@based_music_guy Deli Ham and Diet Coke are proof of man’s mastery over nature, even more so than the atom bomb. Nuclear fusion occurs in stars everyday. The Ham Obelisk required the hands of man to come into being.

“Look,” said Tyrena. “In twentieth-century Old Earth, a fast food chain took dead cow meat, fried it in grease, added carcinogens, wrapped it in petroleum-based foam, and sold nine hundred billion units. Human beings. Go figure.”
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The fact that objects embody information and imagination may seem obvious. Information is a fundamental aspect of nature, one that is older than life itself. It is also an aspect of nature that accelerated with life. Consider the replication of information-rich molecules, such as DNA and RNA. The replication of DNA and RNA is not the replication of
... See moreCesar Hidalgo • Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies
only an impossibly complete recycling of all wastes voided by grazing animals could, together with near-perfect recycling of all other sources of organic nitrogen, provide the amount of nitrogen annually applied to crops in ammonia-based fertilizers. Meanwhile, there are no other materials that can rival the combination of malleability, durability,
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