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Hmm, if you view biology as technology, isn't the ecosystem required for human life basically an industry in itself? It seems that centralization is the natura
by barumrho 6y ago
Hmm, if you view biology as technology, isn't the ecosystem required for human life basically an industry in itself?
It seems that centralization is the natural outcome of decentralization. We live in the tension in between the two extremes.
- patcon 6y agoReally like your comment. And yeah, even cephalization (e.g., evolution of "heads" in almost all species) is a neat artifact of this relentless concentration of power in even a single species. We rightfully cry out against human subjugation, but never cry out for the skin cell on the back of the fist we raise against that. But it's maybe similar processes taking place and emerging within different strata of matter I'm genuinely not sure what to think of that...!
- hoseja 6y agoAnd if you extrapolate it's easy to see we're bound for the fate of the skin cell.
- patcon 6y agoBut hey, maybe that's the eternal struggle of being human. Maybe we die on this hill, and keep agency from drifting upward beyond our scale. Also, that likely means an alien civilization that DIDN'T resist entropy will eventually come along and run circles around us, in some form...! If there's an analogy in nature (and I'll admit I've thought often about this), it's probably the slime mold[1]. It's an aggregate of single-celled organisms that managed to preserve their individuality much more than most other multi-cellular organisms. But the contrast in capabilities between slime molds and traditional multi-cellular organisms (bees! insects! us!) is pretty vast. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold#/media/File:Fuligo_septica_bl1.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold#/media/File:Fuligo_...