" He thought that we didn't know what the hell was going on with accretion disks but that a few powerful people in the field created the impression that we did and that there was no dissent because it was so difficult to get established in the field." ... seems to be an epidemic of this stuff in academia tbh.
This seems like a great resource for referencing the various definitions. I've tried my hand at developing an intuitive understanding: https://spacechimplives.substack.com/p/observers-and-entropy. TLDR - it's an artifact of the model we're using. In the thermodynamic definition, the energy accounted for in the terms of our model is information. The energy that's not is entropic energy. Hence why it's not "useable" energy, and the process isn't reversible.
> a worker owned economy - in which businesses are democratic institutions governed by the people who do the work involved
A few notes... another way to make the economy more worker owned is to have a a portion of the shares of companies held by public entities, which then use dividends for a basic income. Public investment in companies like this could also be a way of incubating industries.
Another note: the biggest problem with businesses being democratic institutions is the pace at which decisions can be collectively made. This is an information systems problem that can be solved by software. Instead of voting for representatives who make decisions, we need an institutional programming language, and people can vote directly on implementations of modifications to this institutional code that defines every institution. Votes are essentially approvals to a PR. No need for intermediaries to misinterpret voters' intentions.