Re: Matthew, I wish to present you a gift.

A parasite requires a victim. The host is harmed in the process. I've harmed nobody. I am not a parasite.

Your definition of parasitism is wrong.

This coming from you is hilarious. Parasitism does not involve taking something by force, which is what you contended on somehting awful:"Parasites are people who take by force. Rapists, The IRS, etc. " When you learn the proper definition, you can try correcting people.

Quote

If I am not providing the correct value in return for what I am taking, it's stealing. I have not stolen anything of value. Parasites steal. If I cost my host nothing, I am only a symbiont: I can only create value.

Like hijacking someone's computer for your own purpose, without telling them, and potentially harming their hardware and/or increasing their electic bill while you reap the benefits. Yep, that's value right there.

Que your response that nothing of value was stolen, the amount stolen was miniscule, blah blah. If you repeat something enough, you think people will give in. You know, when everyone around you tells you you're doing wrong, they just might be right.

I'll stand by my definition.

Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host.

-Wikipedia

It requires force to take.

Anyways, when people go to a website, they accept to run all the software that is on it.

Quote from: Primitive Caveman on November 12, 2011, 05:37:05 PM

You know, when everyone around you tells you you're doing wrong, they just might be right.

This is a dangerous mentality. The will of the collective is easily altered by social pressures; primal emotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9UlQFRoajs

Copying and pasting a wikipedia entry does not qualify you as understanding parasitism. There are plenty of cases of debatable parasitism, such a zooxanthellae reproducing in corals, where it in unclear that there is any detriment to the host, as the coral sequesters the dinoflagelletes and consumes their waste products of photosynthesis, but there is a clear detriment to the parasite: it is no longer free living and it's population is bioregulated by the host coral and they are digested at will. One could argue that it is mutualism, as both organisms can survive independent of one another, but only one thrives in combination. So what say you to the host benefiting from the parasite? The same could be said about much of your gut flora.

In any case, when there is no victim, I show no concern. A woman disgusted with my front door and the fecal matter she had stepped in on her way to it is no victim in my view. She can take my home as-is.