Pro-Entropic: a model for building businesses, careers, and lifestyles

Does the concept of entropy apply to human systems of collaboration and interactions? If so, how should we think differently about building businesses, careers, lifestyles?

The second law of thermodynamics states that “as one goes forward in time, the net entropy (degree of disorder) of any isolated or closed system will always increase (or at least stay the same).”

Knowledge of this scientific principle traces back to the 1800s, applied to the physical world - a so called law of nature. The concept of entropy was originally applied to the same.

A good overview of this model and how it influences our lives from Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/entropy/.

As the disciplines of social science have matured and become more instrumented, the fundamental rules governing the natural environment humans inhabit started to show up in our social interactions. I'll give two examples, there are many more.

1 - The rate of newness in the human experience and gene pool has never been higher.

Cost of DNA sequencing has plummeted, which allowed researchers to see the rate of human evolution (change) over time. Contrary to conventional wisdom for the better part of the last 200 years, human evolution is accelerating.

Despite most of us living lives devoid of evolutionary threats, in our cushy chairs, air conditioned rooms, nice smelling armpits. The accelerating pace of adaptation expressed in the human genome is the second law of thermodynamics playing out.

2 - The major technological changes in computing over my lifetime have all been pro-entropic.

The internet, the world wide web, mobile, cloud, and now AI. Each of these has reordered our lives, professionally and personally. Certainly, taking all of them together in a sequence has profoundly changed the human experience in the span of several decades.

I posit the consequences align with the second law of thermodynamics. Our social interactions and circles have exploded. Cultural events move faster with more force. Business and life are closer to real time. Etc.

In a world where physical and non-physical systems resolve towards entropy over time, who and what benefits? What becomes more important? Perhaps more importantly, what doesn't change?