Collapse

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This is the place for discussing the potential collapse of modern civilization and the environment.

Collapse, in this context, refers to the significant loss of an established level or complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaotically, and be willing or unwilling. It does not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular, global event. Although, the longer the duration, the more it resembles a ‘decline’ instead of collapse.

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Entropy: A Revelation (thehonestsorcerer.substack.com)

submitted 8 months ago by eleitl@lemmy.ml to c/collapse@lemmy.ml

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[–] blackboxwarrior@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Like you said, there’s plenty of external forces affecting the entropy of a closed “earth” system, and so the notion of a closed system seems a bit meaningless to me. I probably have some more reading to do on this tbh. I tend to take the view that everything is a single closed system (i.e. universal wavefunction) and so talking about smaller subsystems is helpful but never exact.

I think i might be a bit more optimistic on how well we can use these “entropy gradients” to our advantage. I study computational nanotechnology for a living, so ofc i’m a lil bullish on it, but generally i think that our current high technology regime can get us far enough past scarcity, it’s mainly the sociopolitical implications of doing so that i worry would stop us first.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago

Machine-phase mechanosynthesis or polymer chain folding autoassembly? Can you expand a little on what kind of systems and what modeling methods you use?