially beautiful.  That is our hope for the world, now, and in the years ahead.

 

Weather, Volatility, and Society -- Coincidence?

The National Weather Service on Tuesday is expecting a ramping up of severe weather this week:

"Severe thunderstorms will be possible farther east as the week progresses due to a very unsettled weather pattern."

We have many times presented natural event outlooks based on social mood patterns.  This time we will present the same concept from the other side.  We have seen evidence over and over of a connection between weather, people, and events in general.  Given this weather forecast, watch for an increase in "unsettled" people.  If the pattern plays out as the Weather Service suspects, look for an increase in global stories about protests, riots, violence, market volatility, and natural events such as storms, earthquakes, and fires. 

Are we saying that the weather causes people's moods?  Are we saying people cause the weather?  Are we saying that U.S. weather causes global events?  Not exactly.  We are saying that there is a connection.  They are interdependent.  People and the events in the world are interdependent.  Let's watch this "very unsettled pattern" in our world this week and see how many faces it ends up displaying. 


For more information on the current outlook or the MoodCompass Project, see http://moodcompass.com.
You can also like The MoodCompass Project on .

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Update 6/13/2013:
Storm was not as bad as feared, so we would expect world news of this energy type to be unsettling, but not as destructive as it could have been. 

Headlines June 13-15, 2013:
Most destructive wildfire in Colorado's history
Dozens hurt in explosion at Louisiana chemical plant
1 dead, others hurt in new explosion in Louisiana
Turkey's protest situation critical
Stocks close out a volatile week
Thousands take to streets of Istanbul
Earthquake hits southern Mexico

Stopping Disaster

On June 2, we posted a warning of being in the Global Disaster Zone through June 10.  Then an amazing thing happened.  The following day, we moved out of the "zone."  Is that a coincidence?  Did the few hundred people who read the post respond in a way that a global disaster was prevented or delayed?  There's no way to know for sure whether a thing would have happened.  Today, the risk once again nears the critical zone.  Is there a way to stop or delay disaster?  Is it possible to repeat what happened after the June 2 post?

On the right side of the chart below, it can be seen that as of the 1st post, collective mood was just entering the "Global Disaster Zone," and then promptly left it as the blue line moved down the following day.  It began moving up again on Friday, June 7, which also meant an increasing risk of disaster type events.  While not large enough to be considered a disaster, a tragic event occurred, a mass shooting at Santa Monica College in California.  As of today, the disaster zone is getting quite near again.  What will happen this time?

For more information on the current outlook or the MoodCompass Project, see http://moodcompass.com.
You can also like The MoodCompass Project on .

In the Global Disaster Zone

The last time collective mood was in the Global Disaster Zone, there were the violent storms in the U.S. called Walda followed by the Boston Marathon event, the West Texas fertilizer plant explosion, and then devastating earthquakes in Iran and China.  Before that was a superstorm called Sandy.  What will happen this time?



Collective mood cycles from extreme disconnection from the events happening in the world around us (the news) to a reconciliation where we "wake up" to events that grab our attention or impact us at a deep emotional level.  Like a rubber band being stretched and released, the farther we go during the disconnection phase, the more impactful the reconciliation tends to be.

At the place we are in for about the next ten days, global disasters are more likely than not.  And because the source of this data is U.S. mood, it indicates when events especially impactful to people in the United States should occur.

The themes of events likely to occur at the hands of human beings are organized or directed violence and the experience of victimization or vulnerability.  This could also show up as social instability (e.g. angry protests) or market volatility (violent market moves).  Events likely to occur in Nature should reflect themes of fire and/or flood (e.g. volcanoes, violent storms, and possibly earthquakes).  There is also a background natural theme of epidemic, health, and mortality.

There are more details on the likely disasters in the previous two posts, so let's not belabor that here.  When disasters affect us personally they are tragic, but the point of this is not that we are all doomed.  The point is how amazing it is that our world is connected to us and we are to it.  Disasters are a built in way to get our attention and remind us that we have become disconnected again.  When the rubber band gets pulled to these extremes and released, we all get relatively more connected for a moment.  It would be a really cool thing if there was a time in our not too distant future that we could remind ourselves somehow before the disconnection was so great as to put these things in motion.

For more information on the current outlook or the MoodCompass Project, see http://moodcompass.com.
You can also like The MoodCompass Project on .
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Update:
6/7/13: Santa Monica College Shooting leaves seven dead