Anthropologist Leslie White did attempt to analyze cultural mechanical materialist development in terms of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which dictates increasing entropy . The entropy concept might help to interpret production of pollution, waste, anti-use production, "externalized costs" and all that rot. Cleanliness is next to godliness (smiles)
As I recall , White defined life processes as counter entropic (!) There is a famous physicist with a similar idea Here it is: http://www.eoht.info/page/Leslie+White Leslie White In anthropological thermodynamics, Leslie Alvin White (1900-1975) was an American anthropologist, known as “anthropology’s most significant prophet of the second law”, noted for being the first to introduce the laws of thermodynamics into the study of anthropology or cultures. [1] Overview White’s most noted publications are his 1949 The Science of Culture and his 1959 book The Evolution of Culture, in the latter of which he attempted to create a theory explaining the entire history of humanity, where he outlined a theory that the measurement of energy consumption of a society is an indication of a society’s advancement. In his 1949 The Science of Culture, to cite a noted quote, White states: [5] “Everything—the cosmos, man, culture, may be described by matter and energy. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that the cosmos as a whole is breaking down structurally and running down dynamically; matter is becoming less organized and energy more uniformly diffused. But in a tiny sector of the cosmos, namely in living material systems, the direction of the cosmic process is reversed: Life becomes a building up process that must draw upon free energy in non-living systems, capture it, and put it to work in the maintenance of vital process. All life is a struggle for free energy. Biological evolution is a movement toward greater organization, greater differentiation of structure, increased specialization of function, higher levels of integration, and greater degrees of energy concentration.” Curiously, in at this point in his writings he used the word thermodynamics three times discusses the second law, and free energy, but does not use the more elusive word entropy. In his 1959 work The Evolution of Culture, however, White uses the word thermodynamics thirteen times, defining culture as a “thermodynamic system”, and includes a chapter on “Energy and Tools”, referencing people such as Wilhelm Ostwald and Alfred Lotka, as well as concepts such as negative entropy, even using formulas. White states, for instance, that one may think of the cultural process as being described the formula: E x T → P where E is energy and T is tool or technology that is producing P a quantity of human goods and services. In other cases, he gives the formulas: E(HxN) → P where H and N are the human and nonhuman components of the energy factor; or even: ExTxV → P where V refers the environmental factors involved. [6] White's law He is known for White’s law, which states that: [3] “Culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased.” In a modern sense, this law of White might be interpreted or translated as a statement of the conversion of photonic energy, stemming from the sun, into induced movement geospheric surface growth and evolution, as quantified by the combined law of thermodynamics, in terms of the mechanical equivalent of heat. [4] Cultural systems The following are notable quotes by white on his views of the cultural system, from his 1969 work: [7] “The primary function of culture is to harness and control energy so that it may be put in man’s service. Culture thus confronts us as an elaborate thermodynamic mechanical system.” As found in his 1975 book The Concept of Cultural Systems: [8] “Cultural systems, like all material systems, are thermodynamic systems. Their existence and operation require energy. Every cultural event involves the expenditure of energy.” References 1. (a) Author, (1987). “Article Title”, American Anthropologist, (pg. 552). Vol. 89, No. 3-4. American Anthropological Association. (b) Erickson, Paul A., and Murphy, Liam, D. (2003). A History of Anthropological Theory, (section: Leslie White, pg. 118-19). Broadview Press. (c) Beekman, Christopher S. and Baden, William W. (2005). Nonlinear Models for Archaeology and Anthropology, (ch. 6: Modeling Prehistoric Maize Agriculture as a Dissipative Process, by William W. Baden, pgs. 95-122). Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 3. White’s law – Wikipedia. 4. Thims, Libb. (2008). “On the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat and Occupation”, Journal of Human Thermodynamics, Vol. 3, Issue 1. pgs. 1-7, April. 5. (a) White, Leslie. (1949). The Science of Culture: a Study of Man and Civilization (pg. 367). Farrar, Straus. (b) Kehoe, Alice B. (1998). The Land of Prehistory: a Critical History of American Archaeology (pgs. 121-24). Rougledge. 6. White, Leslie. (1959). The Evolution of Culture: the Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome (ch. 2: Energy and Tools: Wilhelm Ostwald, Lotka, Negative entropy, pgs. 33-49). McGraw-Hill. 7. (a) ibid, White. (1969). The Science of Culture (pg. 367-68). Doubleday. (b) Wallace, Thomas P. (2009). Wealth, Energy, and Human Values: the Dynamics of Decaying Civilizations from Ancient Greece to America (pg. xxv). AuthorHouse. 8. While, Leslie A. (1975). The Concept of Cultural Systems (pg. 3-10). Columbia University Press. Further reading ● White, Leslie. (1943). “Energy and the Evolution of Culture”, American Anthropologist, 45:335-56. External links ● Leslie White – Wikipedia. Entropy vs. Anti-Entropy (How DNA Defeats the Blackhole) URL: http://able2know.org/topic/137015-1 http://able2know.org/topic/137015-1 Charles ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: c b <[email protected]> Date: Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 4:59 AM Subject: Robots Don't Destroy Jobs? 60 minutes looked at the issue To: pen-l <[email protected]>, Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired <[email protected]>, marxist-debate <[email protected]> Machines replace or displace wage-laborers. Machines are not paid wages. That's why they can't produce exchange-value. Only wage-laborers can produce exchange-value, because money is needed to buy a commodity's exchange-value. If machines were paid wages, they could produce exchange-value as long as they produced commodities with use-values that machines could consume. If they continue to produce commodities with use-values that only humans can consume, well , .. Come to think of it the machines could still spend their wages on commodities they couldn't consume and, the capitalist would be happy. Robots could buy cars and food they produced ; pace Walter Reuther. There would be lots of humans living in extreme want. As to the machines consuming fuel and humans consuming fuel , that concerns the energy underlying the motion in production of use-values. Machines and tools are a source of use-values. Fuel is part of the means of production, Machines are instruments of production. Human labor, fuel and machines are all forces of production, with "force" taking pretty close to its sense in physics. Work, power, force from physics fit interestingly but maybe not precisely when we are dealing with commodities that are material objects. Service commodities require biology and history to understand their use-value. Anthropologist Leslie A. White* developed theories of societal types based on levels of energy capture for human productive activities http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1943.45.3.02a00010/pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_White Marshall Sahlins, one of White's students, dissuades me of his ultimate formula, but part of the analysis and modification might address some of the issues of physics, fuel and human economy. Pollution is anti-use-values ( defined by their destructive impact on humans through their "environment", not on the "environment"; the earth is fine; the human species is in jeopardy of catastrophic harm) which are by-products of use-value production. *White spoke of culture as a general human phenomenon, and claimed not to speak of ‘cultures' in the plural. His theory, published in 1959 in The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome, rekindled the interest in social evolutionism and is counted prominently among the neoevolutionists. He believed that culture–meaning the total of all human cultural activity on the planet–was evolving. White differentiated three components of culture: technological, sociological, and ideological. He argued that it was the technological component which plays a primary role or is the primary determining factor responsible for the cultural evolution. His materialist approach is evident in the following quote: "man as an animal species, and consequently culture as a whole, is dependent upon the material, mechanical means of adjustment to the natural environment".[1] This technological component can be described as material, mechanical, physical, and chemical instruments, as well as the way people use these techniques. White's argument on the importance of technology goes as follows:[2] Technology is an attempt to solve the problems of survival. This attempt ultimately means capturing enough energy and diverting it for human needs. Societies that capture more energy and use it more efficiently have an advantage over other societies. Therefore, these different societies are more advanced in an evolutionary sense. Composite image of the Earth at night, created by NASA and NOAA. The brightest areas of the Earth are the most urbanized, but not necessarily the most populous. Even more than 100 years after the invention of the electric light, some regions remain thinly populated and unlit. For White "the primary function of culture" and the one that determines its level of advancement is its ability to "harness and control energy." White's law states that the measure by which to judge the relative degree of evolvedness of culture was the amount of energy it could capture (energy consumption). White differentiates between five stages of human development. At first, people use the energy of their own muscles. Second, they use the energy of domesticated animals. Third, they use the energy of plants (so White refers to agricultural revolution here). Fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. Fifth, they harness nuclear energy. White introduced a formula, P = ET, where E is a measure of energy consumed per capita per year, T is the measure of efficiency in utilising energy harnessed, and P represents the degree of cultural development in terms of product produced. In his own words: "the basic law of cultural evolution" was "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased".[2] Therefore "we find that progress and development are effected by the improvement of the mechanical means with which energy is harnessed and put to work as well as by increasing the amounts of energy employed".[1] Although White stops short of promising that technology is the panacea for all the problems that affect mankind, like technological utopians do, his theory treats the technological factor as the most important factor in the evolution of society and is similar to ideas in the later works of Gerhard Lenski, the theory of the Kardashev scale of Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, and some notions of technological singularity. On Jan 13, 2013, at 10:57 PM, Tom Walker wrote: > I know this is hopeless but robots (or machines) DO NOT destroy jobs; they > displace workers. The consequences of that displacement are far more serious > than if robots merely destroyed jobs. The economists' binary "do/don't > destroy jobs" keeps us asking the wrong questions. "If they can get you > asking the wrong questions," Thomas Pynchon wrote in Gravity's Rainbow, "they > don't have to worry about answers." > > Machines don't destroy jobs. > Machines don't destroy jobs. > Machines don't destroy jobs... > > Machines DISPLACE workers. > > There are two ways that machines displace workers. One of them is from one > group or kind of workers to another. This is a secondary displacement. The > primary displacement is from human labor to fuel consumption. Substituting > fuel consumption for human labor is only cost effective, though, when the > fuel is artificially cheap. Fuel is made cheap by shifting to third parties > the social and environmental costs of its extraction and combustion. Fuel is > cheap because most of its cost is discounted as so-called "externalities." > > Think of all the work to be done cleaning up after superstorm Sandy. Machines > "created" that work. (Not really.) But machines displaced workers with higher > fuel consumption and the consumption of more fuel resulted in more carbon > dioxide emissions that contributed to rising sea levels and extreme weather > events that caused extensive damage, which will result in a whole bunch of > workers being hired to work repairing that damage. > > Note that the corporations who "invested" in those machines and who reaped > profits from the displacement of labor will not be called upon to pay for the > extreme weather event clean up costs. But more importantly, notice that > collectively we would be better off if the machines had merely destroyed jobs > rather than displacing them from productive employment to disaster relief, > repair and restoration. This is why asking whether machines destroy jobs is > asking the wrong question. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
