I have an hypothesis where the function of a technological species is for to get rid of that "easily accessible" biological waste product that accumulates and eventually gets too close to the surface - or permeates it - and becomes literal poison and tar traps for plants, animals, and fungi alike. An animal that "eats" that crap via its technology, and turns it back into carbon for the plants ...
Man's usefulness in his ecological role is coming to an end ...
A couple geologists I used to talk to over fidonet did admit that if some kind of dinosaur lived and died with the kind of society like we have now, we'd never find traces of it, and even if we did, it'd be interpreted as something man-made that intruded. And that our estimates of how fast coal and oil and stuff accumulates is based on the assumption that humans are the first ones to ever make use of it. (In other words, it could be possible that a bacterium did literally eat oil before, but it went extinct without a trace. Or that some kind of raptor, or early cenozoic mammal or something (or maybe many, every few tens of millions of years, coinciding with extinction pulses) got up to the oil-using stage, and then imploded on themselves just like Man is starting to do.)
Overspecialization of lifestyle doesn't just refer to what one eats. Man has become dependent on his own technology, just as the koala is dependent on eucalyptus trees existing.
If I remember correctly, on three occasions the sequestration of carbon led to vast ice ages that nearly turned Earth into a perpetual ice planet. Each time, something would happen that released the carbon back into the atmosphere. We're that third event.
And I just found out about something called "spiteful mutations", which would seem to be the mechanism I was searching for.
Take away selection pressure, and these spiteful mutations build up in a population, or in many populations, of a "privileged" species. These mutants have a socially detrimental effect on the other people (of whatever species) around them, and their society eventually falls apart, causing a dieback; it keeps cycling until the species goes extinct. (Or evolves its physical form in a way that makes it appear to have gone extinct.) And yeah, I can see each dieback resulting in a pulse of technological progress, and a concurrent dependency upon that technology, which leads to prosperity, mutations, and dieback ...
I have an hypothesis where the function of a technological species is for to get rid of that "easily accessible" biological waste product that accumulates and eventually gets too close to the surface - or permeates it - and becomes literal poison and tar traps for plants, animals, and fungi alike. An animal that "eats" that crap via its technology, and turns it back into carbon for the plants ...
Man's usefulness in his ecological role is coming to an end ...
A couple geologists I used to talk to over fidonet did admit that if some kind of dinosaur lived and died with the kind of society like we have now, we'd never find traces of it, and even if we did, it'd be interpreted as something man-made that intruded. And that our estimates of how fast coal and oil and stuff accumulates is based on the assumption that humans are the first ones to ever make use of it. (In other words, it could be possible that a bacterium did literally eat oil before, but it went extinct without a trace. Or that some kind of raptor, or early cenozoic mammal or something (or maybe many, every few tens of millions of years, coinciding with extinction pulses) got up to the oil-using stage, and then imploded on themselves just like Man is starting to do.)
Overspecialization of lifestyle doesn't just refer to what one eats. Man has become dependent on his own technology, just as the koala is dependent on eucalyptus trees existing.
If I remember correctly, on three occasions the sequestration of carbon led to vast ice ages that nearly turned Earth into a perpetual ice planet. Each time, something would happen that released the carbon back into the atmosphere. We're that third event.
And I just found out about something called "spiteful mutations", which would seem to be the mechanism I was searching for.
Take away selection pressure, and these spiteful mutations build up in a population, or in many populations, of a "privileged" species. These mutants have a socially detrimental effect on the other people (of whatever species) around them, and their society eventually falls apart, causing a dieback; it keeps cycling until the species goes extinct. (Or evolves its physical form in a way that makes it appear to have gone extinct.) And yeah, I can see each dieback resulting in a pulse of technological progress, and a concurrent dependency upon that technology, which leads to prosperity, mutations, and dieback ...