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Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by Retric on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:10AM (#22847139)
Viruses increase entropy like all life. Their reproductive process destroys a much larger and more complex cell.

Plants convert light into chemical energy at low efficiency, the rest goes to waste heat. Animals do the same thing with chemical energy.

Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by clairity on Sunday April 12, 2020 @01:12PM (#22849542)
yes, as @selestify also noted, that seems contradictory on the surface but actually isn't. the virus itself is a reduction of entropy while it's net existential entropy contribution is positive.

where you draw the system boundary matters for defining entropy changes, but long-term we're all bound to increase entropy, otherwise life (and our semi-living cousins) would be violating the laws of thermodynamics writ large.

Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by Retric on Sunday April 12, 2020 @02:55PM (#22850282)
When you simply include the raw materials the virus is made from before and after it forms you have a net loss of entropy. So, it’s not clear what you mean by boundaries in that case.
Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by monadic2 on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:20AM (#22847173)
I disagree with life increasing entropy; it does do that but it expels the entropy.
Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by selestify on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:38AM (#22847256)
Living things are low-entropy internally, but produce higher entropy externally than would have been without life.
Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by monadic2 on Sunday April 12, 2020 @10:22PM (#22852569)
Hmm, I don’t follow the comparison. How could, for instance, the sun use “life” to generate more entropy than it already does?
Re:Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips by hordeallergy on Sunday April 12, 2020 @09:53AM (#22848248)
To some degree depending on how productive they are externally, eg bee vs fox.