Post #4070643

2026-07-24 19:22 UTC

Biologist here. This REALLY reminds me of how jealously cells guard their genomic DNA from interaction with nucleic acids out in the environment. Most genetic information on Earth is malicious information, selfish replicators in the form of viruses or transposable elements or selfish elements. Things that subvert the signals within a cell for their own propagation and provide nothing productive that the cells care about. So cells jealously guard their own genomic RNA and have all kinds of checks to make sure that nothing other than that sequence gets used, and outside sequence does not get incorporated into it. ANY DNA in your cytplasm gets rapidly destroyed, double stranded RNA sets off your immune system like crazy, even RNA with sequence statistics that are not quite like that of your species can set off an inflammatory reaction, immune system cells seeing RNA inside them that is overly compact and optimized like viral RNA treat them as sources of antigen rather than self. I cannot help but think we are living through the transformation of our non-brain-information sphere into a state like that of the genetic information sphere. Most material out there being meaningless for our purposes and us needing to jealously guard the provenance of information we use so as to not use bull, or worse, huge amounts of malicious information made to subvert us to the purposes of the powers that be that generate it. Evolution makes parasites more reliably than anything else. How did we train text-generation systems? Basically, to mimic the written word on the page like a stick bug on a stick. They’re like those beetles that live in ant colonies, sending out social signals that make the ants see them as offspring that have to be babied rather than parasites that don’t contribute. They replicate the form while not being the thing that they have subverted the signals of being.

Replies (3)

@jerojasro@col.social 2026-07-24 20:10

@BioMan@awful.systems > even RNA with sequence statistics that are not quite like that of your species can set off an inflammatory reaction, immune system cells seeing RNA inside them that is overly compact and optimized like viral RNA treat them as sources of antigen rather than self I was aware of the other DNA/RNA recognition/defense mechanisms, but not of the ones I quote from your toot, here. May I kindly ask for some references/sources? I'm quite interested!

Open ##4071599
@zenkat@sfba.social 2026-07-25 05:24

@BioMan@awful.systems @lagrangeinterpolator@awful.systems There are a few things we have forgotten as a species. Our forgetting will prove disastrous. 1) The acquisition of knowledge is a *social* process. Truth does not exist is a vacuum. It is the outcome of social processes. 2) Our default mental and social processes do not automatically produce objective truth. Far from it, in fact. Our default is mob consensus. 3) Our current success rests upon the advancements of The Enlightenment, which developed social processes (like the Scientific Method) which tend, over the long run, to create local knowledge that approaches objective truth.

Open ##4080263
@froztbyte@awful.systems 2026-08-10 07:03

you know, I’ve been thinking thoughts along this line (starting from my earlier comments on awful of the creeping loss of the open internet to gated communities) progressing along the current arc of “with teeth” stuff necessary in today’s infosphere, and this is a hugely helpful perspective! it’s pretty weird seeing a coming time when the old mostly open-and-connected-widely internet is … not. even now it’s already on us quite a bit (geoblocks, countries doing specific shutdowns, whole areas being handled with less trust, etc). it all follows cultural lines, of course, and I often wonder whether that will see some kind of directed effort to change (for the better) after some of the coming dark years

Open ##4480892