If you care at all about this, you'll love Neal Stephenson's long article Mother Earth, Motherboard: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/

Scan of the print issue: https://archive.org/details/wired-magazine-04.12-1996-decemb...

I think about this often.

I used to have a print copy of that issue. That single article was something like 50-60 pages long with all the (fabulous and informative) pictures.