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Bacteria:Animals::???:Computers

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3:20 pm, Apr 29 2014
Posts: 378


Computer viruses are already a reasonable analogue to viruses for living things, because a computer virus cannot exist without a computer, using the computer to spread ("breed"), being almost universally detrimental to a computer (there are rare exceptions in both computers and humans), frequently going unnoticed for quite a long time due to very delayed effects, etc.

So, I was thinking, what would the best analogue to a bacteria be for a computer? You need something that's usually self-sufficient on its own and can definitely breed without a host (computer). You also need something that can be any of mutualistic (we have bacteria in our stomach critical to our survival), commensalistic (most bacteria found in our bodies can thrive especially well on us but don't really have any effect), or parasitic (this one's obvious).

So, I came to the conclusion that humans are the bacteria of computers. Even ignoring the ones that *intentionally* make computer viruses, there are tons of users that fuck up their computers because they have no idea what they're doing, the majority of users just use their computers normally and don't horribly break shit, and then some users actively improve the state of computers and computation (like open-source software work, or even people that just program for a living). Moreover, I'd like to believe that we can still be self-sufficient without computers (bigrazz), and we can definitely breed without them....

This conclusion feels especially amusing to me because you could say that computers are evolving because of humans, just as animals evolved from bacteria.

Thoughts?

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9:00 pm, Apr 30 2014
Posts: 1181


Nice...
+1

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Post #640802
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A talking rock
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11:02 pm, Apr 30 2014
Posts: 383


By using this analogue, would internet connection be the synapse that connect one cell to other cell (connection form one computer to other computer)?

I think before analogizing bacteria, we must determine computer's analogue first. Does computer = cell, ? If yes, I don't think that human are the bacteria to computer, as bacteria by itself is/ consist of a cell. So bacteria here must be something that has similar structure with a computer, and could operate independently. So... a calculator? No, wait, cell=desktop PC, gadget and laptop = bacteria?

As for human, since human consist of numerous cell that is connected to each other, human = the whole internet, with internet connection = synapse

Post #678329 - Reply to (#640655) by HikaruYami
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The smirker
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6:21 pm, Apr 1 2016
Posts: 38


Except that computers are humans' tools while animals aren't bacterias' tools. Or, are they?
Considering that humans make tools in order to facilitate doing whatever they are doing or planning to do; I could argue that maybe bacterias had some plans when they accepted their heritage of pursuing evolution (Timeline of the evolutionary history of life). The evolution in which animals belong.

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