Entropy, disorder and decay

[ionelv]

It 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.