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by echelon
1468 days ago
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Sure, but I did say "sci-fi". And I think there are a lot of unaddressed points. Plastics don't self-manufacture. You might not be able to control the rate. Just because you kill something doesn't mean you break down its carbohydrates. Reverse chiral organism skeletons could bioaccumulate and we could have a situation similar to the Carboniferous. Someone might be able to synthesize a bacteria in the lab given enough time and effort from an organism that proliferates quickly. It doesn't have to capture all the carbon. Just out-compete a keystone species. Plankton, mycorrhizae, etc. Or attack a large percentage of the plant biomass. |
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The rate is limited by the process. Since no precursors exist, it must 'self-manufacture' from scratch. This has inherent limits even before introducing competition for food, poison, predators that eat you even despite them not being able to really digest, etc.
>Just because you kill something doesn't mean you break down its carbohydrates. Reverse chiral organism skeletons could bioaccumulate and we could have a situation similar to the Carboniferous.
So you don't break it down. Nature will have plenty of time to adapt. Humans will step in if needed.
>Someone might be able to synthesize a bacteria in the lab given enough time and effort from an organism that proliferates quickly.
That's an incredibly messy way - create an entire L-chiral biochemistery - to get a weapon which doesn't have a setting between 'kill everything' and 'do rather little' (IMHO, the second being much likelier). There are far worse and more directed things one can do with a lab. Even the absurd 'kill everything' goal is far more likely to be reached in different ways.