Damn Entropy

So it's like a law of the universe that entropy always increases.  Left to their own devices things will fall into disorder and chaos rather than line up in an orderly fashion.  It takes energy to place things into order and then once left alone they will descend into disorder of their own accord.  I can see this in action all the time in my little computer room.  Every so often I get a bug up my ass to clean it.  It takes awhile and it takes effort that is much less enjoyable than sitting around and not cleaning up.  And for a short while the room looks pretty good.  But then I don't do anything and after just a little bit of time it turns to crap again.  Why does the universe have to be set up in annoying ways that make you have to do unpleasant work?  I'm lazy, damn it.  I need a universal law that slowly tidies things up while I kick back.

The Evolutionary Advantage of Being a Jerk

There's an old saying about nice guys always finish last.  That unfortunately seems to be all too true.  You don't apparently do yourself any favors in life by being a good person.  But why is that?  I hate jerks.  Most people seem to hate jerks.  So why do we allow them to get ahead so often?

There's this game I remember playing in a college class called prisoner's dilemma.  The gist of it is you can either cooperate with your opponent/partner or you can screw them over.  If you both cooperate you both get a point.  If one guy cooperates but the other one opts for the screw over the screwer gets two points while the screwee gets no points.  If you both choose to screw each other over then nobody gets any points.  The point of this game, from what I can tell, is that there is a short-term advantage to screwing over people.  But in the long run if we were all cool and cooperated we would all benefit.  If we're all jerks and screw each other over we all end up screwed.

The problem is jerks have found their evolutionary niche.  There are enough cool nice people out there that are evolved enough to realize the benefit of cooperation in life, but because of that we are easily preyed upon by the jerks of life.

But if we choose to react by being jerks ourselves then nobody wins.  The only possible way for everyone to win is for everyone to be cool, but sadly history has proven that will never happen.  So to succeed it seems you have to be a jerk and hope that not everyone else will be.  I'm sorry, but that's messed up.  Welcome to our world, by the way.