Ahh. I didn't see there was a comment thread for the site. Interesting.
That being said -- is there anything required about intentionality of the fatalities? Pepper spray can kill people with allergic reactions. Tasers can and have killed in the past. A good solid thwack upside the head can kill if you're really unlucky.
But if we restrict it to clearly intended fatalities -- that's just a symptom of protests of duration and volume, more than anything else, is it not?
I don't know. The thread hasn't discussed intentionality. That is probably worth bringing up explicitly there. As to duration and volume- well yes, to a large extent, it is a measure of that. The prediction has a set deadline. So one way of looking at it is predicting certain volume before a specific date.
On reddit today I read 'the-Gandhi-quote' on a post about the Wall Street Occupation Protest:
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you.."
I'm transitioning, possibly, from the laughing stage and am beginning to feel the tiniest bit excited that perhaps some actual change is in order. On the one hand, I feel sufficiently skeptical about the probability of a 'revolution'. On the other hand, given how fast the world has been changing (the internet, gloablization), maybe change is inevitable and this is the way it happens now.
I know this is a rationality site, not a current affairs site, but when something tweaks my interest I like to know what "Less Wrong" thinks...waiting for a spontaneous post could take forever and finding a 'rationality-spin' would be disingenuous so I'll just ask:
What is possible and what is likely?
What factors are important?