Just thought this after the made of worms post.
What are the worms full of? Bacteria. Our gut bacteria is vital so are we eating so they can process it for us or are we eating to feed them?
Lots of these bacteria probably exist without us. We can’t exist without them but we do make a very nice house where they can live. So they keep us around.
Hopefully our bacterial overlords won’t rise up against us any time soon.
For the most part, yes. But also, I think if you dig into the details, it’s less that bacteria have the upper hand, and more that we’ve reached a truce with the bacteria.
A lot of bacterial species need us to provide the environment for them to live, and our immune systems are pretty paranoid with our gut bacteria, especially if they getting too close to the intestinal walls. Also, our bodies are pumping out bacterial-killing compounds constantly.
I would describe the situation as that our bodies can’t kill every bacteria, and bacteria can’t kill us (not easily, anyways), so we’ve reached an agreement that as long as the bacteria stay in their lane, they can stay, and we might consider doing some trading at a distance