Part 1:
1:
"Where am I? What's happening?"
"Hello Vladivir. To answer your first question, you're nowhere, existing only in the minds eye of the reader. To answer your second, you have been called into existence as a hypothetical narrative being, for the purposes of a college writing assignment. Shall we begin?"
"...Sure?"
"Very good then. You see, Vladivir, I have stumbled upon an issue that bothers me. Viruses do not fall under our current definition of 'alive', I find this odd considering they do various activities one might associated with something living, they mutate, they reproduce, they even evolve and adapt to their environments. The reason they aren't considered alive is that they do not grow, they cannot reproduce on their own (requiring a host-cell to do it for them), and they do not produce or use their own energy (they mooch off of the host cell's), and all of those things are required for something to be considered alive by our current definition of the word.
But that's just the thing, isn't it, Vladivir? It's our definition of the word. Us, humans, toolmakers, and some might say our most important tool is definition, descriptions we created so that we might make sense of the world around us. The people who would say that are wrong, our most important tool was the sharpened rock, but I digress.
People so often conflate definitions with reality, when, in reality, any definition for anything is bound to fall apart under scrutiny because definitions are not inherent to reality. I ask you, what is a chair? Is it something you sit on? Well, most anything can be sat on, but you would hardly describe a barrel full of nuclear waste as a 'chair'. Is a chair something that was designed to be sat on? Well, what if someone made a ham sandwich with the express purpose of being used as a seat? Or someone made an identical replica of the last chair you sat in as an art piece? Would the ham sandwich be more of a chair than the identical copy of a chair? I could go on but you probably get the point, pretty every category you know of (species, gender, economy, physics, philosophy, etc.) is a concept that was made up by humans because it served a utility to us. When we find that a concept/definition would be of more use to us if it was altered, we alter it. Like changing our meaning of elements from "earth, fire, water, and air" to the periodic table we know today, or outright ditching the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) as a medical concept entirely.
With that in mind, I think we could get more utility out of the definition of life if we altered its parameters to include viruses, because we basically treat them as alive already, what with them having phylogenetic evolutionary trees and all that."
"You don't think you could ever really do anything about it, do you?"
"Well, realistically, no. But it's more plausible than you might think."
"How so?"
"Well, since the definition is a concept made by humans for the purposes of utility, all you would have to do is convince the biological community that it should be broadened to include viruses. You don't have to do anything tangible, nor does anyone else. The difference would only exist in the collective human consciousness."
"That still sounds pretty much impossible."
"Yeah, I don't want to downplay the enormity of the task, I probably won't achieve it my lifetime, considering that I'm not invested in it enough to dedicate my entire life to that. But science history has shown that huge upsets in how we think about things can come from one person (or a small group of people)"
"If you aren't invested enough to dedicate your life to it, who else will?"
"I'd love to answer that Vladivir, but I have to be wrapping this up if I want to get this submitted on time. And, as a thought-entity, you will cease to exist once I stop writing you."
"Wait! No you don't have to do that! We can talk more! I'll say whatever you want me to! Please just don't stop writing me! I want to keep existing! I don't want to d-"
2:
I think Pollan answers his own question with the idea that, if you don't do it, other people won't either. You should set the example, because you are the only person you control. It's sorta like the "I'm Sparticus" thing, it took one person to do it on their own, and then other people felt compelled to follow in their footsteps.
3:
I don't know what the believing game or the doubting game are.
4:
You gotta connect to the reader, relate to them so they have an easier time engaging with the material. I'll try my best not to use first-person.
Part 2:
Plastic, It's a useful material, and you can find it just about everywhere! in hardware stores, supermarkets, the ocean, the stomachs of animals everywhere, poisoning the ground, in your blood. Okay, okay, you probably don't want plastic in your blood, or most of those other things, but how do we get rid of it? It takes thousands of years for plastic to degrade, and most people don't have the time for that. So, how can we rid ourselves of the plastic menace? Burning it wouldn't be of much help, since it would pollute the air the same way burying it pollutes the ground. But what about eating it? Not you, put down the plastic scrap. No, the one's eating it should be bacteria!
Recent discoveries have revealed that bacteria can break down plastic, albeit very slowly... until they sped it up! but unfortunately the sped up bacteria needed a hot environment... until they figured that out too! but the bacteria still can only break down biodegradable plastic... until they found the digestive bacteria in the guts of waxworms (which can break down more commonly used, non biodegradable plastic)! but only in low density... Until... well, nothing for now, the thing with the waxworms was only discovered last year, but the future looks promising!
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