> I'd definitely not want to live through one because it sucks for those during it, but it's great for those that come after.

Well, sometimes… Sometimes it ends up in a brutal dictatorship until the next revolution, which may or may not end up improving things.

Sometimes revolutions are also stolen. Often people agree that the current thing needs to go down but don’t agree on what should follow and you end up with things like leftists destroying the elites only to end up in theocratic dictatorship.

I'm yet to see a revolution that improves anything. They certainly destroy a lot and change who's the elite though.

Any benefit, IMHO, comes purely from starting over. Any revolution benefit can be achieved through debt purge, elevating those in precarious state and break any fast feedback loops that led us to that point.

> Any revolution benefit can be achieved through debt purge, elevating those in precarious state and break any fast feedback loops that led us to that point.

Breaking things is very difficult. The status quo would not be the status quo unless a significant part of the people in power wanted it. This means that there is always a significant resistance to overcome, which requires very strong incentives, which historically tends to be despair or starvation. In other words, revolutions.

Yeah, it’s unfortunate. The same thing with wars. You know what? Revolutions are just civil wars anyway.

> I'm yet to see a revolution that improves anything

> Any benefit, IMHO, comes purely from starting over

So you do see how it improves something :)

As for examples, read a bit of history, they are not hard to find.

Yeah that’s like improving the overcrowding issues in prisons by reducing the standard for capital punishment.

I should read some history books of that, surely.

No, it's not like that. In any case go through this list and tell me you cannot find a single beneficial one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebell...

Here, I'll leave you one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution

I don't even think you're wrong in your dislike of revolutions, like I said, I was clear in saying I don't want to live through one, but the extreme view that nothing good every happened is simply, blind.

Fair enough, the correct wording should be something like "revolutions are not worth their cost" as some good does come from revolutions. I'm sure many will argue that the its worth the cost but thats much more subjective.

I agree with this latest comment of yours, and I think I know where you're coming from as counterpositioning to some things one reads online. It's definitely muddy, even the one I linked you was very complex during the following months, but was on the whole good - in my opinion. My parents and grandparents lived through it and would choose to go through it again as many many others.

How about the Chinese Cultural Revolution?

Oddly you get revolutions without debt purges. Haiti is probably the worst example of this: they were literally forced to pay for their freedom by France.

The American revolution has changed the world hugely. The French revolution carried on from there etc. It is very much better for most people (not the aristocracy).

Revolutions definitely change things, not necessarily for the better though(depending on what you expect from the revolution). You can have change without a revolution, like with the Brits and Magna Carta.

If for you democratic elections are a form of revolution than how, in gods name, Magna Carta isn't? Fucking wars were waged for Magna Carta. Just historical illiteracy rearing its ugly head again.

I think you should try to present an argument instead of throwing a tantrum and calling people things.

I did present an argument. My argument is that wars were fought to enact Magna Carta(historical fact) and thus if we consider, as you do, that January 6th was a revolution there is no imaginable reason, at least I can't think of one (and you refuse to share yours), to think that there was no revolution that brought about Magna Carta.

Saying "fucking" isn't throwing a tantrum. Nor is pointing out something as an example of historical illiteracy calling somebody names.

Now that we are on the same page can you present your arguments on how what happened on January 6th is a revolution and how Magna Carta was not brought about by a revolution?

> The French revolution carried on from there etc. It is very much better for most people (not the aristocracy).

That's a common misconception, but the first three (original, 1830, 1848) French revolutions were failures. They paved the way for future improvements, and established important precedents like human rights and equality... but materially for the average person little changes because of the revolutions. The revolution with the biggest impact in France was undoubtedly the Industrial one, which brought social and economic mobility on a large scale.

The Reign of Terror was executing practically any politically active person they could get their hands on (and their families), not just aristocrats. It didn't end until Robespierre was foolish enough to order the execution of one of France's most popular revolutionary politicians (Danton).

When actual peasants revolted, as in the Vendee, the result was what some call a genocide. Against the peasants. By the French Republic.

France continued to see revolutions, "reactions", and Napoleon because the Revolution did not make things better. It was quite some time before that happened for most people.

That’s probably survivorship bias. The Nobel Prize in Economics for 2024 was awarded for research that has demonstrated that the single most influential factor in the wealth of a nation is the stability of its institutions. Frequent civil wars, coups, and revolutions in certain regions of the world have left them further and further behind.

So I think in general, revolutions are high risk high reward gambles. The rare ones that work out and align with the needs of the population make important strides for humanity, but most revolutions fail or are corrupted and end up a net negative for the society.