This gentleman trusted me to take his photograph and do as I said I would do and deliver it to him in a frame. I love being given the opportunity to serve someone in a way that is fun for everyone. Thank you, Mr. OG Readmore. We are elevating the community, Sir.
What would happen if some type of fungus evolved that liked to eat plastic?
Let's presume there is usable energy stored in the chemical bonds that make the plastic. Usable, but currently not suited for metabolic processing by any known life-form.
Right now plastic is free to build up in all our environmental crevices because even though it can be broken up into teeny, tiny, little, brittle fragments: well, that hardly helps the situation, ya ken?
It's all still there, poisoning us by leaching chemicals into the water, and getting mistakenly eaten up by our poor, long-suffering animal brethren and clogging up our poor brethrens' alimentary canals.
But, what if a new fungus finds itself among us, one wot likes to eat... plastic?
I propose that once we begin making intelligent decisions about proper allocation of our resources, we will come to a consensus about ideal human population levels that is commesurate with our ability to embrace a way of life, once again, that does not rely on plastic.
Think about that. No plastic.
The fungus would destroy even the insulation on the wires in our walls.
Aren't most of our favorite miracle adhesives made of plastic?
Don't we generate mountains of medical waste consisting of plastics?
Would we be able to construct a functioning car or plane without plastics?
What non-plastic options are there for, say, gaskets?
Science and AI and all of humanity must work together in unimpugnably earnest service to each other in order to get us past Fermi's Paradox. Past Humanity's difficult upcoming "Terrible Twenties."
Mother Earth's resources have been depleted by her selfless nurturing of us, her Children.
She now needs to spend a little time -some decades to be sure- (may decades, let's be brutally honest) prioritizing her self-care. It is a matter of her own Self Preservation as well as Preservation of a Possible Future for Us, Humanity, Her Child.
We're going to have to get serious about growing up. We can't be blameless children forever. It's time for us to help take care of Mother.
Chances are, the first fungi that eat plastics will likely specialize in something easy. The plastics with low-hanging fruit type chemical bonds, just sittin' there, all juicy, looking tempting. Yeah, the pioneering plastic eaters will get rich and fat but the next generations will eventually find themselves... hungry.
How much time for the plastic eating fungus to evolve, to get to work on the less metobolically accessible plastics? That's what would give us some time to retreat. But the writing is on the wall, even now.
What is humanity's plan for a fungus that has a broad and voracious appetite for plastics?
Just wondering.
And thinking: hmmm.... I hope whoever is planning out humanity's big future moves is remembering that we're awwwwwwwful dependent on plastics...
Like cellulose: it's not a matter of if but when some kind of life form gets hungry enough to finally give plastic a real thoughtful nibble. And I bet some of its offspring will develop a liking, an actual preference for plastic.
Let's ditch money. Let's pull together. Let's follow The Youth. Let's Shoot The Moon. Let's embrace post scarcity.
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