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.
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