I was not expecting this to be the answer. That's really fascinating. Phytomining is officially on my radar now, and I'll be linking back to this article. I hope attention to it starts taking off.

I really appreciate your insights into and estimates on this potential cause area! I have heard of using plants to identify where there are precious minerals, and to concentrate radioactive material but not literal plant mining before now.

Apologies if you covered this in the article, but can phytomining scale? Does it have the potential to be an economical answer and major source of material. Or is it more for special circumstances where mining is unusually difficult for some reason eg the mineral is highly dispersed. If you answered this already please just link me to the section, I was skimming rather haphazardly.

I think I'll go back now and read closer the different types of minerals discussed, but I wanted to write a comment expressing my appreciation before I got distracted. There's not enough novel ideas explored thoughtfully and this is the kind of content that really makes EA shine in my opinion.

I read this book an enjoyed some of the information, but was not clear on its intent. Therefore your summary at the top was useful to me. I assumed it was about communicating and teaching, not inviting and inspiring. But that explains why it felt "incomplete" and I was being left hanging unexpectedly. Its an unusual book and I appreciate it for that. Still, I hope more books follow it with some more guidance on how to be better longterm thinkers and with more exercises, examples, and knowledge. Like the importance of maintenance, the rarity of successful preservation, tradition and oral stories that succeed, etc. 

I'm not sure if this is relevant but I just finished reading The Ends of the World which spans vast timescales. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

This is such a breath of fresh air. Make EA weirder!

I really want fish and bivalves to be a more prevalent and environmentally friendly option. I really appreciate you doing this write up and I expect to reference it in the future in conversation and when I have a question. Thank you so much for doing an exploration into this important and neglected topic!

I was trying to find a the big mac subsidy post and would not have been able to find it without this link post.

I'm going to flip the script a bit.

1. Are you doing important, impactful, good things?
2. Does EAG recognize them as novel, unexplored, needing a boost?

You are doing important impactful good things! That's what matters!! Of course recognition is important and you absolutely deserve recognition. In addition you are completely reasonable to feel bad about things you know technically shouldn't be so hurtful. But you're human and they ARE hurtful. It's okay to feel hurt. Please recognize your desires and needs. Live your best life for yourself and everyone.

EAG isn't measuring how good you are, at best how communicable your efforts are. Some things are crutial but mundane. (They can be the most important!) Some things are exciting but too in-depth. Some things are simply not communicated verbally. Some things have finally achieved recognition and success. And some things are neglected within EA.

Congratulations on being in one of these (or other) vital areas!

Keep up the good work, we need you! And others like you!

Additional thoughts: If I'm one of the people with best EA ideas, then I'd be much more worried about how dire the situation is! It's perfectly normal not to be one of the hundreds of people out of the millions best suited for this years conversation. The movement has gotten huge. It is tracking so many subjects, and that's a wonderful thing. Unfortunately not everyone gets to go. That's reality and it's not your or anyone's fault.

I'm happiest thinking of it as a great event for great people doing some specialized things. They aren't perfect and EA is so. so. SO. much bigger than EAG.

Take care. I'm excited for you and where you go next.

Octopi are some of the most intelligent creatures, with a fascinatingly alien path to getting there and unrecognizable brain structure. I encourage anyone who doesn't know about octopi intelligence to look into it - they aren't social, don't teach each other skills, don't live long, and don't have centralized processing but they rank among the highest intelligence we are aware of.

Something I felt was missing from the post was a mention of how intelligent the octopi and cephalopods are which are likely to be farmed. I thought only a few species of octopi were intelligent, and assume many are average or low levels of cognition for the animal world. I might prefer it to chickens and cows depending on the species...

Your other points about why it would be a terrible subject for farming are compelling, and I appreciate you spelling them out so concisely. Even if they are species average in perceptiveness they might be far worse to farm than other species.

In any case, I'm really glad you brought my attention to this and that you care about this subject!!

Very useful and illustrative. I especially like how you manage to tie both the personal perspective and the group dynamics together. I was acquainted with this idea but your write up was definitely illuminating of aspects I missed. I expect this to be useful to me and others!