[Retric]

That’s a complete misunderstanding of what’s going on. Fire also self replicates and also requires very specific conditions to continue. But, it’s less obvious for people or fire that CO2, heat, and ash / human fesis are the largest outputs of the open systems rather than more humans/fire.

[Gibbon1]

Key thing about life is it has a strong exponential tendency that overwhelms the ordinary processes of decay.

[Retric]

Not quite. Life accelerates entropy, where decay is a different idea. Consider does water decay into ice on a cold day? Does ice decay into water on a warm day?