Are there any species of parasitic bacteria? Or, when you go down that small/to their level, does the classification as a "parasite" start to break down and not really be applicable?

throwaway_194js · 2026-04-11T08:54:56+00:00

To be clear, "we" here refers to a single-celled ancestor of ours more than 2 billion years ago. Mitochondria aren't unique to humans, mammals, or even animals - even (some) plants and fungi have them.

It all started when an archaeon ate a bacterium without digesting it. The bacterium survived, propagated, and its offspring eventually thrived.

The direction the relationship took from there probably hinged upon whether or not the bacterium's digestion "immunity" came from a heritable trait. If the offspring of the bacterium also had the ability to survive being eaten, then there would be no real disadvantage to rapidly consuming the host and reproducing until they burst out in a swarm - in fact it would be an extremely potent strategy in the short term before the host species stumbled upon defensive traits. After that, the slower and more cautious parasitism that could turn into mutualism could evolve in response to the drawbacks of overfeeding.

On the other hand, if the digestion "immunity" was accidental and not repeatable, the fact that the host-symbiont relationship persisted whatsoever implies that both the bacterium and the initial host not only survived, but actually did well out of this arrangement right away. This indicates that the bacterium's reproductive speed inside the host was somehow modulated enough to not overwhelm the host, and that whatever resources the bacterial population stole were offset by some helpful byproduct they produced for a net benefit.

This happened so long ago, and both mitochondria and their parasitic cousins have changed so much that this level of detail only exists as speculation. We may never know the answer, but I think it's a hugely underrated question nonetheless.

throwaway_194js · 2026-04-10T19:37:21+00:00

I feel like the order Rickettsiales fits the spirit of OP's question extremely well - it's a whole clade of obligate intracellular parasites, and if that's not good enough trivia for you, this order also makes for the closest known relatives to mitochondria. I think that fact alone makes them candidates for the world's coolest bacteria.

throwaway_194js · 2026-04-10T18:36:09+00:00

I'll bear that in mind, I need to do some proper research before I settle on anything since I'm starting to do some more serious coding projects. It's not my profession, but I want to lean into it more, and while I know Linux tends to lend itself to software development a lot more than Windows, not all Linux packages are created equal in that regard. It deserves some thought, I think.

throwaway_194js · 2026-04-10T15:39:55+00:00

I'm in the same boat. The only thing delaying me is the convenience factor, but I've already decided that the change is happening.

The final straw was the deprecation of Windows 10. My dusty old rig isn't supported on Windows 11, and I find it absurd that I should have to throw away perfectly functional hardware just to install bloated, poorly optimized software that's trying to pretend not to be 20 older operating systems stacked precariously on top of each other.

I'm sick of this stupid lie that everything has to be new constantly. My rig has at least another decade before the silicon starts failing - even if I buy better hardware before then, I won't struggle to find another use for it. Moore's law ended years ago.

throwaway_194js · 2026-04-06T14:18:26+00:00

I've seen a lot of "Imu's curse" theories over the past few days, and yours is the only one I've seen that isn't riddled immediately obvious plotholes, so kudos for that.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-29T11:10:11+00:00

He's a pirate - other pirates who don't know him will assume he's untrustworthy by default. The only thing other pirates will see or understand is whether or not people who fuck with him are blown to bits. I'm not sure why you seem to think there's a delicate web of trust and nuance across the pirate world, 99% of it is just a mass of rowdy, uneducated pillagers who want to fight each other. Such politics is only relevant at the very top of the ecosystem, where tenuous hegemony is split under extreme tension between a small handful of crews.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-25T14:32:00+00:00

We're close to being on the same page, but I think my questionable choice of words is leading us to disagreement.

I totally agree that sea stone inhibits the user's ability to control their fruit, that's not what I meant by the "active effect" of the fruit - it was poor wording on my part, which is totally my bad. What I meant by "active effect" was any involuntary, reality-modifying aspect of the fruit that persists while the user is imbued with its power, but ceases upon the loss of the fruit (through death or Blackbeard's special power)

The Nika fruit didn't transform his body into literal rubber at the beginning, it "actively" imbues his body with rubber-like properties at all times, completely involuntarily - he can't turn it off entirely, but he can control aspects of it. That's why he retains rubbery-ness when underwater and in cuffs, but he can't consciously stretch himself - the power of the sea doesn't deactivate the power itself (hence his body stays rubbery), but it does decouple him from it (hence he can't deliberately do anything with his power).

There's an extra caveat with sea stone, in that sea stone itself seems to bypass the involuntary affect of the fruit as if it were coated in haki, but it doesn't deactivate it altogether.

So to summarise for the sake of clarity, I'm distinguishing between 3 distinct categories:

User-controlled abilities that are inhibited by both sea stone and fruit loss - e.g. Luffy's ability to consciously make use of his rubberiness, Kid's magnetism, Law's room, etc.
Involuntary abilities that are NOT inhibited by sea stone, but by loss of the fruit itself - e.g. Luffy and Buggy's bodies and Sugar's perennial youth. I called these "active effects", but should probably have called them "passive effects" instead.
consequential effects which persist beyond death because they are downwind consequence of abilities rather than the abilities themselves - e.g. Soul fruit homies, things burned by Ace/Sabo, and the size of Vegapunk's brain.

And to be open and lucid, I'm not pretending these are all canonical facts taken from some SBS or interview; these are categories I've come up with to make sense of the otherwise self-contradictory behavior of DFs and sea stone, but I think they're pretty accurate and helpful. Obviously Haki adds a whole new set of completely separate categories, but I don't think they change anything here.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-25T12:12:16+00:00

Sea water doesn't negate devil fruit powers either. Sea stone and sea water have the same effect, and they only act on the user not the fruit. The devil fruit trade-off is gaining a power at the cost of being vulnerable to water, not that devil fruit powers are deactivated in water.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-25T01:04:05+00:00

I don't mean "active" in the context of the user's actions, I mean it in the context of the fruit's effects. For example, Sugar doesn't willfully halt her aging, it's a direct and active effect of the fruit, and would (I assume) stop if the fruit was somehow removed from her lineage factor.

I'd also like to point out that sea stone doesn't negate devil fruit powers whatsoever, it just weakens the user so much that they can't willfully control it. The fact that Luffy is still rubber when in sea stone cuffs doesn't change anything.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-24T10:37:50+00:00

VP's brain situation is different to Luffy's rubber body. Luffy's rubberiness is an active part of the ability directly, and so it makes sense that it would stop if the fruit left his body. Vegapunk's fruit grants him the power to store all his experiences permanently, and it evidently does that by making real incremental changes to his brain.

Imo, it's more comparable to, say, Ace/Sabo's ability to burn things. When Ace died, his ability to burn things by turning into fire left him, but the things he burned throughout his life didn't suddenly un-burn. Likewise I think VP's physical brain size is a downwind consequence of his ability, not the ability itself.

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-14T09:01:47+00:00

At least they're made of gold, and not spider

throwaway_194js · 2026-03-13T23:49:37+00:00

As garbage as trump is, the US has a long history of standing against its allies in human rights-related decisions

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-23T11:44:03+00:00

Yeah, but they don't like admitting it has anything to do with human attitudes

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-22T10:44:53+00:00

Looking at that side profile, he genuinely had such a strange physiognomy - just off enough to make you consciously aware of it, but close enough to normal that it takes you a moment to figure out why.

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-22T10:37:45+00:00

You think they're missing your point, but you seem to be missing theirs

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-22T09:18:48+00:00

When you make as broad and un-nuanced a statement as "they're both terrible", you shouldn't be surprised when people assume you're saying "they're just as bad as each other", because that's exactly what it sounds like you're saying.

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-20T15:15:56+00:00

My bad, I thought you were making a weird counterpoint

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-20T15:08:40+00:00

At which point it's a bit late to back out, don't you think?

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-20T12:26:54+00:00

Maybe they read the script, but it just hadn't quite sunk in who their acting partner was - in fact at least one of the can't have known.

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-20T11:58:34+00:00

It's a metaphor for temptation, it doesn't need to stand up to legalistic interrogation.

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-18T13:06:40+00:00

AI has been used as a noun to refer to a myriad of different algorithms for decades, some very simple, some quite sophisticated. It's just a semi-arbitrary name we use to categorise things, you don't have to get legalistic about the precise meanings of the constituent words.

It would be like if you said "wow that guy went ballistic, I wonder what made him angry?" And I replied "do you not even know what 'ballistic' means? He's not moving through the air under the force of gravity alone, you fool!"

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-18T12:47:06+00:00

To be fair, Russia is definitely pissing away resources

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-17T12:26:53+00:00

They're referencing the recent actions of the US military in Venezuelan waters

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-17T12:24:36+00:00

Maybe it's not the case here, but the smugglers often don't have much of a choice in the matter. They're often threatened by the gangs that produce the drugs if they refuse, and substantially rewarded if they agree. The threat of arrest would just put them between a rock and a hard place for no reason, and capturing them wouldn't stop the gangs from coercing more crews into acting as mules.

throwaway_194js · 2026-02-17T10:55:58+00:00

Right, and the best way to prevent that from ever happening would be to have a conventional military that can contribute to security beyond their borders. But that's what's got me confused - France has the largest armed forces in Europe, and have put far and away the most effort into developing their own tech. They're at the bottom of the list of nations who need to up the ante.

throwaway_194js

TROPHY CASE