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Discussion
Started 7 March 2025

Is "sustainability" an anthropocentric illusion in a fundamentally entropic universe?

I wonder whether what humans define as "sustainable systems" may be temporary states within longer cycles of resource abundance and scarcity.
Are our sustainability frameworks simply attempts to preserve human-favorable conditions within natural systems that are inherently prone to dramatic transitions?
How might we reconcile our pursuit of sustainability with the apparent tendency of natural systems, from bacterial colonies to forest ecosystems, to exploit available resources until reaching critical thresholds that trigger reorganization?
Dear Lorenzo, this question already contains an obvious answer. This answer is formed from a simple rearrangement of the words in this question. Rearrange the words and we get the answer: in a fundamentally entropic universe, " sustainability" is an anthropocentric illusion.
An example of such a question might be the question: has this person already stopped drinking cognac in the morning? Rearrange the words and we get the answer: in the morning, this man did not stop drinking cognac.
These are the so-called questions that arose "from the middle of a certain context": the universe is fundamentally entropic from the beginning; man is a drunkard from the beginning. However, note that before forming these questions, no one asked the universe if it was fundamentally entropic. The man was not asked if he was a drunkard. If it turns out that the universe is orderly, and a person professes sobriety, then these questions turn into rhetorical questions.
In addition, it is not clear what role the term "sustainability" plays in this matter. This is "one of the development goals" or "the current parameter of such development."
Therefore, I think that before considering your subsequent arguments, you should determine the initial context.
Vladimir