If you've never seen Dana Meadows videos on complex ecological system theory [1] you are missing a huge insight into modernity. When you have massive interlock

If you've never seen Dana Meadows videos on complex ecological system theory [1] you are missing a huge insight into modernity. When you have massive interlocking systems of convection, atmospheric thermodynamics, tectonics, ocean currents and winds, all in concert through feedback loops, regulators, non-linear compression and expansion functions, multipliers, hysteresis and tipping points, you don't need to ascribe sentience, evolution or even biology to see the sum as "living". Push here. it reacts there. In the simplest analysis, overpopulation of "too successful" species leads to pandemics that wipe them out. Hardly a stretched metaphor. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuIoego-xVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuIoego-xVc