"The crisis we are in today" is NOT a pandemic of viral disease. It is the rapidly growing demands of the people to have government take over responsibility for their daily lives.
Feed me, house me, give me entertainment, keep me warm and dry in winter and cool in summer. Give me medical care and education (don't know why - no one seems to use it)...keep me safe from mean people, physical harm and emotional anguish. Protect me from myself!

THIS is the real crisis.

COVID is nothing but a means to an end and people happily fall in line with gov't orders.

Ray Dalio wrote a book on world economics and some predictions about where China will fit in (or rather dominate as the next world power) in the next several decades. Some might find it rather interesting to read "The Changing World Order"

[principles.com]

I think the book they are discussing is correct in a lot of ways regarding cycles but I don't believe they are particularly generational. I think they are more political/economic cycles. There are times of abundance and stability. These are times of production and the creation of abundance. This then gets upset by political interference where certain people feel there is a need to direct the abundance. Maybe to themselves. Maybe more evenly or equitably in society. Maybe to certain groups. This is political interference in the economy for perhaps philanthropic reasons or perhaps, although it would never be admitted to, greedy reasons.

In times of scarcity, when there is not abundance enough to fund large governments, people will tend to work things out among themselves and, instead of government, are dependent more upon each other. Trust would be a valuable commodity in these periods. It should be in all periods but governments, tyrants and rulers tend to destroy it to intolerable levels.

Essentially, there needs to be abundance before there is political interference. Then a period of scarcity will occur because of the political interference. The economics of the time is the largest driving factor in these cycles. When there is nothing for Kings, Tyrants and governments to suck up they are generally more socially benevolent. The variation in lengths of cycles are influenced by certain factors, such as technological breakthroughs, political ideological experimentation, power restructuring, educational standards.

I'll just mention one more thing and that is that a socialistic society has proven in experience to last about three generations or ninety years. There are factors that can prolong it but it does require negation of the individual, oppression of change and an omniscient presence to ensure the suppression of individual expression. Scarcity is the prevailing condition. If there is a central authority the point where abundance is exhausted is when the central authority collapses. Margaret Thatcher made note of it in her oft quoted statement, "Socialism works until it runs out of other people's money."

There may be other things that will occur on a grosser level but they are probably out of the realm of being human. In which case, scarcity and abundance are not so relevant.

There is nothing remarkable about the four horsemen, conquest, war, famine, and death. Famine and disease often accompanying war and they can also cause war as nations scramble for resources.

An interesting side note is that sometimes nations or more exactly cultures are focused internally and war with themselves. That has been the case in China during most of it's history and in Europe from the end of the Roman empire until the colonial period. One of the predictable outcomes of opening China during the Nixon administration was that their energy would be increasingly focused externally. The idea that the culture would be transformed, naive.

Cultures are never transformed by contact with the external world or even the adoption of alien ideas. Russia went from czar to Stalin without transforming it's basic brutal nature and Putin continues the tradition. China went from emperor to Mao without changing it's brutal nature. The West went from Roman imperialism to the imperialism of industrial states even adopting the architecture and institutions such as a Senate. Even completely subjugated people like American natives have keep large parts of their culture.

If you want to know what China will do now that their focus has shifted to the outside world look at their history. They largely absorbed and even genetically replaced the Mongols. I have little doubt they have similar plans for the rest of the world even if it isn't a completely conscious process.

The official doctrine of the Chinese party is that they are a different species. If people don't find that frightening think Nazis. Then think how irrational Hitler's plans were. The Chinese are more dangerous because they are patient. They are spreading through out the world and taking their culture with them. Ask their historical neighbors how that works out, everywhere they settled in the East they were more financially successful than the natives.

Cultures are like organisms. They don't have a mind exactly. They replicate themselves until something stops them. Either disease or external conflict.

A song comes to mind "we didn't start the fire, it's been burning since the world's been turning".