We must join the winning side, and become bacteria.
Bacteria may kill us entirely, but we will never kill bacteria entirely
Submitted 3 weeks ago by khannie@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
LambdaRX@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
judgyweevil@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
Bacteria will win, but we don’t know which bacterial species or strain
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
You could think of every cell of a human body sort of like a bacterial cell. In that sense, we already have joined the winning side.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Bacteria constitute 56% of the cells in your body. You’re more bacteria than human.
snooggums@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
By number of cells, but not by volume.
themeatbridge@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah but that’s because many human cells are really big.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Even if we nuked the whole earth to oblivion, turn the surface of the earth into glass, and evaporate the seas, some microbes would still survive deep underground. What we need is an asteroid impact that turns the whole crust into molten lava and splatters it all over the solar system. Even that method might not work perfectly, but it’s our best chance.
medem@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Hospitals are dangerous for children, the elderly and immuno-compromised patients not because of risk of contagion, but because the bacteria that have survived the aggressive chemicals hospital surfaces are cleaned with are the strongest ones (shamelessly plagiarised from my 8th-grade chemistry teacher).
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
Well, it’s a quarter right.
The bacteria in hospitals generally aren’t surviving cleaning products, most simply can not survive bleach or whatever anymore than you could survive having your skin liquidated.
They are however often antibiotic resistant both because those tend to be what needs hospitalization in the first place and the resistance developing from treatments.
Then the real problem happens:
It is functionally impossible to clean everything that needs to be cleaned in a hospital room to prevent someone immunocompromised, aka basically all sick and injured people, from being at risk of catching it.
Look at all the books and crannies involved on a hospital bed alone and think about actually needs to happen to clean it.
Do you think that happens every time?
The curve of every door handle for every patient for every visitor?
All the tubing, wiring, and electrical panels on the various monitoring systems?
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Speak for yourself. There is a good chance we are going to glass the planet.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
we’d have to drag some real big rocks out of orbit into the planet to glass it. not sure we ever had enough nukes even in the heyday of bomb production to actually glass the planet. we could cooperate to distribute the strikes uniformly but even then we wouldn’t glass the planet.
now, humanity might go with such a coordinated program, but the planet will burp, continue to undergo geological changes, and a few million years later there would be hyperintelligent octopi or capybara driving around.
but a nice rock, say, about the size of rhode island, that might do it. especially if it’s coming at a good clip.
Superdooper@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well plenty of materials for windows then
AmidFuror@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
Two kingdoms of life vs. one species.
15% of Earth's biomass vs. 0.01%.
Angelusz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What. You have all the wrong ideas. No kill, symbiotic.
LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I hearby declare war on water.
Wrufieotnak@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Didn’t think Godking Xerxes would use the fediverse.
Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We would kill’s ourselves if we killed bacteria entirely
plyth@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
If we go digital and all water is used to store energy, life would become difficult for bacteria.
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The meek shall inherit the earth.
limer@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I can see how bacteria may have developed our ancestors to be their hosts.
It’s like cats. People think they are the masters. People also think the gut biome is there to serve them. Silly people
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We’re just caretakers for grass in the end
mxeff@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
If we would kill bacteria entirely, we would doom ourselves inevitably.
Quilotoa@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
But if bacteria killed us entirely, the world would go on with barely a whimper.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Oh yea, technically there would be life. But to what end? Same ol suffering as usual, with no purpose.
But we just had to mess it up, we could have had it all.