Viruses can’t think. Hell, they aren’t actually alive, at least not in the way that we normally envision life. They exist only through a kind of asymmetrical symbiosis. Outside of a host’s cell they are just tiny particles of organized matter armed with a couple enzymes and some otherwise innocuous fragments of genetic material. A virus doesn’t have a strategy or plan of attack. It doesn’t plot an expanding vector through a population of potential victims. It merely exploits the hosts’ gregariousness, piggybacks off of their social proclivities, their patterns of connection and incidental contact. And all without forethought or malice.
A virus is critically dependent on their host in a way that, if it could think, would give it pause. A virus becomes extinct—if that word really means anything when talking about a virus—when vulnerable host populations cease to exist. If a virus could think, it would realize its own precarious position, its degree of dependency. It would understand that its own future survival is critically dependent on the continued availability of a host. If a virus could think, it would form congressional subcommittees to craft legislation to ensure a sustainable supply of future hosts—and maybe call it “The Host New Deal.” If a virus could think, it would have vocal activists and political action committees and celebrity endorsements and a substantial social media presence.
Civilization is occasionally likened to a planetary virus. And although this is usually meant as simile or metaphor, it is a very thin metaphor, only barely metaphor, metaphor in which the target and vehicle are too close to be mere analogy: civilization in a very real sense is viral. The planet is being consumed, its biological and geophysical health is being degraded at breakneck speed by civilized forms and structures that replicate and proliferate in ways that closely resemble the lytic cycle of a virus, forms and structures that exploit vulnerable systems of the host to make deadly copies of themselves, quickly mutating around unprepared defensive systems, penetrating ever-deeper layers of tissue until, eventually, there will be nothing left to consume.
Civilization is un-strategically parasitic. Civilization exists only through a kind of asymmetrical symbiosis. Outside of a physically diverse, materially-rich biome populated with humans, civilization is just a collection of hierarchically organized patterns of power distribution armed with lethal technology and some otherwise innocuous delusional belief systems. Civilization doesn’t have a strategy or plan of attack. It doesn’t plot a vector of expansion and progress. It merely exploits natural vulnerabilities, piggybacks off human social and psychological proclivities and their easily manipulated fears and anxieties.
And all without forethought or malice.