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curuinortoday at 5:28 PM1 replyview on HN

because of the immortality of financial accounts and such, it's basically what's happened to the economy. ancient 100, 200-year-old trusts choking the viability of laborers doing anything and so on. especially bad in europe.


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anonporridgetoday at 5:34 PM

It's not just modern finance.

A tree experiences compounding interest. The longer it lives, the more ground it owns and the more its tall branches and leaves blot out the sun below, making it extremely difficult for any juvenile of its species to take root and mature beneath it.

This is why some conifers have pine cones that only release seeds when burned in a fire. For these species, evolution has determined it's not even worth trying to germinate unless it's likely a fire killed its parents and made space for them to grow. This is part of how we discovered wildfires are a critical part of some region's ecology. We managed to halt most forest fires and it ruined the natural rhythm of life there.

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