Humans – The Anti-Entropy Element in the Universe

Civilization as Anti-Entropy

Walking around my place today I noticed something new, a dark spot on one brick wall.  My thoughts went to what happens with buildings unmaintained, and what my place would look like in 20, 30, 50 100 years if no one maintained it.  I suppose that wall would be in some state of crumbling, perhaps the entire building.  Now my little house (casita, here in central Mexico) is made mostly of stone, so it’s long term prospects are different from hollow-wall homes in the USA. Unmaintained in 100 years, those would so likely be in bad shape.  Here, the stone construction has allowed many structures to last – though those without SOME maintenance are, indeed, crumbling.

And my thoughts went to entropy.  Crumbling is exactly that – entropy.  Gravity  erosion, dissolving. At least two of those three are at work, trying to disembody my casita.  Literally to disassemble it.

Leave it to nature and all things human-made will some day resolve and dissolve and erode and collapse, in a shambles.  Is that too harsh of an accusation put to Mother Nature?  I am sure the naturist and naturalists among us would call it harsh.

I am not so sure about that, myself.

Everything in the known universe is slowing down, we are told – coming to a slow grinding stop.  Everything is supposed to go to the “lowest potential” – meaning the lowest potential energy level.  High things flow down low, from high potential energy to low potential energy. Electrons try to flow to their lowest potential atomic shell, in whatever atom they need to move to, to get to that state.  Mountains erode down to flat.  Ocean waves crash shores, beating continents into sand or gravel or both, able to be carried by water down, down, down…  Planets slow down, fall into their suns, along with their moons and whatever comets and meteors – all are doomed, as are their suns, to burn out and sit dead in space.

We are told that the destiny of all are to be dead in space.

Enter Humans

But here on Earth, we have an amazing thing going on.  We have humans.  We have minds, and we have hands, applied to tools, and tools applied to materials. And from these minds and hands and tools we COUNTER entropy.  We build things that entropy has to FIGHT to get it down to the level it was before those dastardly humans got their heinous hands on the material of nature.  Iron ore was perfectly at rest, down underground, before we humans determined that that iron ore could be useful to build UP, not down, to FIGHT entropy, to make things the opposite of entropic.  Copper ore, petroleum, uranium, bauxite, quartz sands, we dig them out of their repose, to LIFT their potential – to make buildings, wires, plastics, vehicles, home appliances and electronics, and all of it resists the HELL out of entropy.

A Look at Fracking-Earthquake Claims

As I am wont to do, I thought I’d look at one of the claims about fracking in wells in Oklahoma.  Why Oklahoma?  I’ve heard quite a few people who are alarmed about all the quakes in Oklahoma since fracking came on line.  So, why not take a look at some basic information?

Here is a map of Oklahoma (without the Panhandle, which has had no quakes):

Oklahoma quakes from 1980 to 2015. The yellow circles are quakes in the last week. (Source: USGS)

That looks pretty, bad, I have to admit.  Especially when we all think of Oklahoma as a place that doesn’t HAVE quakes!

And this map makes it even look worse, doesn’t it?  At least on first glance (also not showing the Panhandle).

Map of Fracked wells in Oklahoma. (Source: http://www.drillingmaps.com/fracking.html#.VcR6eflVhBc)

 

Look at all those fracked wells!  All of that LOOKS like an indictment of fracking. But let’s at least go through the motions and see how bad it is…  Let’s gather some information and do some comparing, okay?  We need to identify the basic information first, and see what happens.

I guessed that the 10 basic pieces of information should be the follwing.  I hope that the list looks pretty sound to you.  If the fracking is causing quakes, we should get a good sense of that – not by looking at general impressions, but by going into a little detail.  The questions:

1. When did fracking in Oklahama begin?
2. Has fracking increased in recent years?
3. Where are the fracking wells?
4. Is there a pattern to the fracking well locations?
5. Where are the quakes in Oklahoma in recent years?
6. How many quakes have there been?
7. How strong are the earthquakes?
8. Is there a pattern to the quake locations?
9. Is there a tie-in between the fracking well areas and the quake areas?
10. For comparison, do neighboring regions show any fracking-quake patterns?

Looking Into Resveretrol a Bit

Let’s see if I can present this in an intelligible way…

The pertinent research papers and passages are linked of presented at the end of this post.

I DISCOVER RESVERETROL

About 2 years ago someone in a nearby town asked me to pick up some resveretrol while in the US and bring it back for her.  At the time I looked it up and it looked like she wanted it for its skin benefits.  No problem.  I picked it up, but then she never came and got it, so it sat on my bathroom shelf for almost 2 years.

Getting a little on with age and having fairly good skin tone myself, one day I thought it might be good to look into the info on resveretrol again.  Why not use something if it might help?   I’d spent the money, after all.  So, online I went.

I found assertions that resveretrol was tested in mice and helped them avoid diabetes and helped them live longer.  Okay, that isn’t too bad.  It also said that some research and found out more of interest to males of my age. Some of the actual scientific research clearly found benefits to male erectile function and sperm counts.  This was just about the very first thing I found out about resveretrol, so along with the purported longevity claims, it raised an eyebrow or two.

Now I assure you that guys my age do not necessarily want high sperm counts. We certainly don’t go around perusing scientific journals to find out what the latest sperm booster is….LOL

I TRY IT OUT

I am NOT an exhibitionist.  Nor do I want to blab my sex life to everyone on Earth.  So it takes a bit of guts for me to talk about this stuff.