What I got was that the rapid emergence of biological feedback was essential for regularizing climate which in turn enabled life on earth to evolve. In a way, life itself enabled life on earth. It's the rarity of this emergence that is important rather than the rarity of intelligent life.
Another thing I got is that life itself will destroy life the way climate change is going :-)
Lisp has been around a while. Java has been around a while. Clojure is the perfect combination and I predict it will be around a while. It's exhilarating to program in Clojure. That's the only word I can find to describe what I feel to program in that language.
I like that the article mentioned the difference between privacy and secrecy. I've been struggling with that for a while. What is private is secret but what is secret (a secret recipe, for example) is not necessarily private. But in some cases, a secret can be considered private (a secret love affair, for example). I'm confused...