Perhaps a better phrase to have used would have been "not prior to a complex system" -- as the lump of plutonium exists only because of a complex system doing its thing, it should be considered a consequence of the complex system rather than an alternative.
To attempt to pedantically clarify, is "exists only because of a complex system doing its thing" not true of basically any pure lump of material that exists?
To me, the actions of stars fusing heavy atoms and then those atoms ending up in lumps of material somewhere sounds like a pretty complex system doing its thing.
