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Galap comments on The Octopus, the Dolphin and Us: a Great Filter tale - Less Wrong
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I don't agree that metals and heavy elements are necessary for industry and spaceships: you can do quite a lot with light elements, particularly carbon (for example plastics, carbon fiber, etc.). Also, biology makes all of its structure through lighter elements.
That being said, I think you're very much on the money with the general idea: I also thought something similar while reading the artifcle (that the filters are likely multivariate and interdependent), but not in as well thought out a way.
We can do quite a lot with light elements now, after we spent millennia figuring out metals. We still use a lot of metal equipment and catalysts in the manufacturing of polymers and carbon fiber. I'm sure there are processes for making them without metals, but getting civilization going in the first place would be much harder without elements heavier than iron.