3 ms·

Thinking about the ideas you bring up.. it seems we humans have been playing on the same level as the bacteria upto now. Greedy algorithm vs greedy algorithm. C

Thinking about the ideas you bring up.. it seems we humans have been playing on the same level as the bacteria upto now. Greedy algorithm vs greedy algorithm. Could we perhaps use certain antibiotics that will force bacteria to evolve in a way that opens up a certain weak spot which we will then allow to spread through their population before we step in and wipe them out using this forced back-door? This simple 1-2 plan seems enough to really cause evolution a problem if humans can coordinate enough to pull it off (and a plausible plan appears, details..).

philsnow 13y ago
I think the problem with this kind of idea is that there are so many bacteria all over the world and you'll never reach all of them. Recall the very mechanism that makes bacteria resistant over time: an antibiotic is deployed over a population of bacteria that have largely the same genotype but there are lots of mutations thrown in because they divide so fast. If any of the bacteria are resistant to the antibiotic, they survive and create a new population, again with largely the same genotype with lots of mutations thrown in, but this new population is entirely resistant to that antibiotic. Now you've probably been visualizing a human body or a petri dish when I talk about "a population of bacteria", but consider the entire Earth. You'll never deploy an antibiotic across all the nooks and crannies of the entire Earth, and even if you were to, you'd just get an ~evenly spread population of bacteria, resistant to that antibiotic. I guess you could _try_, if you were a supervillain or something.
has2k1 13y ago
Good luck trying to convince people to accept the inherent sacrifice required in the short term. On the other hand, pugilists do understand the need for setups and combinations.

3 ms·

Thinking about the ideas you bring up.. it seems we humans have been playing on the same level as the bacteria upto now. Greedy algorithm vs greedy algorithm. C

by alexandros 13y ago

philsnow 13y ago
I think the problem with this kind of idea is that there are so many bacteria all over the world and you'll never reach all of them. Recall the very mechanism that makes bacteria resistant over time: an antibiotic is deployed over a population of bacteria that have largely the same genotype but there are lots of mutations thrown in because they divide so fast. If any of the bacteria are resistant to the antibiotic, they survive and create a new population, again with largely the same genotype with lots of mutations thrown in, but this new population is entirely resistant to that antibiotic. Now you've probably been visualizing a human body or a petri dish when I talk about "a population of bacteria", but consider the entire Earth. You'll never deploy an antibiotic across all the nooks and crannies of the entire Earth, and even if you were to, you'd just get an ~evenly spread population of bacteria, resistant to that antibiotic. I guess you could _try_, if you were a supervillain or something.
has2k1 13y ago
Good luck trying to convince people to accept the inherent sacrifice required in the short term. On the other hand, pugilists do understand the need for setups and combinations.