Ah, I was worried about giving that impression, but wasn’t able to find an elegant way to avoid it. I don’t think this is right, although it’s not that wrong, either—I think there is a large cluster of people/things that are effectively non-infected, although there are important differences, especially in how they interact with the infected and how vulnerable they are to infection. Once you are infected, there are definitely levels, which can be thought of as similar to the simulacra. One might, for example, be fine with and support (be infected by) level-3 behavior that pretends to have some reflection of reality but not be comfortable, yet, with level-4 behavior that does not so pretend.
It sounds to me like you are claiming that infected and not infected are binary or bimodal states. Is that the case?
Ah, I was worried about giving that impression, but wasn’t able to find an elegant way to avoid it. I don’t think this is right, although it’s not that wrong, either—I think there is a large cluster of people/things that are effectively non-infected, although there are important differences, especially in how they interact with the infected and how vulnerable they are to infection. Once you are infected, there are definitely levels, which can be thought of as similar to the simulacra. One might, for example, be fine with and support (be infected by) level-3 behavior that pretends to have some reflection of reality but not be comfortable, yet, with level-4 behavior that does not so pretend.