Ch 15, Page 31 (BW)
Nov17
Yeah, the life form is still out there, but it’s mutated into a benign state, so nobody will ever want to destroy it again. My own little deconstruction of the notion that evolution needs to reward destruction and aggression at every turn. And if the ultimate survivor is the ultimate life form, then…it’d have to be something that can survive being touched by death itself.
Crax w/ Chang = HIV
Crax w/out Chang = herpes simplex
One devastates its host’s immune system, eventually killing them. The other causes the occasional cold/canker sore, but otherwise does not inconvenience its host much (read: at all). Guess which one faces heavy medical opposition, and which one is found in ~90% of the human population, due to lack of opposition?
And the meek shall inherit the earth, indeed.
Something I forgot to mention: There’s a crocodile-extracted-vaccine for HIV in the making, so that particular pathogen is likely to go the way of smallpox, soon.
We can only hope.
There is no “fixed” ultimate live form. Adaptation is the key. And gut flora eventually dies with the host … you know, I would expect that if someone with that “new crax” infection dies, the crax in him adapts again.
But this is not about specific live form. The difference is that Chang’s ego was limiting the options crax could use. Now it’s free to use whatever works best, starting with better camouflage.
PS: … and about the meek inheriting the earth … it continues with “the rest of us will go to the stars.”