WOW, I didn't expect to see this post here, as a new member of EA and longstanding but frequently-infrequently-frequent member of the church of the subgenius looking to move things forwards in my life I had quietly begun to refer to EA as church of the genii.

The question is definitely an interesting one that much of my own thinking touches towards from reading Enneagram, Briggs Meyers, assorted philosophy and being a mostly silent member in many forums for these. I'm assuming with both EA and Subgenius there is a large number of INTJs or other NT types,

My internal answer to the problem largely lies with the idea of levels of consciousness from enneagram mapped with identifying as an INTJ myself such for that INTJs (I haven't put much thought into generalising this otherwise) the amount of slack would be proportional to the levels in that at each stage the amount of consciously directable slack would be greater but so would the need to 'do something with it' in part to maintain it.

Of course is fiendishly difficult to define in any objective assessment so maybe Robert Anton Wilsons "Reality is what you can get away with" provides a more objective stance in that the amount you can afford to get away with is the gross amount of slack.

Sorry this is a bit waffly.

Hi, To be honest I just stumbled across EA from a google search looking for suitable charities to donate a portion of money too concerning the locusts situation in the Horn of Africa. So I'll say its a very impressive forum you have here and well done all for taking part, its great to see personally.

As to the topic at hand as a recent open university mature student one of my projects was on antibiotic resistance in the environment - specifically wastewater concentrations. There is a big problem with antibiotics being used in animal farming and the use in humans leading to environmental accumulations. Human use is often not metabolised by the body and excreted in active form where antibiotic resistance may develop in water treatment plants (WWTP) and water treatment sinks. In general our 1950s style sewage treatment isn't very good at removing these, or other persistent pollutants as well.

One of the papers I found "Review of Antimicrobial Resistance in the environment and its Relevance to Environmental regulators", Singer et al from NERC, wallingford, UK gave a really excellent background. I was deeply impressed as well by Switzerlands plans to upgrade half their WWTPs. Much of how much environmental contamination contributes seems largely unknown - I remember its the above NERC paper that lists heavy metals and other locally occuring conditions as co-factors although there are a few others.

Anyway I'm a big out of my depth for now, I wish I'd found you guys earlier on in my life, but will be keeping an eye out on this as things progress in my life. I hope some of the above is helpful.