Wouldn't it be funny if there ended up being a plastic-based life form and they wondered how they came to be...

Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 227 points –

...and they COULD NOT think of a natural process that could produce plastics in the environment in the amounts required to produce life?

Their science would never dream of how it happened.

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There technically has always been natural plastic. Polymers. Rubber is an obvious one. But chitin, DNA, silk, sulfer can become plastic, etc are all polymers.

"Achully-ness" aside. It would be wild to find a plastic based insect. It would probably finally unite all of humanity against a singular cause. I doubt we have enough bombs though.

There are sea snails living near volcanic vents that metabolize the extra iron into shells and plating. I expect we'll see a similar adaptation at some point. Simple organisms issuing plastic in some sort of process that toughens their shells. If left unchecked we may see an evolutionary leap as more things adapt, and a die off as plastic becomes a finite resource. Future generations may argue the merits of artificially supporting the microplastic ecosystem in the same vein that we argue about reducing it.

I agree. It's bound to happen, life tends to take advantage of any situation available.

You've got an interesting idea regarding future generations. I can totally see that happing. Nice thought

I have to ask, what's the point of a blank reply?

there's a gif there, if you can't see it there's a problem with your browser or instance edit: there's a discussion going on at https://fedia.io/m/asklemmy@lemmy.world/t/917243/What-s-the-reason-for-the-empty-comments-lately that might be tied to this phenomenon

Considering I have no problem seeing gifs from anyone else, and my question has been up voted by other people, it's more than likely to be an issue with fedia.io and not lemm.ee (which is hosted by one of the Lemmy devs)