Your life on planet Earth is 100% dependent on layers of increasingly rare circumstances.
First layer – the Universe: the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and gravity. All reality exists here.
Second – a Substrate: the planet Earth which is the base for 100% of the life we have ever observed in the Universe. Metals and minerals live here.
Third – a Biosphere: the sum of all ecosystems on Earth, encompassing the regions of the atmosphere (air), hydrosphere (water), and lithosphere (land) where life exists. Nature, wilderness, and farming live here.
These are the three foundation layers, without which Earth would be as lifeless as the other 6,000 planets we have so far observed.
Fourth – Culture: society, language, science, art, religion, shared values and narratives. People like us do things like this. Nations, governments, cooperation, and war live here.
Fifth – Economy: thousands of years spent moving resources, culture, and people around the world. Industry, money, and scarcity live here.
Sixth – Technology: building upon the foundations of culture, science, and economy to create increasingly powerful systems of machines. Computers, nuclear weapons, and technical revolutions live here.
These are the three layers of people. Through Culture, Economy, and Technology we have become the most powerful species on Earth – but we are still 100% reliant on the foundations. As biologically evolved beings we are utterly dependent on a functioning Biosphere for survival. We belong to the Earth.
Seventh – Artificial People: using advanced Technology to produce machines that can think and act for themselves, autonomously and independently. This is where ChatGPT, Her, and The Terminator live.
The critical thing to understand about Artificial People is that they didn’t evolve. Therefore they may be able to exist independently of the Biosphere. Electricity for food. Metal for muscle. Silicon for brain.
If humans ever end up in conflict with Artificial People, this may put us at a terrible disadvantage. With the help of a few hundred nukes, the new order of layers may become simply: Universe, Substrate, Artificial People.
We like to think of our “global civilisation” as mighty but actually it is desperately fragile. Modern humans have existed for about 300,000 years. For 99.9997% of that time we lacked the ability to deliver our own extinction. In the last 80 years we have achieved three different ways to wipe ourselves from the planet: nuclear annihilation, Biosphere collapse, and engineered pandemics.
In 2025 everyone and their Mum are pouring their savings into an AI stock bubble, helping ruthless and disingenuous companies sprint towards bringing another potential extinction event into existence. All in the hopes of a quick buck.
Explain to me how intelligence isn’t a lethal mutation, I’ll wait.
We are 89 seconds from midnight.
3 September 2025, The World was Stable when we were Wild.
