What Entropy Means to Me

Good News for Modern Man! The ever amusing Jeremy Rifkin is about to produce another work of comedic genius. I will, of course, wait for the paperback edition,and urge all other readers to do likewise. I should note that Mr. Rifkin, a longtime favorite of mine, has managed to reinvent himself yet another time.

Our first meeting involved "Entropy", a leaden chunk of panic-mongering based on a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. I was charmed. Next up, "Algeny" an anti-biotech screed which scared the bejeebers out of far too many Whole Earthies. I was intrigued. But not enough to keep close tabs. Was "Beyond Beef" before or after "The Human Body Shop"? No matter.

With his newest opus he may finally have shot himself in the foot.

The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream

Sheesh....

I'm gonna read it in the store...

Now, I don't want folks to get the wrong idea. I'm not just gratuitously bashing the poor man. No way. With Jeremy Rifkin, Paul Ehrlich, Leon Kass, there is no limit or season. Bash early and often. It's no more than they deserve. Some higher minded folk advocate ignoring them. To call attention to their pernicious drivel merely empowers them. I must humbly disagree.

It's only fitting that they be held up to ridicule, preferably by using their own words. Way back in the late 70's Rifkin co-authored a book called "The Emerging Order" (a steal at $2.78!) -- an exploration of the impending shake-up in US politics that Evangelical Christianity was sure to engender. Fair enough.

But...the book is such an absolute jaw-dropper of a skyhootin' quote farm, it really is hard to know where to start. A veritable Golconda of anti-wisdom.

A few choice quotes:

Humanity doesn't need to get sidetracked on a long and futile journey technologizing people and nature. These special gifts, in turn, are more powerful than any scientific technique humans could ever invent. Speaking in tongues is a more powerful form of communication than any satellite network. It is direct communication from the source' God himself, and it is available to everyone. The gift of prophesy is more powerful than any computer information system.

p 225

Depleting resources, increased pollution, rising costs of production, spiraling inflation, low return on investments, escalating capital shortfalls and limits to technology all add up to one unmistakable reality. The Golden Days are over. United States productivity, which for the two decades following World War II led the world's economies, has now bottomed out.

p 83

Cancer is a direct reflection of the destruction of the natural ecosystem and its replacement with an artificial environment. Cancer represents the internalization of the high-entropy waste produced by modern science and technology......Cancer, then, is nature's way of signaling the end of the age of economic expansion and its unbridled use of science as a means of technologizing both nature and people.

pp 220-221

Well, who knew? This stuff is priceless. The man is a national treasure. Perhaps now you can see why I'm so excited about his new book...

And our journey of discovery has barely begun. This one book contains so much gosh darned idiocy that a single posting is like just one ritz.

posted by Justin on 06.25.04 at 12:49 AM





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Justin Case! Good to see you here! Eric has said good things about you, has often referred to you. All this is extremely interesting...

"And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
"They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hand on the sick, and they shall recover."
-Mark 16:17-18

Rifkin reminds me of my character Garrison, who wants to go back to the soil, get away from the concrete prison (the city), and abolish cars, money, and clocks.

But, "Entropy" reminds me of Garrison's antipode, wicked Wanda, the most brilliant physicist on the planet, who argues that the Chaotic Field Theory proves that only atheism is true and that anarchy is inevitable.

In so many ways, I feel like I'm living in my (as yet unpublished) novels, and also Ayn Rand's novels, and Norman Spinrad's, too.

It's all so strange. A lot of intense stuff has going on with me this past weeks. Jeanine Ring, and... ------ ------....

Steven Malcolm Anderson is a ------- ------- ----- -------.

Most interesting it all is.... (Nope, no dope, not even the things discussed in Mark 16:17-18, not even ************. Just some strange embroilments with some of the most interesting people I have ever known.)

Wicked Wanda vs. holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma....



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