(Replying to PARENT post)

What viruses "want" is to reproduce. Killing you is an unfortunate unplanned side effect.

If only we could negotiate and agree to allow them to reproduce and not kill us, we'd all get along much better.

👤billpg🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

It's like the foxes that over-populate, eat all the rabbits and then all die. The foxes would be better not to reproduce past the limits of their environment, but each individual fox passes on more of it's genes if it doesn't restrain it's own breeding. And so those genes propagate to the detriment of the community.

You need very strong group selection to restrain breeding, and this becomes less and less likely as the population size increases (so each individual has less and less affect.) See The Tradgedy of Group Selectionism: http://lesswrong.com/lw/kw/the_tragedy_of_group_selectionism...

Even when organisms are selectively breed by scientists with group selection to limit their population size, they often just become cannibalistic rather than restrain their own reproduction. Killing someone else's kids is better than killing your own.

Essentially the same thing happens with viruses, where over reproduction means killing all the hosts cells.

👤Houshalter🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Like this?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3254#comic

👤teddyh🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Epstein-Barr virus is close to that ideal, 90-95% of adults have it. Unfortunately, it's connected with cancers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epstein%E2%80%93Barr_virus
👤zecg🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

"Unintended" side-effect yes. But not really avoidable. The very nature of viruses means destruction, competition for resources with other physiological processes in the host, and they only have a limited capacity to tune their reproduction for optimal transmission. Too little reproduction (and in the wrong places) means too little transmission, too much reproduction means too much damage and thus also less transmission.
👤bayesianhorse🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

This negotiation is rather weak since it doesn't recognise the passage of time. Once the viruses have reproduced to their satisfaction, they can renege on the deal when humans have a weaker negotiating position.

That is to say, "Don't negotiate with terrorists."

Fortunately the human/mammalian immune system does not typically permit this kind of deal. With a few exceptions: including HIV.

👤learnstats2🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

http://www.hhmi.org/research/cell-cell-communication-bacteri...

this work is being done with bacteria, not sure it is possible with viruses though.

👤kingkawn🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

That's an interesting thought. It's like they posses "artificial intelligence", i.e. they behave like the famous paper clip maximizer.
👤cJ0th🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

8% of our genome may be viruses that decided to live with us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus?#Human_en...
👤abandonliberty🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Our ancestors have successfully concluded such negotiations numerous times:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-17809503

👤snowwrestler🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I think the problem is DNA. If we could get rid of it we'd be better off.
👤shittyanalogy🕑11y🔼0🗨️0