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Can one stay in a hole through one's entire life? Is a system always embedded in another? How large can (or should) the smaller system be? Is the market a free floating entity? Is it difficult to understand when a system has been monopolized? Do almost all communities have skewed abundance patterns? Are niches always n-dimensional hypervolumes? Can there be a qualitative difference between two forests with the same amount of timber generated and harvested? Is niche fundamentally a ‘fund’ (a not a ‘stock’) concept? Are niches inherited? Can inheritance also happen mimetically? How are niches constructed: what role do key innovations play? Can niches also diverge over a period of time? Has there been a progressive loss of diversity of (efficiency) norms, a does this inevitably lead to an increase in systemic risk and centralization? Did thermodynamics and economics coevolve during industrial revolution, a is the transition from charcoal to coal a pivotal turn? Are humans the only species that modify the ecosystem to their own detriment? Is the 'tree of life' a clumpy, gappy, crooked, jagged line? SynTalk thinks about these a more questions using concepts from ecological economics, chemical engineering (Dr. Deepak Malghan, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore), a ecology (Dr. Kartik Shanker, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore). Listen in....