"Individual people -- on the microscopic scale -- always made inventions and discoveries, whether singly or in groups, but these creators could be factored out of the equation, because it was inventions that gave raise to inventions and discoveries that gave rise to discoveries.  This acceleration described a parabola that seemed to soar to infinity.  A saturation bend in the curve was not caused by other individuals who sought to protect the environment; the curve would bend only where a failure to bend would destroy the biosphere.  Invariably it would bend at the critical point, for if technologies for saving or replacing the biosphere did not come to the rescue of the technologies of expansion, the given civilization would enter a crisis to end all crises, i.e., extinction.  With no air to breathe, there could be no one to make further discoveries and receive Nobel prizes."  -- Stanislaw Lem, "Fiasco"