Irregular Reveries 13: Entropy, Progress, and History
Hey,
It looks like the hot weather is over, here in Croatia. Autumn is slowly coming, and that's my favorite season for hiking and cycling. I love seeing all the different colors in the woods.
This week's article
I've written an article about my observations about the constant increase of disorder. I experience this effect daily as a software developer.
Content candy
I've read a couple of chapters from "The Rational Optimist" this week. I've enjoyed the examples of progress and comparisons to past standards, and especially his comparisons between modern life and the life of Luis XIV.
"My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King's servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective, what is the difference? ... Unlike Louis, you number among your servants John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Thomas Crapper, Jonas Salk and myriad assorted other inventors. For you get the benefit of their labours, too, whether they are dead or alive.
I also love his comparisons between today and the middle of the 20th century.
"The average Mexican lives longer now than the average Briton did in 1955. The average Botswanan earns more than the average Finn did in 1955."
"Infant mortality is lower today in Nepal than it was in Italy in 1951."
"Today, a car emits less pollution traveling at full speed than a parked car did in 1970 from leaks."
Something to think about
"So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life — peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food. Animals eat one another without qualm; civilized men consume one another by due process of law." — Ariel and Will Durant, The Lessons of History
Question for you
Do your friends at school think your path is a bit strange?
I stole this question from Patrick Collison's advice page.