[ExI] forwarding tara maya's post: capitalism, etc

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 11:40:32PM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> From an evolutionary standpoint, mice and cats and humans don't occupy
> the same ecological niche... but us and whatever comes next most
> likely will occupy the same ecological niche, or at least there is a

The niche is the surface of this planet. You will observe that
the 6th Great Extinction in this nice new-fangled Anthropocene 
epoch cuts across many niches -- and I pity the fools occupying
them.

Consider simple things like orbiting structures. Even with
a low albedo a lot of them will permanently abolish the night.
What about self-replicating photosynthetic panels? Rapid
CO2 depletion, or oxygen reduction? What about your solar
constant going down by quite a few 10%? How about microwave
flux enough to melt the chocolate in your hand?

Or, what about if you're just crunchy and good with ketchup?
Prime rib CHNOPS source, my hearties.

> reasonable probability that we will.

They will use atoms and Joules. Of course they will.