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Carbon capture is cool, I just wish it wasn't mainly being used to create hydrocarbon fuel. If only there were some way to turn carbon from the air into, say, fibers, or building materials, or food, or medicine, all using solar power... Oh well, guess we gotta build these huge machines to literally make oil out of air, that'll surely save the environment
If we want to get *really* scifi, maybe these hypothetical carbon capture machines could construct *themselves* out of captured carbon, possibly using some kind of tiny pod containing most of the materials needed to get started as well as the information to construct the entire machine... Maybe these pods could, themselves, be made through carbon capture using the same machines, making them self-replicating without any technical skills needed
But this is all some kind of absurd pipe dream, of course. It's not like self-replicating material-producing carbon capture machines grow on trees
@socalledunitedstates I see what you did there 
@socalledunitedstates I'm dumb, i did not pick up on the joke until halfway through
@socalledunitedstates @packbat I find it vaguely frustrating how many people missed the joke and described it right back to you
@socalledunitedstates you've hit the nail on the head, though. if we don't also do something about the huge dynamic range of the poverty-wealth spectrum, the people at its extents will never stop seeing freestanding, deoxidized capture matrix as fuel to be burned again.
@socalledunitedstates @rabcyr there’s a multi-million dollar x-prize for “turning atmospheric carbon into useful material” and I’m so tempted to mail them a ficus and a 2x4
@socalledunitedstates @rabcyr “to show the utility of this technology I have printed this report on material made of captured carbon...”
@socalledunitedstates you had me for a little while there
@socalledunitedstates @_IO_interface what if we could eat them too
@socalledunitedstates TBF, plants do constructive chemical reactions at temperatures way below the boiling point of water i.e. with very low energy requirements.
Not to mention, that all the high energy-storage organic compounds which we *simply burn* at extra energy expenditure and waste are also just compressed plant matter.
As Bucky Fuller once put it: Burning fossil fuel is like someone who has a three figure income discarding all of that and rather uses up their meagre savings account.
@socalledunitedstates
I think you just invented macro grey goo and I'm here for it
@doppledee Maybe we could make these machines out of biodegradable materials like wood so they just decompose after they stop functioning...
@socalledunitedstates
I mean you do you, I'm here for the unconditional surrender or destruction of mankind tho so 
@doppledee @socalledunitedstates be careful, the gray goo may diversify and evolve and eventually a subset of it might even gain sentience and make witty remarks on social media
@cinebox @socalledunitedstates
hey watch who you're calling sentient buddy