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Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:35 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:24 pm
It's not sustainable, because energy tends from a state of higher order to one of order, and does so all the time. That's a scientific law, not something one can avoid with some "measure".
That's just nonsense babble.
Yes; it's a type of nonsense called "science." I trust you'll be familiar with it one day.
Hydrogen isn't free.
Here's some more "science nonsense" for you.
"Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, constituting approximately 73% to 75% of all normal matter by mass."
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:42 pm
by phyllo
Yes; it's a type of nonsense called "science." I trust you'll be familiar with it one day.
No, it's not science.
Here's some more "science nonsense" for you.
"Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, constituting approximately 73% to 75% of all normal matter by mass."
So what. It costs money to get it, store it, distribute it, use it.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:49 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:42 pm
Yes; it's a type of nonsense called "science." I trust you'll be familiar with it one day.
No, it's not science.
The second law of thermodynamics? You'll find it is.
Here's some more "science nonsense" for you.
"Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, constituting approximately 73% to 75% of all normal matter by mass."
So what. It costs money to get it, store it, distribute it, use it.
Of course! And that's my point. You won't find any element in the universe more "sustainable." And yet, it's still going to have some costs, and cause some entropy...there's no getting away from it. The idea that
anything can be truly "sustainable" is simply a myth. The only thing you can change is how fast the process of decay happens -- not whether or not it does.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 6:01 pm
by phyllo
The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal empirical observation concerning heat and energy interconversions. A simple statement of the law is that heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder regions of matter (or 'downhill' in terms of the temperature gradient). Another statement is: "Not all heat can be converted into work in a cyclic process."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_la ... modynamics
How does that relate to the nonsense that you posted?
You won't find any element in the universe more "sustainable."
More nonsense. "Elements" have nothing to do with sustainability.
The idea that anything can be truly "sustainable" is simply a myth. The only thing you can change is how fast the process of decay happens -- not whether or not it does.
If the earth remains sustainable until the sun goes nova ... that's adequate.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 7:49 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 6:01 pm
The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal empirical observation concerning heat and energy interconversions. A simple statement of the law is that heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder regions of matter (or 'downhill' in terms of the temperature gradient). Another statement is: "Not all heat can be converted into work in a cyclic process."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_la ... modynamics
How does that relate to the nonsense that you posted?
The nonsense was yours, and happened because you read the wrong part of the definition, or couldn't understand the implications. But I'll give you something you can't miss.
"The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the total entropy (disorder or energy dispersal) of an isolated system always increases or remains constant, never decreasing. It dictates that natural processes are irreversible and move toward equilibrium, explaining why heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold." (NASA)
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 7:55 pm
by phyllo
It's got nothing to do with sustainability.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:02 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 7:55 pm
It's got nothing to do with sustainability.
"...natural processes are irreversible and move toward equilibrium,..." You can't "sustain" a natural system. They are always subject to thermodynamics, which means they are inevitably becoming more disordered and heading toward a state where there is no further order in them.
You can see this in all kinds of things. For instance, buy anything new: say, a car. Leave it somewhere for two years. Heck, even put it in storage. But leave it alone. When you come back, is it better or worse than when you left it? Did it "renew," or "sustain," or just get older and start to decline?
You know the answer already; you observe it every day. The world is inevitably "running down," so to speak, tending from a state of higher order to one of lower order, and nothing you can do can stop it, reverse it, or make it stable. Stable is just not how the world is.
"Sustainability" is thus an illusion. What it would really be is only superficially slowing the possible rate of decline, not actually "sustaining" anything.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:09 pm
by phyllo
You can see this in all kinds of things. For instance, buy anything new: say, a car. Leave it somewhere for two years. Heck, even put it in storage. But leave it alone. When you come back, is it better or worse than when you left it? Did it "renew," or "sustain," or just get older and start to decline?
You don't notice that new life is continually being created?
You don't notice that decayed material is being recycled and reused?
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:11 pm
by Iwannaplato
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 5:06 pm
MikeNovack wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 4:57 pm
IC, What life forms do is LOCALLY reduce entropy
That isn't true. All they can do is make the rate of entropy go slower or faster. There's no stopping entropy.
There's truth in your response, but his response is completely correct and yours is straw-man. He said reduce, you end with 'no stopping'.
When you said 'this isn't true' you were incorrect.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:18 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:09 pm
You can see this in all kinds of things. For instance, buy anything new: say, a car. Leave it somewhere for two years. Heck, even put it in storage. But leave it alone. When you come back, is it better or worse than when you left it? Did it "renew," or "sustain," or just get older and start to decline?
You don't notice that new life is continually being created?
That's merely at the macro level, and turns out to hide a deeper fact at the micro level: that there is such a thing as "genetic entropy," as well.
It's inescapable. The universe is running down, and will, if left long enough, end up in a condition of universal "heat death," meaning all the energy in the universe will be equally distributed, and nothing will ever happen again after that. That's what science tells us about entropy. We aren't getting better, and we aren't sustaining; we're just trying to resist decline.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:24 pm
by phyllo
The death of the universe is irrelevant for sustainability.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:24 pm
by Iwannaplato
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:02 pm
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 7:55 pm
It's got nothing to do with sustainability.
"...natural processes are irreversible and move toward equilibrium,..." You can't "sustain" a natural system. They are always subject to thermodynamics, which means they are inevitably becoming more disordered and heading toward a state where there is no further order in them.
You can see this in all kinds of things. For instance, buy anything new: say, a car. Leave it somewhere for two years. Heck, even put it in storage. But leave it alone. When you come back, is it better or worse than when you left it? Did it "renew," or "sustain," or just get older and start to decline?
You know the answer already; you observe it every day. The world is inevitably "running down," so to speak, tending from a state of higher order to one of lower order, and nothing you can do can stop it, reverse it, or make it stable. Stable is just not how the world is.
"Sustainability" is thus an illusion. What it would really be is only superficially slowing the possible rate of decline, not actually "sustaining" anything.
In billions of years, yes. But the earth is not an isolated system. We get energy from the sun. At the universe level, nothing we can do. But in human terms, sustainablity has a great deal of meaning. We could choose policies and practices that would lead to problems very quickly. Or choose better ones.
If you're saying we can't sustain things past the billion years when the sun gets too hot, sure.
But we can affect the lives of many many generations of coming humans via sustainability. I don't think many people meant sustainability would help until the heat death of the universe comes.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 10:03 pm
by phyllo
Maybe IC is just trolling.

Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 11:48 pm
by Immanuel Can
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:24 pm
The death of the universe is irrelevant for sustainability.
You're missing the point.
Entropy assures us that from now until then, one inescapable fact will be that
everything will continue to degrade...from your car to your genetic structure, to the forests and rivers and little birds and bees...some things slower, some faster, but all headed in the same direction. Nothing is ever being "sustained." What's happening instead is only that some things are deteriorating faster than others, and some actions accelerate the rate of decline more than others.
But there's no "sustainability." None. No such thing. So it's not something you can ask people to aim at. It cannot be had.
Re: Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?
Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 11:49 pm
by Immanuel Can
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:24 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 8:02 pm
phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Apr 25, 2026 7:55 pm
It's got nothing to do with sustainability.
"...natural processes are irreversible and move toward equilibrium,..." You can't "sustain" a natural system. They are always subject to thermodynamics, which means they are inevitably becoming more disordered and heading toward a state where there is no further order in them.
You can see this in all kinds of things. For instance, buy anything new: say, a car. Leave it somewhere for two years. Heck, even put it in storage. But leave it alone. When you come back, is it better or worse than when you left it? Did it "renew," or "sustain," or just get older and start to decline?
You know the answer already; you observe it every day. The world is inevitably "running down," so to speak, tending from a state of higher order to one of lower order, and nothing you can do can stop it, reverse it, or make it stable. Stable is just not how the world is.
"Sustainability" is thus an illusion. What it would really be is only superficially slowing the possible rate of decline, not actually "sustaining" anything.
In billions of years, yes. But the earth is not an isolated system. We get energy from the sun.
The Sun is also entropic. And its relation to the earth is not regenerative, but also entropic. If you doubt that, go sun tan on a summer day for three or four hours. See afterward if the Sun has rendered your skin "sustainable."