>>140668012/2
Viruses don't engage in homeostasis (that is to say the maintenance of an internal environment that differs from outside conditions) until they need to, this makes perfect sense for their lifecycle in context.
While I was writing this it occurred to me that I would be making at least several more posts at this rate so I will condense down the most problematic and weak parts of my shitpost greentext into a few sentences. Viruses are units of replicating matter that unlike more independent cells make use of existing molecular machinery in their environment to carry out functions needed for reproduction. When actively transcribing their genes and assembling new free floating particles they utilize every kind of normal life function we commonly use as a criteria to define what is animate and what is inanimate. They respond to stimuli in ways like producing polypeptides to block interferons, they actively and passively regulate metabolic activity, and they can even utilize signaling (like some viruses do with small molecules to decide whether to leave the lysogenic phase).
Virology is a gigantic field, one about a topic which has been in the making for possibly over a billion years. Covering the shear diversity of viral genes, mechanisms, proteins, their evolution, and everything else relating to them is the scope of multiple volumes of work, not a 4chan post. Instead I will say that viruses are a lifeform which exist in the context of other lifeforms providing them with necessary material.
>>14066829I am not watering down definitions I am simply applying them to all contexts. If we're going to say viruses aren't alive then it's only a small step more to say obligate intracellular bacteria like our good friend M. tb are not alive either. Virons are close to being equivalent to the spore form of many fungi and do not carry out their life functions until certain conditions are met.
