[Matrim]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')o way to make anyone accept such a system of course, people are not intelligent enough to contemplate such a thing, and in addition you would have to have a great deal of control over people's private lives.

[Pops]

How Big Should A Small Farm Be?
John Ikerd
(Or “Entropy and Industrial Agriculture”)

“This dissolution of boundaries, this industrialization of agriculture, has resulted in tremendous gains in agricultural productivity and economic efficiency. As with industrialization in general, it has released tremendous stocks of stored energy that were constrained by the boundaries that once defined different fields, family functions, enterprises, farms, and even farming communities. The boundaries have been removed and the energy has been released. But, once the stored energy has been used up, where will these industrial farming operations get new energy?”

http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jik ... owBig.html

[Pogma]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Matrim', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')I'm beginning to think that a crash is not just imminent, but necessary.


*

[rerere]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Matrim', 'T')his garbage about "the market will give signals and save us all" is practically all-pervasive on this continent.

[lotrfan55345]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pogma', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Matrim', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')I'm beginning to think that a crash is not just imminent, but necessary.


*

[Falconoffury]

I think the absolute core of the problem is human nature. It's human nature to want more, and it's human nature to only look at the short term.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'H')ow Big Should A Small Farm Be?
John Ikerd
(Or “Entropy and Industrial Agriculture”)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f you drive right through “your” town to buy things in the city, just to save a few dollars.

[backstop]

Falcon - I'd differ with you there. I think what you see as human nature is just the product of America's culture and history, with a substantial grounding in European colonialist values. This is not to say that here in Europe the latter values don't still cause harm: they do, to us and others.

I'd in no way deny that the ideology of 'acquisitiveness' has been present and growing for as long as man's made cities. But I'd point out that history has not only been written by the victors, its also been written for the rich.

There have been and still are many examples of peaceable cultures thriving and respecting the wellbeing of their descendants, and yet their values don't seem to get the same coverage.

I'd suggest that the extreme societies that we see now are an aberation from human nature, which reflects their isolation from Nature, and that IMHO is at the core of their problem.

regards,

Backstop

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', ' ')
The problem is the definition of entropy itself. A lot of people define it as a degree of disorder. This is plain wrong.

[TrueKaiser]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smiley', 'O')K I'll try to explain it in laymans terms. But first let me reiterate that I do not object against the second law, I just question the way we interpret the concept of entropy.

Imagine an extremely large box, which is hermetically sealed; the ideal closed system. In that box is a gas, uniformly dispersed; the ultimate form of disorder.

Now imagine that in the box there is a tiny section with a larger density than the remainder of the box. Since the density is locally somewhat larger than the remainder of the gas that section is going to exert a gravitational pull on the gas around it. Gas starts flowing toward the density variation.

As more and more gas starts to be contained by the aberration the gravitational pull becomes stronger until all the gas has been absorbed and the gas will first liquefy and then crystallize. The content of the box has thus become ordered.

If you say that entropy equals disorder then the entropy should have lowered. But that can't be possible in a closed system. If we assume that the second law is correct (as I do) then we must get rid of the idea that entropy equal disorder.

Entropy itself does not distinguish between order and disorder. Whether a system will become ordered or disordered depends on the presence of interactions. When there are no interactions the system remains chaotic. However when you do have interactions (such as gravity), then the system can and will become statically or dynamically ordered. This is the basis of chaos theory.

Such events and such interactions are not rare, they are the norm. They are the reason why we can find so many ordered things on our planet and so little truly unordered things. Sometimes the scale of the order surpasses our imagination. For a lice walking on a carpet, it might seem a random bunch of colored fibers instead of a well-woven design. But the overwhelming majority of things we know is ordered.

[MonteQuest]

There is no such thing as a free lunch.--Water does not flow uphill.--You can't get something for nothing.--Shit happens.--Why me?-- Time's Arrow. -- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse--Every solution breeds new problems.--Chaos always wins, because it's better organized.-- Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.-- We have all heard these sayings, but what do they really mean? What do they refer to? They all refer to the Second Law of thermodynamics.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hermodynamics is the only physical theory of universal content which, within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, I am convinced will never be overthrown.-- Albert Einstein

[pup55]

MQ:

Here's the best example in human history of an attempt to defy entropy.

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/pyramids/home.html

After 4000 years, it has been maybe 70% successful.

The best engineers and the national resources of the most powerful nation on earth were devoted to their construction. Ironically, the social systems were a lot more fragile than the structures.

I have two nominations for our time: fullerenes and Voyager. In the case of Voyager, it's a matter of probability, really. If it makes it into deep space, it will presumably go on in its "assembled state" forever, to the extent that we understand "forever". On the other hand, maybe it has already been whacked by a comet, for all we know. In the case of the Fullerenes, maybe they are small enough and durable enough to resist entropy "indefinitely".

As in the above case, the social systems that produced them are more vulnerable than the fabrications.

[BlueGhost]

Err we're still observing both Voyager 1 and 2. They were in the news recently due to a dispairty in their de-acceleration due to the mass of the solar system... A dispairity in BOTH inspite of the fact they-re going in opposite directions... Never did find out what happend to that story.

Course they could have been whacked by something and we haven't noticed, I imagine that the light speed delay would be non trivial at 90 AU

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

[MonteQuest]

So many people on this site continue to ignore the imperative of the second law of thermodynamics; they just go on debating the old world pardigm as if things will just continue as usual. Until this site focuses more on the laws of thermodynamics and a new world view, all we are doing is jacking off.

The Neurobiology of Mass Delusion
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hose who know about "Peak Oil," monetary debts, climate change, militarism, overpopulation, corporatism, soil loss, aquifer depletion, persistent organic pollutants, deforestation, etc., realize we are at a major historical juncture now. Since we know it is past time to change our culture, the question we have is whether most people will bother to listen and create the necessary transition in a rational, non-violent manner.

For those who find the terms in the previous paragraph somewhat mysterious, try this. Research the "laws of thermodynamics" and compare them to the cultural imperative for "economic growth." See if you can recognize and then resolve the tension between the two in your mind. If you can't resolve the tension, decide which one of these has to go. Look back at the terms in the previous paragraph and ask how they relate to what you've just learned. Caution: afterwards you may need a good shrink.

[Chuck]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'S')o many people on this site continue to ignore the imperative of the second law of thermodynamics; they just go on debating the old world paradigm as if things will just continue as usual. Until this site focuses more on the laws of thermodynamics and a new world view, all we are doing is jacking off.

[Xelat]

A PREFACE:
This was formerly a new topic - but it was removed and suggested I repost it here. OK. I am not going to quote the "2nd Law" Party led by Montequest but rather paraphrase their arguments. It has been suggested that this distorts their arguments. If so I would like to here about it. Respect to all.
_______________

In December in tangling with Montequest he made an argument that Peak Oil is inherently an unsolvable problem due to the 2nd law. Immediately my intuition contorted as if disgusted by the wrongness of his argument. Of course "wrongness" won't change hearts and minds at Peakoil.com. So I sifted through pages and pages of posts in the "Technology and Peak Oil" and "Laws of Thermodynamics" threads. I also cracked my old physics textbooks. And so now I'd like to set it right.

Montequests use of the law in these and other threads is a terribly terribly terribly incorrect application of the 2nd law. Keith_McClary, Nero and others have the correct understanding. Let's state the crappy version of the law:

Any system which is free of external influences becomes more disordered with time. This disorder can be expressed in terms of the quantity called entropy.

Actually this is one of several versions that are in words. Let us stick with words. I will paraphrase Montequests argument:

Human beings have decreased entropy by creating society and since the entropy of the earth is steadily increasing they face an increase in entropy.

This argument is terrible. Why? The law again:

Any system which is free of external influences becomes more disordered with time. This disorder can be expressed in terms of the quantity called entropy.

The Earth is not a system free of external influences. It approximates a closed system - a system which has energy exchange with the outside but not matter - as has been noted in the the "Tech" thread. If in fact the Earth were free of external influences it's likely life would never have evolved here and it would be a relatively boring place. But the Sun provides substantial energy input to the Earth, and the Earth radiates a substantial amount of energy into space. Thus the concern over greenhouse gases.

The Sun has been keeping entropy stable on earth by doing (electromagnetic) work on it as a system since, well, far outside the scope of our argument. As such if we were to define a isolated system (a system which does not exchange matter or energy with the outside) including the sun and the earth we would find that outside of the earth there was a substantial entropy increase.

Some numbers. Total Insolation (energy received by earth) for Battlefield Earth is 15000 the energy consumption of the human race. If we are able in the geologic short term to capture this energy slightly more efficiently than the biosphere generally does then we should be able to coexist with environment relatively free of destructive influence. A careful reading of Heinberg's book for example (which I have issues with) will indicate that he believes this possible . . . if renewables are developed aggressively.

(What percentage of energy received by earth is eventually reradiated??)

My hope then is we will hear no more cries of "2nd Law! 2nd Law!" during discussions as if this immediately refutes the other sides argument. The 2nd Law does not gurantee that we must powerdown, or that humanity will go extinct or any other such malarky.

Monte seems to have refined his argument a bit as of late and I will now paraphrase that:

Technologies increase entropy. We can only maintain entropy near it's current levels by making use of energy from outside of the system due to the 2nd law. Hence we face a dieoff.

I do not agree with the argument. However I do believe this to be a correct invocation of the 2nd law. Where I disagree - which is not the main thrust of this thread - is that it may be possible to have technology which we consider more advanced yet increases entropy less. Namely through efficiency - which is the Forum focus - LEDs are a good example. I also disagree that the current population necessarily can't be sustained at a lower technical level through more equitable/intelligent organization of resources. These two assertions seemed to be implicitly assumed false by Montequests argument. I do accord "non trivial die off" a significant probability as various resources peak. But it is to my mind certainly not inevitable (witness 30% year on year growth in Solar and Wind industries).

This thread is in no way meant to be a personal attack on Monte - just a vicious criticism of the arguments that he and others have made. I think it's important that those who may have comed to believe these arguments in october (when "Tech" posting was last in full swing) reconsider.

Smoke em if ya got em.

Xelat

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Xelat', 'M')ontequests use of the law in these and other threads is a terribly terribly terribly incorrect application of the 2nd law. Keith_McClary, Nero and others have the correct understanding. Let's state the crappy version of the law:

Any system which is free of external influences becomes more disordered with time. This disorder can be expressed in terms of the quantity called entropy.

Actually this is one of several versions that are in words. Let us stick with words. I will paraphrase Montequests argument:

Human beings have decreased entropy by creating society and since the entropy of the earth is steadily increasing they face an increase in entropy.

This argument is terrible. Why? The law again:

Any system which is free of external influences becomes more disordered with time. This disorder can be expressed in terms of the quantity called entropy.

The Earth is not a system free of external influences. It approximates a closed system - a system which has energy exchange with the outside but not matter - as has been noted in the the "Tech" thread. If in fact the Earth were free of external influences it's likely life would never have evolved here and it would be a relatively boring place. But the Sun provides substantial energy input to the Earth, and the Earth radiates a substantial amount of energy into space. Thus the concern over greenhouse gases.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Xelat', 'M')onte seems to have refined his argument a bit as of late and I will now paraphrase that:

Technologies increase entropy. We can only maintain entropy near it's current levels by making use of energy from outside of the system due to the 2nd law. Hence we face a dieoff.

I do not agree with the argument. However I do believe this to be a correct invocation of the 2nd law. Where I disagree - which is not the main thrust of this thread - is that it may be possible to have technology which we consider more advanced yet increases entropy less. Namely through efficiency - which is the Forum focus - LEDs are a good example. I also disagree that the current population necessarily can't be sustained at a lower technical level through more equitable/intelligent organization of resources. These two assertions seemed to be implicitly assumed false by Montequests argument. I do accord "non trivial die off" a significant probability as various resources peak. But it is to my mind certainly not inevitable (witness 30% year on year growth in Solar and Wind industries).

[0mar]

Incredibly minor nitpick, but you can reduce entropy with the same amount of energy that caused the entropy. It almost always takes more though

So yea, incredibly minor and bears absolutely no revelance to any arguements about energy use.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', 'I')ncredibly minor nitpick, but you can reduce entropy with the same amount of energy that caused the entropy. It almost always takes more though

So yea, incredibly minor and bears absolutely no revelance to any arguements about energy use.