Wildebeest

As mentioned in a previous post, Carbon, I believe it is self-evident that superior systems emerge from lower-level systems. I believe this makes things better, in a general sort of way, by binding entropy in complexity and in systems. Call me an optimist. Parasitic or predatory systems (forgive me for being unable to differentiate the two) do manage to bosh the process occasionally with oversuccess.

The optimal predator/parasite's energy needs are equivalent to the prey system's energy loss due to entropy. A large system, say, a thousand wildebeest, manage to lose track of five calves in a month, due to loss of information among the system's members. Well evolved lions adjust their behavior and population so that they eat five calves a month. Any less and they starve, any more and the energy gained in extra wildebeest is made up for in angry wildebeest. Predators do not want an epic stuggle, and they don't particularly want angry prey. We enjoy watching Epic Struggles not because we admire the drama, but because it means someone else is doing the struggling. Oh, my king and my hero! Lead me to battle, and stay well ahead of me!

Back to our wildebeest and our hungry lions. Imagine now that the lions are symbiote with a neural parasite that makes wildebeest deaf, but not lions, and that it is waterborne, passing easily between lions and wildebeest. The parasite increases entropy in the wildebeest herd by limiting information transfer between members, and the lions get fatter without being kicked or gored.

This would be incredibly nifty for the lions, but it would rarely happen in the natural world. It takes a lot of time and a lot of randomness, factors that favor the prey animal. With more wildebeest than lions, it is more likely that the wildebeest have evolved something that promotes feline tooth decay or something along those lines, like feline leukemia virus (FeLV). But let us assume that the lions have somehow gotten the upper hand in the epidemiological war. The relationship is seriously busted now, as the prey system grows smaller, its ability to evolve resistance to sickness weakens, their health slumps, entropy increases, lions get fatter (and there's probably a lot more of them). Sudden crisis for prey, not-too-distant crisis for predator.

What happens if one lion population hosts the deaf wildebeest virus and another does not? It raises interesting questions. I leave it to the reader to find analogies in the business world.