Life seems to have evolved on Earth to expand greedily, because leaving resources on the table just means another organism will use them. Life on Earth also se

Life seems to have evolved on Earth to expand greedily, because leaving resources on the table just means another organism will use them. Life on Earth also seems to have solved this problem with predation, where the greedily growing organism becomes a resource for another, newer organism. If life on Earth were a pyramid scheme, then blue-green algae would be the rulers of the world because they were the early adopters in the scheme. Except there is no legal system that would consider the blue-green algae first in line for payout. It's a free-for-all. Instead a very late entrant, humans, are the apex predator and are taking resources from every other organism that came before. It's the opposite of a pyramid scheme. Our social systems make a noble effort to recognize the contributions of those who came before and support them, and increasingly we are extending this support to the larger biome upon which our civilization is built. However that's a fragile conceit of the current age, and will go away if the civilization itself is threatened. Who is enforcing the laws which transfer wealth from the young to the old? Elderly police officers? Life will find a way.