1/ In Bitcoin is Hope @Breedlove22 writes:
“Entropy is uncertainty, randomness, and disorder; it naturally pours forth from reality, and destroys the works of man over time”
His words reminded me of a vivid example of entropy's destructive power I encountered in Russia.👇
2/ I visited the remote Arctic town of Kirovsk: home to the ruins of an abandoned Stalin-era train station that remains 24 years after its closure.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, declining population made the station uneconomic to maintain.
3/ The structure was abandoned and left to contend with the destructive entropy of the natural environment.
Forces of nature had gradually eroded its concrete carcass and peppered its crevasses with weeds.
Visitors had transformed it with graffiti, iconoclasm, and litter.
4/ The station’s demise demonstrates nature’s power to reclaim capital when the labour required for its preservation is removed.
Formidable resources went into its construction, yet its abandonment shows that it ultimately failed to deliver on its promise.
5/ Structures are abandoned when the cost of their maintenance outweighs their return.
Normally, the high sunk costs of construction make this rare: buildings can usually be profitably repurposed when economic conditions change.
But in Kirovsk’s case the upheaval was too great.
