wth is social entropy...

[dannydan 5]

...and is it coming to a town near me? It just doesn't pleasant! ;P

[billvon 2,991]

In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of disorder. Things tend towards disorder; houses burn down but ashes don't reassemble themselves into houses. Only a few things (like life) counteract entropy and create more structure out of less, although this always needs energy input to happen. In our case this energy comes from the sun.

In one sense social entropy is the anthropological version of entropy. Societies tend towards disorder. They spend "energy" in the form of labor (or, more abstractly as taxes, governments, police etc) to maintain their structure in the face of forces (greed, laziness etc) that would tend to cause that structure to break down.

Another sense is closer to thermodynamics in that society does need energy (literally) to maintain its structure. More specifically it needs to get back more energy than it put into a product (a barrel of oil, a solar panel, a ton of coal) to be viable.

[dannydan 5]

WHOA..... and here i was thinking it was a much simpler definition like a mass social cleansing of the colon....! THANK God for a new BOOGIE season where we can let our guard down with the world and just concentrate on gear checks, eXit orders, landing safely and REPEATS... OH, and beer/tequila light! ;) Thanks Bill! :)

[StreetScooby 5]

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...and is it coming to a town near me?

I know what Social Distortion is. Absolutely great band. I always try and see them when then come to a town near me. Going to one of their concerts definitely maximizes social entropy. Highly recommend the experience. Just don't get too close to the mosh pit, unless you really want to.

We are all engines of karma

[lurch 0]

Wuss.
In the words of Kid Rock, "Get in the pit and try to love someone!" Haven't been much for pits since I started skydiving, but I used to be one of the people you'd see crowdsurfing in the middle of the melee. My signature pit outfit was boots, jeans and the same hard leather biker jacket I later made into a wingsuit.

The key to surviving a good crowd surf is to expect the crowd to suddenly part under your head neck and upper torso at any moment and be prepared to do a fast backflip and land on your feet or you'll connect with the concrete from six feet up with the back of your head.

I don't go to shows anymore ever since attending public events began to resemble trying to clear airport security. Until the day the Constitution is ever -actually- reinstated and I don't have to deal with wannabe TSA agents at the door pretending a pocketknife a pack of butts and a belt buckle constitute a threat, I will stay home.

As for social entropy, I'd argue its the reason half the nation is unemployed while our government fiddles the figures makes happytalk and pretends its not, while endlessly trying to figure out more efficient ways to mine the population for whatever money they may have left. "Oh, you can't spend money on luxuries like insurance because theres just no money left? Then we'll just MAKE you. Presenting...Obamacare! Congratulations, you are now the property of the insurance companies that paid for my election! Hooray for freedom! Whoopee!"

For concrete examples see Detroit, or perhaps Camden, NJ. Or, for that matter, any half-abandoned industrial park nationwide. They're everywhere.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[StreetScooby 5]

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The key to surviving a good crowd surf is to expect the crowd to suddenly part under your head neck and upper torso at any moment and be prepared to do a fast backflip and land on your feet or you'll connect with the concrete from six feet up with the back of your head.

Last time I saw SD was at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC. My group meandered down on the floor and ended up about 2/3s away from stage and 1/3 away from a wall. Band came out and on the first note the 1/2 circle in the middle became an instant thriving mosh pit. I literally almost had a heart attack from the shock. Way, way too close for comfort for me. The guy surfing the top was heading right my way. He saw the absolute terror in my eyes, and somehow rode the wave some other place. I was impressed.

We are all engines of karma

[dannydan 5]

my neXt to second pit frenzy was a thirty peep flailing @ ah POM show in ah coverted theater... love those venues but anywayzz, i jumPed right in, my kid Ellie is in front line of the outside ring and she gits the busted snout! Not from me, some other good timer, way younger than me of course... good times! i'd do it again in a Vegas nanO second! ;) And THANKS for the heads uP on the headsdown bitch slap of the floor if not payin attention ;)

[lurch 0]

I used to thrive on the most intense stimuli I could find and before wingsuit night jumps, pits were it for me.

Much like skydiving you gotta be 360 degrees aware and expect to get coshed in the head by guys 3 times your size at random every 5 seconds. For me the fun was in the challenge of being in the center of such a contained riot and walking out without a scratch, but I did tend to take quite a thumping.

My first ICP show the first casualty happened right in front of me inside of the first two seconds, guy got an elbow to the eye and hit the concrete like a sack of whatever. Being a wicked light guy I tended to be safer airborne... agility protected me from injury and people tended to send me back up a lot.

In the depths of the pit I'd get ricochet effect... get hit and propelled across a clear area, crash into big guy, big guy swats me, gets propelled across gap into somebody else, repeat until I crash into something that doesn't kick me across the pit like a pinball. Climb crowd like tree if you go down cause if you go down long you ain't gettin' up.

Seen some neat stuff in a pit. Saw somebody'd been foolish enough to bring a 5 year old boy into the middle of it. Violent chaos on all sides, and the inhabitants of the pit were most carefully passing the kid overhead, hand to hand and nobody would touch whoever was holding up the kid or anyone close to him. Kid, wide eyed and totally overwhelmed had a smooth, unjostled ride through the pit where a Ming vase would be dust in seconds.

Also saw a security guy dumb enough to enter a 200+ foot-wide pit at a NIN show in The Worcester Centrum, late 90's. Big, big place. Half the floor of the place was one big pit. Security guys were easy to see from the stands by their bright turquoise shirts.

The NIN show was the most spectacularly violent expression of crowd emotion I ever saw and some security guy went after somebody, into it.

Near as I can tell they ate him.

The security guy vanished in a 20 foot wide mass of chaos, after awhile his bright turquoise security shirt appeared among the beach balls, balloons hats and other assorted garments being tossed around the pit like the drops of water above a boiling pot. You'd see it pop ten feet into the air above the crowd, float down in an arc to somewhere, pop back into the air, go somewhere else. The shirt travelled around the pit with the beach balls for quite some time as a trophy. I never spotted the security guy again. Damn good pit.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[dannydan 5]

i wanna be FIVE again with a turquois colored shirt... just sayin! ;) nice recount brother!

[StreetScooby 5]

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The security guy vanished in a 20 foot wide mass of chaos, after awhile his bright turquoise security shirt appeared among the beach balls, balloons hats and other assorted garments being tossed around the pit like the drops of water above a boiling pot. You'd see it pop ten feet into the air above the crowd, float down in an arc to somewhere, pop back into the air, go somewhere else. The shirt travelled around the pit with the beach balls for quite some time as a trophy. I never spotted the security guy again. Damn good pit.

LOL! I am NEVER going near one of those things, again!

We are all engines of karma