Entropy, Scarcity, and Patriarchy within Human Social Systems: the Rough Cut12 min read

Introduction

I have shared text like this a few times over the past year and have had to retype it a few times after not being able to find where I last wrote it which is beginning to annoy me. So, now I am adding it as a blog post so I do not have to have to keep retyping it, especially since my thoughts have mostly settled on this thought line.

There is some academic support for what I am about to talk about, although I have only done a cursory search, and I want to write a book titled “Humanity’s Journey from Abundance to Scarcity and Back Again” which would talk about the concepts I propose here. However, this post will give you the very rough cut of some of the concepts.

I have added some related content to this blog post that was not originally covered on any of the Facebook posts, so you can start to see my larger thought line on a sort of a unified theory on how to explain how the world of today came to be, and how to eventually create a new and better world.

Also, keep in mind that what I posit here is descriptive and NOT prescriptive.

I. Entropy and Scarcity within Human Social Systems

Introduction

Most of the thought lines within this post are fundamentally derived from this flow chart titled “Entropy and Scarcity within Human Social Systems“, which is a work in progress. I will go over it below since it is foundational to understand why the world is the way it is today. I talk about the beginning concepts of Entropy and Syntropy in the following post: The Tao of Entropy and Syntropy within Human Social Systems which is where this conversation all really begins, so please take a moment to read that post.

This flow chart, which flows left to right is broken down into 3 main sections and 6 steps, which are as follows:

1. Physics (4 parts which make 4 steps)
2. Evolutionary Psychology (2 parts which make 1 step)
3. Historical Sociocultural Weight and Entropic Bias (2 parts which make 1 step)

The top level list item gives the main concept, and the list below it contain very short notes that make up that concept from a very abstract vantage point.

A. Physics

The key thoughts here are (1) that all things are interdependent and interconnected, and that (2) reality has an Entropic bias (i.e. Entropic, destructive, or harmful things are easy to do and are the path of least resistance) due to the laws of physics within our universe.

1. Systems Theory and the Interdependence of All – From the First Law of Thermodynamics, A.K.A. The Law of Conservation of Energy, we learn that all things within the universe are one Interdependent and interconnected system, therefore the lens through which we should look and think about all things is Systems Theory.
2. Inviolable Law of Breakdown, Separation, and Change – From the Second Law of Thermodynamics, AKA Entropy, when combined with the First Law of Thermodynamics from above, we learn that Entropy is only ever increasing, that break down, separation, and Change are inviolable laws.
3. Systemic Bias Towards Entropy – Because all things are Interdependent and Entropy is always increasing, this continuously pushes all things towards diffusion, separation, and breakdown, which means that reality has an Entropic bias. Entropy is the path of least resistance, therefore it is always easier to destroy than it is to create.
4. Scarcity (Entropy) – Because Entropy will only ever increase over time, Scarcity, as a form of Entropy, will only ever increase over time.

B. Evolutionary Psychology

This section looks at male and female evolutionary psychology and thinks about this on a level that is before a person is even born, as in “What are our deeply seated evolutionary psychological predispositions?” before we even get to other genetic factors, or even before taking into account the biopsychosocial effects of environment on the parents, the gestational process, or the new born person.

1. Scarcity Triggers Male Predisposition for Entropy

• Within environmental Scarcity males tend to be more dominant because they are physically larger and stronger and because these conditions trigger their evolutionary psychological predisposition towards competition (from competing for mates) which is an Entropic action.
• This then opens up the door for them to engage in more Entropic and separative actions such as: tribalism, violence, exploitation, and patriarchy.
• Males tend to be less dominant within environmental abundance.

2. Abundance Triggers Female Predisposition for Syntropy

I know this section will be deeply triggering for many as it has been in the few times I have posted it. I am still not happy with this part because it does not have conceptual parity with the previous section yet, but this is a starting point for further research.

• Within environmental Abundance females tend to be more dominant because they are the life-givers (Syntropy) and because these conditions trigger their evolutionary psychological predisposition for cooperation and sharing.
• Tendencies towards Syntropic systems and results.
• Females are less dominant within environmental scarcity.

C. Historical Sociocultural Weight and Entropic Bias

1. Scarcity to Abundance

If a culture has been competitive and tribal (Entropic) for a long time due to resource scarcity, and then resource abundance manifests (Syntropy), it will take a long time for abundance to potentially wear down the current Entropic societal organization. Although, that might also never happen because of reality’s bias towards Entropic systems, ideals, and results. If the shift eventually does happen, then it will most likely only happen with extreme violence and devastation (Entropic movement) or, less likely, through a massive organized and peaceful social movement (Syntropic movement).

2. Abundance to Scarcity

If a culture has been cooperative and egalitarian for a long time (Syntropic) due to resource abundance, and then resources scarcity manifests (Entropy), it will take a while for scarcity to tear down that current Syntropic societal organization, but eventually it will (sooner than later) because of reality’s bias towards Entropic systems, ideals, and results. It is not a matter of IF it happens, but when it happens.

Copyright © 2023 James O’Neill, www.freexenon.com/?p=13656

II. Entropy, Scarcity, and Patriarchy

A. Relative Resource Availability within the Paleolithic

Homo Sapiens first evolved within the Paleolithic which was (at least within the last 500k years or so) 100k – 120k year colder and dryer “Ice Ages” or Glacial periods separated by 10k – 15k years of warmer Interglacial Periods (based upon Milankovitch Cycles). Tribes were more nomadic, egalitarian, and based on cooperation and sharing. Their limited resource needs (which were also limited due to very lower population densities) were easily met through hunting and gathering, and they lived within relative abundance. During this period there was no record of war, no violence, no slavery, or anything like that prior to 12,500 years ago (which marks the start of our current “Interglacial Period”).

B. Relative Resource Availability within the Neolithic

By the start of the Neolithic, Homo Sapiens had completed its Great Migration out of Central and South Africa and had out-competed and/or genocided its way throughout the world, ending Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, and Homo Denisovans, as well as extincting the available megafauna such as the woolly mammoth, the giant ground sloth, and the North American elephant. Humanity had spread to and dominated every part of the globe.

Due to various environmental factors, the Neolithic Age (which started about 12,500 years ago) was relatively bucolic and idyllic as compared to what Homo Sapiens had encountered before which created the ideal environment for significant population growth to an already prolific species.

Everything within Humanity starts to go wrong within the transitional period from the early to middle Neolithic (12,500 until ~9,000+ years ago) for 2 main reasons:

1. High Resource Requirements – Significantly higher population densities and higher tribal sizes due to idyllic Neolithic environmental conditions meant higher resource requirements.
2. Limits of Hunting and Gathering – Because of that, this is when we start to reach the limits of the technological efficiency of hunting and gathering to support the exploding populations within the bucolic early Neolithic, especially with the loss of megafauna as a resource.

It is due to these 2 factors that we see the rise of “Scarcity” within Humanity which meant that, even though farming is:

• physically difficult
• time consuming
• weather sensitive
• has lower nutritional value

…and our nomadic hunter-gatherer forebearers had a very low technological efficiency for (i.e. they do not know how to do agriculture well), that hunter-gatherers were forced to shift to agriculture to attempt to provide for exploding populations or face significant losses.

Tribes could no longer be nomadic – could not follow the weather, the herds, or the abundant food and other resources. They now had to protect their land, resources, farms and herds, and their tribal members from other tribes who were similarly struggling and competing with for survival in this new world of resource scarcity. This is when competition, violence, war, and slavery, etc… all start. It is during this transitional period when Humanity’s world goes to go hell and forged the devastating and violent world that we have today.

I want to be clear, because this is something that I have struggled with for many, many years, but it is NOT farming itself that caused everything to go wrong, but the rise of Scarcity (population vs resources) which did. Farming was just the technology that was caught in the middle of this transitional phase from nomadic hunter-gatherers with low resource requirements to sedentary agro-pastoralists with high resource requirements.

C. The Rise of Patriarchy in Humanity

The rise resource scarcity is also when patriarchy begins too. Scarcity triggers a male evolutionary psychological predisposition for competition due to competing for mates. Males’ evolutionary predisposition for competition combined with being larger and stronger leads to men being more dominant within environmental scarcity. Within environmental abundance, men are less dominant and women tend to be more dominant.

Men’s evolutionary predisposition towards competition (which is an Entropic ideal) acts as a gateway to more Entropic things such as: Patriarchy, Tribalism, Sociopathy, Violence, Slavery, and Genocide all of we see throughout human history and in the world today. Once Humanity started down the path of Entropy (which is the path of least resistance) due to a rise in Scarcity, it became very, very difficult to stop.

III. Other Related Thoughts

The following 2 draft quotes are from the above mentioned book I want to write:

A. Could the World of Today have been Different?

How much different would the world of today be if our nomadic hunter-gatherer forebearers had been able to slowly build up to the World of Today over a period of 50,000 years (5 times longer – 38,000 more years) and had worked diligently to keep Humanity within a state of relative resource abundance while maintaining their existing ecologically and humanistic minded social psychology based on cooperation, sharing, and egalitarianism; instead of embracing the population explosion and technological innovations full bore within a social system and environment based on scarcity and deprivation over the lightning-fast period of 12,000 years without regard to the social and ecological consequences? 

Perhaps, if our hunter-gatherer forebearers were able to have been more mindful of population growth, resource availability, and of the cumulative effects of technological advancements to have them happen much more slowly, then we may have been able to have all of the advantages of all of the technological wonders of today without all of the social, political, economic, and ecological harms that have been attendant with its current evolution.

James O’Neill, Humanity’s Journey from Abundance to Scarcity and Back again (draft)

B,. The Crucible

The violent crucible of a species which evolved with a nomadic hunter-gatherer psychology based on egalitarianism and cooperation within relative resource abundance now faced with a new settled way of life within a world of significant resource scarcity has forged the virulent tempest within which Humanity has come to relate to each other and the natural world that forged the horrors of poverty, war, genocide, slavery, cruelty, and suffering of the world of today.

James O’Neill, Humanity’s Journey from Abundance to Scarcity and Back again (draft)