1. Efficiency ↔ Robustness Trade‑off > "But at the same time the motor is extremely finicky/fragile in the source of energy (negentropy) it will accept, while natural life is extremely hardy and adaptable." — ssivark
Engineered systems can hit near‑100 % efficiency, but that often comes at the cost of fragility and dependence on a very specific energy source.
2. Biological Analogues & Functional Views
"Electric motors are sort of like hermit crab shells – hard and long‑lasting, but they only exist because they piggyback off of a living species." — anjel
"For some context, a billion years at a 20 minute breeding cycle is 26.3 trillion generations." — zimpenfish
"the flagella is more a drill than a propeller" — pazimzadeh
These comments highlight how nature’s “motors” are adapted, disposable, and integrated into broader life‑cycles rather than being purpose‑built, long‑lasting components.
3. Scale & Mental‑Model Challenges
"The caveat is that more zeros do nothing for our comprehension of the scale. That's the problem because most people can't comprehend how evolution is even possible. We just don't have a mental model for a trillion, it’s all the same to us after a certain threshold." — f6v Evolutionary timescales (trillions of generations) are hard for humans to intuit, making the idea of gradual change feel counter‑intuitive despite the massive numbers involved.