Suppose John Smith makes biochem cubes – biological-chemical cubes about one metre by one metre with an input for resources required for sustenance and an output for unusable processed resources. Why does John Smith make biochem cubes? Good question. Truth be told, they’re unlikely to make the world a better place. And he doesn’t sell them.
Should we make allowances for John Smith with regard to money (salary, income tax, subsidies, etc.)? After all, he has, let’s say, ten biochem cubes to support. If they are to stay alive, he needs to provide sustenance. He needs a bigger house. More electricity. More food.
Should we encourage his ‘hobby’? Perhaps consider it respectable, or a rite of passage to maturity?
Or should we censure it? Because once his biochem cubes become ambulatory, the rest of us have to go around them in one way or another. And when we’re both dead, his ecological footprint will have been at least ten times mine. (More, if the biochem cubes he made go out and make other biochem cubes.)
