Herd immunity, the widespread and temporally distributed spread of microbiological updates, has been happening for ages through precisely those people who have recently been stigmatised as asymtomatic disease spreaders. It is precisely because someone is healthy and moves freely, but nevertheless spreads viruses and bacteria to a small extent continuously through encounters and contacts, that an always up-to-date mixture of the most diverse "pathogens" can spread in the first place in an environment whose infection level is very low but sufficient to trigger T-cell actions that continuously negotiate immunities. This constant biological up-to-dateness cannot be provided by any injection, even if one were to be "blessed" with hundreds of injections every month. Immunity means being able to meet each other by permanently negotiating the capacity for closeness and the need for distance. For over a year now, we have allowed all this to happen to us unilaterally by means of distancing, and we actually imagine for the most part that this will remain without consequences. Without asymptomatic encounters, there is no healthy herd immunity, although the word no longer fits today.
Our most pressing bio-logical problem is that the mother tongue of life is influenced within a very short time by various foreign languages (mRNA-injections, artificial electromagnetic fields, ...) that our bodies are not given enough time and context to understand what is going on. Therefore more and more viral intervention is on its way to fit our (mis)understand of life into what life really is. Thus more and more symptoms. Thus more and more inventions to counter those symptoms. Thus a vicious circle of our own making goes on and on. Blind and deaf we create what we want to avoid.
Yes - I think the global quarantine is going to reduce the ability of different regions to "speak the same viral language" but I'm really hesitant to predict what that will look like, since there are so many confounding factors. Basic health is the biggest confounding factor to immune "fluency" - if you are healthy, it is not a big deal to meet an unfamiliar bug - and the lockdowns and injections attack that directly.
The only exit from the cycle is to put faith in our biological fates instead of our powers of intervention.
There is a guy from Austria whose work you need to know: Günther Witzany. His work regarding genes, life, evolution, viruses and communication can be found under:
"There is growing evidence that natural genome-editing competences of viruses are essential (1) for the evolution of the eukaryotic nucleus, (2) the adaptive immune system and (3) the placental mammals." Yeesh! But I already knew science had basically demonstrated this at the same time he was writing it in 08, long before I tried to!
"Bio-Communication of Bacteria and their Evolutionary Roots in Natural Genome Editing Competences of Viruses." perfect - I will try to tackle his work this week
Yes and no. Immune Equilibrium subsumes Terrain / Host theory in that associations of certain "infections" with non-infectious outcomes are better explained with a model that we are all "onboarded" with multiple immune-evading, dormancy-timer-equipped viruses during childhood. These go dormant until the host tissue is under stress - thus, when they are seen in association with cancer in someone who drinks and doesn't exercise, they are incorrectly blamed for the cancer. And so on.
But Immune Equilibrium does not require any weird assertion that viruses "clean up" the body (viruses, after all, cause lysis, which creates quite a mess; additionally, the immune system itself spends much of its time "cleaning up" problematic cells). In the Immune Equilibrium model, Onboarded Viruses are merely "jumping ship" with there is a signal that, in the wild, would normally be a good sign that the host is near death. This is an optimal strategy from the perspective of a virus with immune-evading traits: Stop replicating until the host is already near death.
Further, Immune Equilibrium leaves room for harms from infection, particularly from plagues - sudden introduction to a mutated form of a virus that is unfamiliar in a given regional population of a species (to be elaborated in the afterward which I am overdue to post). In fact, Immune Equilibrium predicts that an extremely high fatality rate from viral challenge is worth the corresponding benefits in terms of resilience against "cataclysm," i.e. sudden reductions of fitness of the "super-genome." So, it does not require totally denying that health individuals can be at risk of a novel virus.
This strikes me as a profound insight about the nature of viruses, microbiomes, and the immune system that will ultimately be proven true.
Germ theory is an extremely reductionist paradigm; as such its utility is perhaps limited to those pathogens which have not (yet) entered into some sort of equilibrium with the human supergenome. The rabies virus comes to mind; perhaps this was also true of smallpox.
Eradication is only achievable - and should only be the goal - when the interests of the virus and the human host are sufficiently divergent that stable equilibrium is unlikely or too costly. (e.g. rabies which transmits by hijacking the brain to cause victims to bite others) In most cases the goal should instead be to facilitate the establishment of equilibrium with a minimum of suffering and death (e.g. the Swedish approach to Covid-19).
"For viruses, the immune system’s “goal” is to balance host and viral survival. This is why the immune system acts like that is its goal. Antibody levels are meant to drop after a cellular immunity rest period, as a bid for reencounter and re-spread with a given viral challenge."
That is a profound insight, and also something that should be obvious if we could let go of our conception of the immune system as the body's Department of War. Viruses can easily mutate to become more dangerous, but they will not do so if natural selection favors those that are less dangerous. Thus it is in the interest of the immune system to *allow* viruses to replicate and transmit rather than to force viruses through millions of genetic bottlenecks in which only the most attack-resistant variants survive.
Evolution of supergenomes driven by cataclysm-punctuated equilibrium. I like it.
I am glad you find it compelling. Additionally, I am delighted by your use of "perhaps" in reference to smallpox. I have more to write on the subject, one day. More or less I think the relationship between smallpox and humans was something like a big misunderstanding - the easy pre-infectivity awareness of the disease in the Old World making natural "equilibrium" (especially via childhood exposure) unachievable, as well as eventual eradication possible, with the New World disaster admittedly left in need of a long, convoluted explanation (unless a Marek's-like theory is pasted on, which would posit that medieval adoption of inoculation practices created a super-bug) - and this misunderstanding has been weaponized to launch our endless unwinnable crusade against Virus at large.
There's so much more promise in immune-competence promotion via nutrition/exercise and therapeutics during infection (though I think antiviral use should be circumspect) than there was in 1810, yet we still behave as though "infection" = "doom."
I was relating this to the housemate - imagine if we'd looked more into nutrition / exercise and ways to bolster immunity since 1796's smallpox discovery, instead of relying on the search for "cures" to infections.
Well, there probably wouldn’t have been any way to implement the nutrition piece in advent of the mid 20th century globalization of the produce supply chain, which is connected to its own set of detrimental health impacts.
Washington never would have had a problem at Valley Forge if there had been adequate food and fuel. To 19th Century states and busy-bodies seeking a way to prevent individuals from “contaminating” the body politic, vaccination may not have been productive (seemingly was the opposite) but at least it was achievable.
Regarding ''herd immunity'':
https://dailysceptic.org/2021/08/06/what-the-modellers-still-dont-understand-about-herd-immunity/
My view:
Herd immunity, the widespread and temporally distributed spread of microbiological updates, has been happening for ages through precisely those people who have recently been stigmatised as asymtomatic disease spreaders. It is precisely because someone is healthy and moves freely, but nevertheless spreads viruses and bacteria to a small extent continuously through encounters and contacts, that an always up-to-date mixture of the most diverse "pathogens" can spread in the first place in an environment whose infection level is very low but sufficient to trigger T-cell actions that continuously negotiate immunities. This constant biological up-to-dateness cannot be provided by any injection, even if one were to be "blessed" with hundreds of injections every month. Immunity means being able to meet each other by permanently negotiating the capacity for closeness and the need for distance. For over a year now, we have allowed all this to happen to us unilaterally by means of distancing, and we actually imagine for the most part that this will remain without consequences. Without asymptomatic encounters, there is no healthy herd immunity, although the word no longer fits today.
Our most pressing bio-logical problem is that the mother tongue of life is influenced within a very short time by various foreign languages (mRNA-injections, artificial electromagnetic fields, ...) that our bodies are not given enough time and context to understand what is going on. Therefore more and more viral intervention is on its way to fit our (mis)understand of life into what life really is. Thus more and more symptoms. Thus more and more inventions to counter those symptoms. Thus a vicious circle of our own making goes on and on. Blind and deaf we create what we want to avoid.
Yes - I think the global quarantine is going to reduce the ability of different regions to "speak the same viral language" but I'm really hesitant to predict what that will look like, since there are so many confounding factors. Basic health is the biggest confounding factor to immune "fluency" - if you are healthy, it is not a big deal to meet an unfamiliar bug - and the lockdowns and injections attack that directly.
The only exit from the cycle is to put faith in our biological fates instead of our powers of intervention.
There is a guy from Austria whose work you need to know: Günther Witzany. His work regarding genes, life, evolution, viruses and communication can be found under:
http://www.biocommunication.at/modules/publications/index.php?id=1:1
"There is growing evidence that natural genome-editing competences of viruses are essential (1) for the evolution of the eukaryotic nucleus, (2) the adaptive immune system and (3) the placental mammals." Yeesh! But I already knew science had basically demonstrated this at the same time he was writing it in 08, long before I tried to!
"Bio-Communication of Bacteria and their Evolutionary Roots in Natural Genome Editing Competences of Viruses." perfect - I will try to tackle his work this week
Is this related to terrain theory?
Yes and no. Immune Equilibrium subsumes Terrain / Host theory in that associations of certain "infections" with non-infectious outcomes are better explained with a model that we are all "onboarded" with multiple immune-evading, dormancy-timer-equipped viruses during childhood. These go dormant until the host tissue is under stress - thus, when they are seen in association with cancer in someone who drinks and doesn't exercise, they are incorrectly blamed for the cancer. And so on.
But Immune Equilibrium does not require any weird assertion that viruses "clean up" the body (viruses, after all, cause lysis, which creates quite a mess; additionally, the immune system itself spends much of its time "cleaning up" problematic cells). In the Immune Equilibrium model, Onboarded Viruses are merely "jumping ship" with there is a signal that, in the wild, would normally be a good sign that the host is near death. This is an optimal strategy from the perspective of a virus with immune-evading traits: Stop replicating until the host is already near death.
Further, Immune Equilibrium leaves room for harms from infection, particularly from plagues - sudden introduction to a mutated form of a virus that is unfamiliar in a given regional population of a species (to be elaborated in the afterward which I am overdue to post). In fact, Immune Equilibrium predicts that an extremely high fatality rate from viral challenge is worth the corresponding benefits in terms of resilience against "cataclysm," i.e. sudden reductions of fitness of the "super-genome." So, it does not require totally denying that health individuals can be at risk of a novel virus.
This strikes me as a profound insight about the nature of viruses, microbiomes, and the immune system that will ultimately be proven true.
Germ theory is an extremely reductionist paradigm; as such its utility is perhaps limited to those pathogens which have not (yet) entered into some sort of equilibrium with the human supergenome. The rabies virus comes to mind; perhaps this was also true of smallpox.
Eradication is only achievable - and should only be the goal - when the interests of the virus and the human host are sufficiently divergent that stable equilibrium is unlikely or too costly. (e.g. rabies which transmits by hijacking the brain to cause victims to bite others) In most cases the goal should instead be to facilitate the establishment of equilibrium with a minimum of suffering and death (e.g. the Swedish approach to Covid-19).
"For viruses, the immune system’s “goal” is to balance host and viral survival. This is why the immune system acts like that is its goal. Antibody levels are meant to drop after a cellular immunity rest period, as a bid for reencounter and re-spread with a given viral challenge."
That is a profound insight, and also something that should be obvious if we could let go of our conception of the immune system as the body's Department of War. Viruses can easily mutate to become more dangerous, but they will not do so if natural selection favors those that are less dangerous. Thus it is in the interest of the immune system to *allow* viruses to replicate and transmit rather than to force viruses through millions of genetic bottlenecks in which only the most attack-resistant variants survive.
Evolution of supergenomes driven by cataclysm-punctuated equilibrium. I like it.
I am glad you find it compelling. Additionally, I am delighted by your use of "perhaps" in reference to smallpox. I have more to write on the subject, one day. More or less I think the relationship between smallpox and humans was something like a big misunderstanding - the easy pre-infectivity awareness of the disease in the Old World making natural "equilibrium" (especially via childhood exposure) unachievable, as well as eventual eradication possible, with the New World disaster admittedly left in need of a long, convoluted explanation (unless a Marek's-like theory is pasted on, which would posit that medieval adoption of inoculation practices created a super-bug) - and this misunderstanding has been weaponized to launch our endless unwinnable crusade against Virus at large.
There's so much more promise in immune-competence promotion via nutrition/exercise and therapeutics during infection (though I think antiviral use should be circumspect) than there was in 1810, yet we still behave as though "infection" = "doom."
I was relating this to the housemate - imagine if we'd looked more into nutrition / exercise and ways to bolster immunity since 1796's smallpox discovery, instead of relying on the search for "cures" to infections.
Well, there probably wouldn’t have been any way to implement the nutrition piece in advent of the mid 20th century globalization of the produce supply chain, which is connected to its own set of detrimental health impacts.
Washington never would have had a problem at Valley Forge if there had been adequate food and fuel. To 19th Century states and busy-bodies seeking a way to prevent individuals from “contaminating” the body politic, vaccination may not have been productive (seemingly was the opposite) but at least it was achievable.