re: #121 freetoken

I propose that some Trumpers are Trumpers exactly because this brave new world is a threat to their view of themselves.

Many Americans are very resistant to a modern view of what is a “human”. Many Americans have very bronze-age ideas of what it means to be a human.

A “human” is a meat-sack that transports our bacterial overlords around. Depending on what current science you find is most realistic, the human meat-sack contains about 1:1.3 to 1:10* human cells:bacterial cells. The gene ratio is a better indicator of relative value of “humanness” and that is more like 100:1; or, 99% of our genes expressing in the meat-sack are bacterial in origin.

With those number is mind, what is “human”? The more that is understood about the microbiome in- and on- the meat-sack, the more we understand that the “humans” entire existence is dependent on- and controlled by- our bacterial overlords.

*-the 1.3:1 comes from a Nature paper that is arguably low, but whatever.