NOTE: Here's one more exploration of thermodynamics as an underlying driver for the high levels of systemic malfunction we are currently experiencing. It also implies that the global situation will get much, much worse before it improves.
Sorry for all of the high level theory, but it is proving useful in defining the parameters for successful decision making in the future and where/how violence will erupt.
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If we view our world as a thermodynamic system, a simple application of the second law of thermodynamics won't suffice. Everything doesn't get progressively worse over time. Based on our collective experience, the global system, as well as simpler biological systems, operate on a different basis. They don't run down with the conversion of energy. Instead, they increase their structural complexity over time.
The modification of thermodynamics necessary to accommodate this observable fact was formulated by the Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine in a theory called "dissipative systems" (read his excellent book: "The End of Certainty" for more). One important leap in this theory is that a dissipative system isn't a closed system. Rather, it lives within a larger system (an "environment") that it can interact with.
This upshot of this is that it can extract energy from this larger external environment to increase its structural complexity (build itself up through a process called self-assembly). It can also use this external environment to dump the entropy created during the energy conversion process to minimize the deleterious impact on its structure.
In summary, the global civilization we inhabit fits nicely within Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures. Unfortunately, there are numerous signs that that our system's structure has grown so large, that is now nearly equal in size of its external environment. This implies that disruptive fluctuations will likely increase in intensity (positive feedback loops) until the global system either reverts to a much simpler model (closer to thermodynamic equilibrium, think Kunstler's "World Made by Hand") or evolves into a more stable configuration (think "Resilient Communities").