Linas Vepstas
2 min readMay 5, 2018

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I suppose its not fair to just throw a bomb like that, and leave. So lets pick apart the very first point. It states, I quote: “The evolution cycle starts with some kind of basic unity, which increases over time. For example, the homogenised minerals of the Earth’s crust, which then packaged itself into individual bacteria.”

By “unity increasing over time”, perhaps she is thinking of a closed thermodynamic system, where entropy increases over time? But we know that it is the exact opposite for Earth. It is a non-equlibrium, driven thermodynamic system. It is driven by both solar and geothermal energy; the former pumps the water cycle (evaporation, clouds, rain, rock-erosion, river-basin carving, ocean mineralization, back to evaporation). Over time, rivers get more winding, not less winding. Pretty much everything in the cycle move away from unity and towards diversity: this is a basic property of driven thermodynamic systems.

The minerals of the earth’s crust were never homogenized, and the geothermal forces make them less homogenized: sub-millimeter-sized lava channels have thermal and chemical gradients across them, causing the differential separation of minerals with different viscosities, different melting points. Those teensy-weensy lava channels, kilometers deep, eventually come together like roots on a tree, spewing the liquidy lava onto the surface, leaving behind the stiffer, stickier, less fluid chemicals buried deep below. The process is of differentiation, and not of unification.

The earths crust did not merely “package itself into bacteria” — what actually happened was that primitive ur-life chemical reactions took place in almost microscopic reaction vessels in white-smoker hydrothermal vents. To understand this, you need to know what a “reaction vessel” is, and how it works. It’s not at all trivial or obvious. Petroleum refineries should make that obvious: if you think all of those pipes going every which way is trivial and obvious, you’re insane. Here’s an easy-to-read intro to the concept: https://www.quora.com/What-can-be-considered-the-most-bizarre-natural-phenomenon-on-earth-that-still-cant-be-explained-by-scientists

Basically, every sentence, every phrase in the first bullet is just plain wrong, is kind-of the opposite of what actually happens. The remaining 6 steps can also be shredded to bits. They’re just wrong. What I get out of this is that someone is willfully ignorant of known facts, and is willing to invent fabrications out of nothing, and then put them forward as truth. Whatever Society 4.0 is, it should embrace, and not discard, reason, rationality and knowledge.

Or perhaps I’m misreading — perhaps this is society 4.0-chan, the very fountain and source of pizzagate-type artistic creation and reasoning. I mean, I like clever jokes, but this one is maybe too clever for me.

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