Poll: Justified Extermination

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Do we consider viruses or diseases as living things? (I genuinely dont know) Cause fuck cancer.

Well, as a matter of terminology, a disease is just a categorized failing of the body. It's what we call a related bundle of symptoms, and trying to apply terms of life and death to a disease doesn't really make sense, from a tautological point of view. Cancer in particular is simply a failing of the body's cellular reproduction. We don't have a full list of what causes cancer, although a good chunk of cancer is caused by related diseases such as hepatitis, which themselves are caused by viruses.

In general, bacteria is considered to be alive as they are single celled organisms, viruses are... complicated, but last I heard they don't quite pass the life test, simply being bundles of autonomous proteins. Lots of other types of single celled organisms can cause disease but I can't name all of them.

Well, Im sure theres a few kinds of bacteria the world could do without.

No doubt there are, but unfortunately, diseases are extraordinarily hard to eradicate. I mean, for all of humanity's vast ability to wreck other species' shit, there are only two cases of worldwide eradication of infectious disease: smallpox and rinderpest. Some others, like polio and malaria, are underway to some degree.

Of course, there are diseases that have been effectively eliminated (=/= eradicated) in specific regions of the world, because advances in modern medicine like vaccines or simply a higher standard of living led to those diseases never occuring anymore in all but the rarest cases.