Nov. 10th, 2021
Entropy, disorder and decay
Nov. 10th, 2021 10:09 amIt dawned on me last night that a lot of social and human dimensions can be thought of in terms of entropy, disorder and decay:
* philosophies of life:
** religions that sometimes start quite high-minded and noble (e.g. JC's Golden Rule) and degenerate into mercantilism/power grabs (e.g. megachurches and their opulent leaders, ayatollahs), puritanism (e.g. Taliban, Wahhabism or Twelvers, or Christian monastic orders) and genocidal crusades or conversions of the heathen
** capitalism (with its ruthless oligarchic power accumulation) or communism (with its ruthless oligarchic power accumulation)
* political parties (e.g. Republican Party rightward evolution from Abraham Lincoln's to Cheetolino and his seditious minions, Democratic Party rightward evolution from FDR to Clinton/Obama's Third Way also observed with the UK and Canadian Labour Parties)
* growing organizations (e.g. government bureaucracies, or increasingly moated if not straight out monopolistic conglomerate corporations such as AT&T or Standard Oil)
* languages (e.g. how a single language acquires so many dialects that they become virtually unintelligible, such as English, French, German)
A common thread is that increasing complexity and lax first principles inevitably lead to decay.