I don’t want to be a Cassandra – and nobody ever believed my predictions anyway, nor should they – but for the first time in my life I have the sensation that things are spinning our of control. It’s not just domestically, where Mort Zuckerman’s column puts a fine point on just how bad things are with our economy (16.5% really unemployed in his calculation), but globally where no one seems to have the slightest idea what to do about North Korea or Iran. There is no consensus for anything. We live in entropy – in its fourth definition on Dictionary.com: a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration.
At least that’s the gloomy way I am feeling today. Of course I could look on the bright side, so why not? For years the French were making fun of us workaholic Americans. Why did we have this forty hour week? Well, we don’t anymore. Companies all over the country (see Zuckerman again) are cutting back their working weeks so they don’t have to lay people off. Maybe we will see a revival of families with the declining divorce rate. From the WSJ:
It’s still unclear how the recession is affecting divorce rates overall, because of lags in government data. But courts in some major population centers say fewer people have been filing for divorce since the downturn began in late 2007. In New York County 9,349 couples filed for divorce in the first four months of 2009, off 14% from 10,848 in the same period in prerecessionary 2007, according to records from New York State Unified Court System.
In Los Angeles County, divorce filings in the first four months of this year dropped 3%, to 9,048, from the same period last year and are down 9% from the comparable span in 2007, according to records from the Los Angeles Superior Court.
A lull in divorce could be a silver lining in the recession, says Steve Grissom, president of Church Initiative, a Wake Forest, N.C., organization that runs DivorceCare, a national support group. Mr. Grissom says couples who postpone splits may be able to work through problems and reconcile.
Possible sit-com?
This is a test.
Look on the bright side, back in 2007 the Japanese government lost the pension records of 64 million claimants and the country still exists.
Feeling entropic today?
The only rigorous definition of entropy is a beautifully simple mathematical formula that is quite useful in thermodynamics and information theory, but not particularly practical outside of these disciplines, unless you can accept a looser definition: “Entropy: the potential for uselessness”.
In physics, it is recognized that the natural tendency of entropy is to increase spontaneously, i.e., You are more likely to observe a new car turnings into clunker than the other way around. The problem with this definition is its provincial quality: From a human perspective, a fresh apple is less entropic than a rotten one, but there are micro-organisms for whom the rotten apple is useful, so there is no objective measurement of entropy, it depends on perspective.
In the cultural realm, entropy is whatever makes your work difficult, for instance, a bunch of random noises is more entropic than a Mozart concerto, because any monkey can perform infinite variations on the former, but only a highly disciplined and earnest person can approach the latter. In this sense, human effort towards civilization is the laborious removal of natural entropy.
A cathedral may be made of the same amount of stone as a pile of rubble, most cathedrals do not happen by accident, their creation is more laborious, and are more useful, in this case more inspiring, in other words, less entropic.
In politics, I find the notion of entropy even more intriguing: For instance, the US constitution is a document of exceptionally low entropy: First, it is rather concise, which is hard to do, and then it contains statements which are highly improbable in the light of previous human history, and has led to unprecedented accomplishments. It’s a political masterpiece, and the risk of degrading it by trying to “improve” it is very high.
Yes Virginia, you can add entropy by allowing the seepage of empathy where it does not belong. It’s not unprecedented, on occasion even supreme court justices have done it, and you don’t need to go too far to find more candidates!
Entropy is the result of going from a more concentrated form to less concentrated form of anything. In my humble definition, that would make The Constitution a highly concentrated political document which the relativists have watered down into weak, highly entrophic tea, so to speak. The trip towards entrophy is always one-way and it looks like we’re headed at warp speed with our new Supreme Court nominee.
Roger, if you haven’t seen the book “Patriots, Surviving the….” you really should order a copy and read the first 50 pages. It’s over-the-top but still a chilling tale of one way things could unfold in the future. It begins with the crash of our dollar currency. But it won’t give you a happy face, be forewarned.
Roger,
What we learned in the most recent election and its aftermath is something we already knew, something Abraham Lincoln told us a long time ago:
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
In this passage Abe seems to be talking about the current state of political affairs.
In the national election, Barrack fooled (almost) all of the people some of the time. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, fools all of the people (in her district) all of the time. But the dramatically changing Rasmussen poll numbers tell us that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Now we are in the process of watching the Congress and the Obama Administration forfeit the confidence of their fellow citizens.
Why, that’s the way it is supposed to work, so I’m optimistic about the long-term outcome. That doesn’t mean it will be easy. We all need to fasten our seatbelts, because it’s going to be a bumpy four years.
Neobuzz
Ps. What I always say is why waste a good funk – perhaps it’s time for a new Moses Wine novel.
“…but for the first time in my life I have the sensation that things are spinning our of control.”
That’s because you legitimately sense that Barack Obama is out of his depth. We now have a president who should still be gaining experience in the U.S. Senate. He is not close to having his act together. When everything is said and done, Obama is basically a mere community organizer who got real lucky in politics. He was in the right place at the right time. The country is royally screwed. Obama was dead serious when recently claiming his economic policies are successful. He is truly that out of touch—and it should scare the hell out of you. You are definitely not paranoid and guilty of overreacting.
DT…the problem is, it’s not just Obama. It’s Obama AND Pelosi AND Reid AND the majority of academics, journalists, writers, and AND the tactical incompetence of the Republican leadership AND…
It is worse than Obama out of his depth. We have a Democratic party that exists to win elections and build political power. they have no other interest in life. In this, they are like the Mafia. They don’t seem to care if business implodes from confiscatory tax rates. They don’t care about national defense except insofar as they can collect campaign donations from defense industry. Banking is a way to reward ACORN and other political allies. The auto industry ? Put the UAW, which destroyed GM and Chrysler, in charge and name a czar who has no experience in anything but politics in command. If he is not working out well, replace him with a union lawyer.
Entropy is a good name for it. We had a wonderful country that could do almost anything but it could not survive the loss of the work ethic.
I’ll bet that in addition to declining divorce rates fewer people are calling in “sick” (except for public employees), more people are looking at their slacker kids and thinking “how am I going to get this load off my back. All those affectations of the Boomers are coming to an end, and in my view that’s a good thing.
“Entropy is a good name for it. We had a wonderful country that could do almost anything but it could not survive the loss of the work ethic.”
That’s a good point. With “all in” unemployment around 20% and rising, the country is being introduced again to a work ethic. I see no unwillingness among the unemployed that I know to actually work. However, I’m beginning to sense a growing unease with Washington’s disconnect with many of the unemployed that see employment as a part of the American experience. People want to work but see the conversation in Congress as about anything but work.
dE = TdS − PdV
Brevity being the soul of wit, that’s all I’d like to say about entropy for today.
Jamie Irons
The impact of the economic downturn is nationwide but scattered. Those already hurt are hurting individually and quietly. Those not yet hurt dread what they sense is surely coming. Everyone is holding their breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
We’re horrorstruck passengers experiencing a slow motion train wreck and powerless to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, at the head of the speeding train, the student engineer and his schoolmates are having a wild party, holding the throttle wide open and feeding the floorboards, the furniture and our luggage into the boiler.
What amazes me is that the Left expressed similarly apocalyptic thought a few years ago … when viewing the apparently horrible prospect of 50 million people being relieved from despotic governments by … a Republican.
All you say is true
but on the glass half full side:
It is becoming clear to more and more people that the Obama is a flim flam man.
It is becoming clear that the CIA is covering for Pelosi, by attacking Cheney again. Attacking the people who have kept us safe.
People are figuring out that there is no stimulus now; it was all a political stunt to grab control.
We have won in Iraq, and the waves have reached Iran.
The Taliban are being chewed up on both sides of the Durand line. And Al Qaeda regularly killed.
India is democratic and has joined the real world.
Sri Lanka has crushed the Tamil terrorists.
Lebanon did not cave in to Hezbollah.
Columbia is defeating the narco Marxist terrorists of the FARC.
California voters rejected more taxes shutting down Sacramento business as usual.
And Sarah Palin will be coming to a common sense rally in a town near you.
Smile Roger
Jamie Irons:
Actually, the better formulation is due to Boltzmann (and Statistical Mechanics):
S = k * ln(W);
where k = Boltzmann’s constant and W is the number of distinct configurations.
BTW, it’s engraved on Boltzmann’s tombstone.
Live and Learn…
To Rob’s list I would just add a farewell to the TOTUS.
“dE = TdS − PdV
Brevity being the soul of wit, that’s all I’d like to say about entropy for today.
Jamie Irons”
I still remain convinced that Barack Obama will not likely finish his term in office. There will also be increasing discussion concerning his mental health. He will become totally unglued. I am admittedly not a credentialed psychiatrist. However, Jamie Irons is such an individual. Doe he think I’m exaggerating? Am I about the only one seriously questioning Obama’s sanity?
No, Roger, everything is fine and very much under control. Just read the following article and you will be greatly reassured:
http://tinyurl.com/mr3gpk
Barack Obama very recently got caught in bizarre lie. He said during a speech that he met his wife during their school years. This was an outright and senseless fib. Why would a supposedly sane man lie when the truth is extremely well documented? Is this not a sign of someone having a few screws loose? I am convinced that Obama lies so casually that now has a very difficult time distinguishing between fact and fiction.
Cats and dogs are starting to live together, too.
It’s hard to get court-ordered alimony and child support when the guy you’re divorcing is unemployed.
“Cats and dogs are starting to live together, too.”
And “make no mistake”, they have a “right” to nationalized health care just like the rest of us — except for the fat cats, of course.
“No longer” will Canine-Americans and Feline-Americans be held back by the “broken policies of the past” which prevented them from achieving (what’s left of) the American Dream. “Some will say” that it can’t be done, but to “my” detractors “I” say that it must be done. The puppies and kittens “saved or created” as a result of “my” divine plan will grow up healthy and strong (and vote democrat) and poop liberally upon the fields of the new “Green Economy.” Amen.
The economy needs fixing and until that happens the country will seem rudderless. Hey, which party controls the House, Senate and Presidency? I wonder how many people will put two and two together.
As usual we’ll be saved by the un-sophisticates: 1) their common sense decisions at the micro personal level will act as an antidote to and dragweight on macro level governmental insanity 2) rather than wring their hands and do nothing they will be motivated to go to the polls in their millions and begin turning the ship of state in ’10 and then reverse its course in ’12.
Touché, Lightnin’! LOL!
I don’t know if the democrats in congress realize it, but Obama is throwing them under the bus. If a partisan healthcare program is rammed through, the dems can kiss their majority goodbye for a very long time.
“If a partisan healthcare program is rammed through, the dems can kiss their majority goodbye for a very long time.”
This is why it is unlikely to pass. The purple and red state Democratic Party legislators are running scared. Barack Obama is proving to be a disaster. They want to get off the train before it completely crashes. Obama is already marginalized and has not been in office a full six months. I am unaware of any previous president in American history damaged so severely in such a short time.
“…Obama lies so casually that now has a very difficult time distinguishing between fact and fiction…”
The President “misspoke.” “Misremembered.” Was merely engaging in a “rhetorical flourish.” Is being “quoted out of context.”
No way is Obama simply clueless with regard to the economy. He was born and bred to despise America and the capitalist democratic system of government (“White people’s greed runs a world in need.” Remember?). He is a true believer in Socialism and is in a position to right the wrongs done by America and redistribute wealth both within and outside our borders. Even if he was foolish enough to believe the stimulus would lead to economic recovery it is simply not credible to think he believes that massive tax increases and punishing regulations will help in a serious recession. He knows he will wreck the economy and in the process he’s using money we don’t have to shore up his power base. At some point the population will turn on him and at that time he will make a move to remain in control by force. If he can.
Interesting comments on Obama and p(madness). I think it is non-zero. He makes s*** up with incredible facility and assurance. That allows the quick sale, the dazzle. Time and again I come away slack-jawed from one of his orations where BS has been spun into pure platinum and even I am half-convinced. He’s a genius that way. But such powers come at a price. In his case (I am no shrink) it’s a scarily narcissistic personality, maybe borderline sociopathic, where everything (and I mean EVERYthing) is subordinated to the control strategy, the sense that he is the only one alive in the universe, and his work is to say and do what’s needed to tame the ghosts flitting across his control panel (that’s us, folks). He’s spent his whole live “outside” and he’s gotten really really good at observing how the animals feed and what they need. But now? With 24/7 incongruence and literally planet-shaking demands?
I think we could see a meltdown. That’ll be fun: Barack in a “rest center” and Jabbering Joe Biden holding the nuclear football.