A group consisting entirely of self-regarding agents will never be able to cooperate. So cooperation is possible only if some agents are motivated by… - Peter Turchin

Specific triggers... are difficult, perhaps... impossible to predict. ...[S]tructural pressures build up slowly and more predictably, and are amenable to analysis and forecasting.

SDT can be... an explicit computational model capable of forecasting future... social unrest and political violence in specific social systems.

[T]here are some reasons to doubt that growing inequality might be a direct mechanism... of instability, because humans are very bad at perceiving inequality. ...[A] number of studies ...show that people, when... asked to estimate the degree of income or wealth inequality... their opinions essentially have nothing to do with what is actually... measured by economists.