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Evoloution's Third Replicator (newscientist.com)
11 points by rosser on Aug 2, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments




There is certainly the possibility of a third replicator, where the patterns are copied by machinery rather than biological processes, but we are not there yet. In the primordial soup of our Internet, we have only the very simplest form of life so far -- viruses, which only really seem to be alive when inside a host. We have a few true self-replicators, but they exist only in protected bubbles inside simulators, and cannot survive on the real network.

I think it's quite likely that a new form of replicator begin on the Internet, but there's no sign of it yet.


Interesting but way too long.

The third replicator that will doom us all: the web (and the power it, along with all the connected devices consume).

More interesting (to me anyways): What if little by little Google "decides" to start showing us information that will lead to our destruction?

Like what the traditional media mostly does, except we trust Google, right?




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