RE: Thoughts on society and the human race
July 25, 2011 at 9:14 am
(This post was last modified: July 25, 2011 at 9:25 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Hehehe, interesting observation on ants. A single ant may not be as "smart" as a human, but as a colony their system of heuristic organization can be impressively complex. An ant has about 250k brain cells, and so a colony of 40k ants would have the same collective number of brain cells as a human being. This is a very important piece of information, since ants think collectively. If we were to assign 7 bits as the processing power of each ant (based on chemicals they use for communication, and ignoring the relative strength of the chemicals...assigning only yes or no), we could extrapolate the processing power of the colony as a whole. One of the largest known ant colonies is in Japan, and numbers approximately 306 million workers and one million queens. That's 7675 human brains worth of brain cells, and roughly 268 megabytes of communicative power, all counted individually. Most colonies are much smaller, but there is a floor whereby the ants cannot effectively communicate and thus the colony perishes for lack of organization, as well as a ceiling at which point new colonies are formed (though in the Japanese case for some reason this has not happened). Queens may live up to 30 years, producing eggs the entire time, and the average ant life span is 40-65 days. Most colonies number in the thousands, or tens of thousands.
(ants and emergent behavior ftw!)
Ants do in fact go to war, they do have weapons (some even chemical weapons), they build fortifications out of sourced material or their own bodies and limbs, arrange themselves into structured social groups, engage in forms of agriculture and slavery, have open and quiet rebellions, care for their young, communicate with each other, and exhibit complicated burial behaviors. Chew on that.
Given their substantial physical advantages its a wonder that they ever developed any sort of complicated behavior at all, it's only required in the context of their being social creatures. Which, at least in this case, is everything.
(ants and emergent behavior ftw!)
Ants do in fact go to war, they do have weapons (some even chemical weapons), they build fortifications out of sourced material or their own bodies and limbs, arrange themselves into structured social groups, engage in forms of agriculture and slavery, have open and quiet rebellions, care for their young, communicate with each other, and exhibit complicated burial behaviors. Chew on that.
Given their substantial physical advantages its a wonder that they ever developed any sort of complicated behavior at all, it's only required in the context of their being social creatures. Which, at least in this case, is everything.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
