Of the Sociological...

Before I get to my main topic, let me jot down a quick observation that I've noticed over the past decade when it comes to the growth and age of States as well as other groups, including online ones. I was going to reply to someone on reddit about this when they complained of increasing censorship on a large subreddit but I thought it'd make for a decent blog post. This seeming phenomenon of laws, rules and censorship or some form of order growing simultaneously with increased userbase seems fairly universal. The complexity of law doctrines or rules seem to increase linearly with group complexity, something I don't worry so much about when it comes to online privately owned forums with little consequence and much more forgiveness as opposed to the increasing complexity of law which has potentially much worse consequences. It seems as a group gets bigger, local entropy increases so conversely the group seeks to counter it with increased order (rules) to ostensibly create more civility and production yet simultaneously burdening itself. Champion's Paradox, again, says 'not so fast' as you can't have much power without much burden. We may try to fight as we do against this bureaucracy but even without these formal burdens there will still exist increasing informal ones. Of course this 'complexity begets complexity' notion might be kind of obvious and we may intuitively grasp it but I think it's fun to make more formalized notes and I thought it was another interesting observation I can fit, if only vaguely, within the framework of Champion's Paradox or Le Châtelier's principle that I recently discovered.

Now onto the main article which is an older one that I debated to myself about posting as it's more political and I generally hate to argue politics, especially with regards to justifying it against some vague, unproven framework on both sides of the argument but I felt I should defend against the sociological implications supposedly made from the argument. Months ago I came across this article when searching for material regarding sociology and thermodynamics. Researching these combined topics is something I've rarely done and I admit that I do like to remain somewhat ignorant of related material because I don't like to be burdened by all the conjecture floating around online and of course do like to normally 'check in' with more proven science once in a while to assess the validity of my thoughts but sometimes best discoveries are self discoveries. But my main contention with his argument isn't his math, which I can't discount as I admittedly don't know enough about thermodynamics to debate it and I'd argue he doesn't either and that very few do as even the term "entropy" still has some valid rational contention, but I disagree with his sociological conclusions.

I'd like to argue that within this framework, as I see it, there are reasonable reasons for empathy that I didn't find in his conclusions. After all, if the universe is logical and all in and of it is logical then it stands that there are logical reasons that we may feel empathy towards the underdogs. In my past I'd sometimes shrug off people's motives no matter the argument if it didn't jive with my own but I've learned that perhaps we're missing some potentially useful information when we don't assess the motives of others we may not understand so I usually try to do ideological opponents a favor and study their motives more fairly, in other words, practice Steelman or Strongman arguments as opposed to Strawman arguments.

But lets get on with it, shall we? Shelby claims that wisdom or wealth can be gained with order, which to some extent I can agree. As I discussed in the previous entry, too much entropy or chaos in the system isn't conducive to human training (education), which unlike many animals, most of our higher educational strata are only retained and improved upon because we nurture an academic culture. No other animals spend so much time training their young on knowledge gained by previous generations. Our higher evolutionary status isn't just who we are but how much we're able to cultivate and provide an ordered system by which our young can educate themselves on the previous generation's endeavors and through these iterations can build stronger knowledge bases to augment our survival. He then concludes that "...this shows mathematically that diversification is the opposite of wisdom or wealth." I'm not sure what diversification he's referring to. Diversification of knowledge creates a stronger foundation for humanity's survival, all information for all. Conversely you could argue that proprietary ownership of knowledge belongs to those who have founded those bits of knowledge (intellectual rights) which may inspire others to seek more knowledge themselves since it can't be so easily gained instead of relying on others. If he means diversification of wealth, then you could argue that a man who is at the end of his ropes isn't going to care how you verbally try to justify that he can't have what you have, he may look out for him and his family despite what kind of non-local (societal) disorder it may reap to nurture local order at home so if you want to take pre-emptive measures against much disorder, you have to maintain the populace with some degree of bread, if not circuses or an accessible means of acquisition.

In this manner, I've argued that we are our brother's keepers, whether we like it or not because in a society, if your brothers aren't happy, you're ultimately not going to be. The French Revolution and subsequently influenced revolutions are just a small evidence to this. The alternative is to nullify, for lack of better term, those who tax or burden society too much which seems to walk a fine line between order and disorder when this hyper-vigilant auditing creates an existential crisis among the populace while increasing the burden of fear from increased government tyranny and lower societal tolerances while inevitably decreasing creative and genetic variability of output which ultimately lowers evolutionary adaptive potential. I relate back to the argument I made of defensive structures, be it digital (computers) or analog (castles) that the more infrastructure you have, the more adaptive points you have, of course that being a negative with defense as you have more points to protect but a positive with adaptive potential where needed as you have more points to expand. The disadvantage, relating to my first paragraph of law/population complexity, is that with increasing complexity, or entropy, the burden of management increases and when a certain point is reached, you often have natural processes which break these down to more manageable states, be it corporate downsizing, simplifying burdensome code, statehood, etc. But with more genetic diversification there are more possibilities or niches for the survival of members of that society as long as we're tolerant enough and/or intelligent enough to manage those more complex, higher entropy, states. With natural selection, like collapsing a waveform, the variables decrease as you observe (put pressure upon) the system. One one hand you have better adaptation but less adaptive potential or more specific data yet less general data. And in more defense of diversification, sometimes we throw things away too often and only later find out that it would've been useful in another application while the negative being the burden of more storage management which humans will certainly get better at as long as we maintain a system which nurtures civility and progress. The same goes for the evolutionary filter; since we don't know the far, sometimes even near, future then we can't fully predict what genetic traits will be useful in later generations and so we're either taxed by excess societal (cultural, genetic, political, etc) management or excess selective pressures, ie, we have too few eggs in the basket; pick your poison. Shelby argues that this diversification is bad but later admits in other posts I've seen of his that aren't included in the linked page, that this higher entropy, or diversification, is good, confusingly.

On the topic of taxing the weak and deregulating the rich, I disagree also. In all of history it's followed that the more you acquired the more you were taxed, not necessarily by man's law but by natural law. The more assets you acquired, naturally more energy was expended to protect those assets, ie, your own energy or more soldiers required to protect your land and assets as a noble. Some, who are often those who argue for less government power, argue that we should do away with this natural law, as if it's possible, and let the government, which has to be more taxed to defend more land that you acquire, should give them a free pass and that they should be taxed no more than the poor with less assets. They want the government to protect them for free or for comparatively less than the poor while they argue against socialism. They may argue that companies should be deregulated while socialist executive forces are hypocritically free to regulate the non-corporate entities, ie, the poor, as the rich are seemingly above petty laws. To preempt questions of government roles and what we term 'natural law', I don't think the government should shelter us fully from natural law as it should somewhat be attune to it and aware of it as much as possible but to tame it to such degree that a semblance of civility, and therefore technological progress, can reign. Incidentally, to be frank, I think excess income promotes evolutionary degeneracy, to some degree, just as much as very low income lifestyles potentially can which often tends to exacerbate within a few generations should nothing change, again hearkening back to the notion of Hormesis that some change to stagnation tends to be an evolutionary positive. With excess shelter from faults you have higher tolerances for non-optimal output, ie, you're allowed to get away with more deviancy of societal norms which I'll entertain, on the whole, tend to be more evolutionarily advantageous despite societies sometimes behaving what may seem irrationally sometimes. Champion's Paradox can still play a role here such that you aren't completely free from societal norms as you become a bigger target yet, this can  bypass generations with acquired heritable wealth such that, conjecturing of course, deviancy can easily take place when you have much yet striven for little. Conversely you could argue that very tight evolutionary tolerances among the poor can create nihilistic outlook and behavior as well. When your future doesn't look so well, when you feel selective evolutionary pressures very directly upon you every day, you tend to live for the here and now and try to enjoy it. Many times this includes riskier behavior such as smoking, non-optimal diet, etc and perhaps your own physically and financially risky job is doubly creating this nihilistic feedback loop. A man who's encapsulated in this lifestyle may feel as if he has less to lose, he's a hungry fighter, and so with increasingly unhappy masses you have more chance of revolt; this is why you are your brother's keeper to some extent if civility means anything to you and of course a nation estranged to civility becomes just as much estranged to technological progress. On the positive of a hardened lifestyle, these more direct selective pressures can tend to steer us in safer directions if we try to be attune to them, ie, riskier lifestyles may increase appreciation of life and our sacred feelings thereof.

Contrarily to my 'brother's keeper' argument, you could argue that should others constantly rely on the producers then the dependents get too dependent and it taxes the producers excessively which ultimately decreases morale and creative potential of said producers and perhaps even filtering down to the rest of society this negative aura. This is a valid argument also and again I think there's a happy medium somewhere in this high-low dynamic and it's up to each of us to individually make our own assessments. We should all be in tune to our brother's happiness. Shelby goes on to use, what I can only see as non-sequiturs, by applying math that may apply at one scale to another scale whereas I'd argue that the scale breaks down when applied at those levels as it likes to often do. In other posts of his he tries to connote that it can all be worked into a ToE (Theory of Everything) which, as previously mentioned, I think Godel would shudder at such a statement. As a disclaimer, I should note that I'm generally not one to knock what I don't understand but I do think that trying to make ethical decisions and basing them off of what is unproven science may just be a lesson in disaster (history buffs know what I'm talking about) and I stress that anyone reading may take note of my own observations but don't necessarily take them seriously without much analytical oversight. In total, the greatest thing I can sift from my observations is that moderation is the safest key to survival, which of course is very arbitrary in definition and application and a mantra that the collective masses already fortunately and justifiably entertain to some degree.

As for other arguments he makes, I either somewhat agree or don't disagree enough to bother making an argument against as these can be deep topics that require much analyzing if one wants to make a sufficient argument and ain't nobody got time fo' dat.

A little note, sometimes I write these articles while listening to certain songs on loop as a nice ambiance. When I was younger I almost never could do this since songs would get stale to me after a first listen and I felt as if a good song is sacred and to enjoy it too much lessens it. Not sure what changed over the years but I'm not as averse to it these days and sometimes if I enjoy a song I may listen to it so much that it becomes hammered into my consciousness. This article is brought to you by a group I rarely listened to, including this song, but has grown on me when I (re)discovered it on Spotify. I love the percussion which isn't something I'm usually drawn to. Coincidentally, just as this article has overlying political tones about the striving masses, so too does this song. Ladies and gentlemen, The Clash.