The organisms and ecosystems of Earth form networks which support the upward developmental progress of the environmental cogniscium; that is to say, the unified field of biorelational history, intention, effort, activity and circumstances of the living beings of Earth.

These networks are intended as launch paths for nonordinary developmental ‘leaps’ — sudden accelerations in growth, potential, learning, and access to opportunity. Without them, access to these opportunities is extremely limited, at best.

So, when we attack those networks, and replace them with machines… or functions of human culture… we are destroying the extrinsic nervous system which our own nervous systems are expressions of. Mechanical nervous systems might be interesting if there were no other option. But to exchange living systems for machines is like trading your intelligence for a brick.

These attacks have a wide range of outcomes. But amongst the most deadly are those that directly inhibit our own relational intelligence. Once that is ‘properly damaged’ we can no longer value the assets we ourselves are erasing through our own unnecessary activity… and once we hit that point (which our species has actually passed), the remaining path is a crash. A precipitous fall down an increasingly steep slope of ignorance, confusion, and omnicidal misevaluation.

The anciently conserved ecosystems of Earth are not recoverable. Once poisoned or destroyed, they are gone forever. Humans everywhere must realize that those irreplaceable assets represent their own extended bodies and minds. And once the humans recognize this, we can muzzle the corporations and the pirates, and get on with what living worlds are about:

shockingly abundant, impossibly distributed transentience.

If you think that looks like machines, you’re broken.