tags: insects, hive mind, Insect Warrior, streaming video
This streaming video is a mini-documentary showing how humanity appears to be headed towards the hive-mind of the social insects. Is this really what we want to become? [3:39].
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A fun thing about reading things on the ID sites and then actually checking primary sources is how bizarre Uncommon Descent is as an information filter. I guess this would be an example of the dreaded "framing" of science which I don't want to fight with my sciblings over. Take for example their…
I want to share this amusing video with all of you, particularly with one very special reader, Joe [surname elided to protect him from his stupidity], who was so moved by this piece that I wrote that he has been emailing repeatedly to let me know that I am a poorly-educated liar. In fact, Joe was…
Being a non-scientist I am very impressionable and not enough knowledge to refute. This seems to be a possibility in a futuristic outcome for the human race. It reminds me of the futuristic movie - Soylent Green,after war,polutions etc. man was forced to eat man...check out the trailer: http://youtube.com/watch?v=c25tTzGJmcs
here a break of the movie where they eat black market foods: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wEqN-Q-B6AU
and here where it is revealed - "The Secret": http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y1FIKQb0aMk
"Is this really what we want to become?".....maybe?!?!?!
Interesting - I've actually been wondering the same myself, largely because most sci-fi assumes that the nest step in human evolution is greater autonomy and freedom - but why should that be so tout court?
Maybe social spiders are the way forward. Now they are cool!
Interesting clip. Not sure if I approve of the "What if Darwin was wrong?" nonsense at the start.
Hive-like species and/or hive-like human civilizations are really popular in science fiction. I recommend watching Phase IV for a eery-but-very 70's take on ants becoming more intelligent (warning, IMDB entry misleading, and no, it is NOT about giant ants).
Other interestingly-written-and-conceived sci-fi on the topic includes "Hellstrom's Hive" by Frank Herbert (an apparently Amish-like but truly hive society hidden in the US), or the alien Primes in Patrick Hamilton's "Pandora's Star" and "Judas Unchained".
Pretty alright, but it could be a little misleading at parts.
I couldn't help but cringe when the voiceover was talking about Hymenoptera, yet termites and their structures were being shown. Besides, the eusocial Hymenoptera probably didn't pre-date the dinosaurs.
Of course, Baxter offered his "Coalescence" idea, not to mention the future humanity of Haldeman's Forevver War.
In terms of actual predictions, I don't buy hive minds for a moment. Eusociality is a basic evolutionary committment for its practitioners, and even among ants and bees there are occasional breakdowns (not only parasites, but same-species freeloaders). There's only one eusocial mammal that I know of, and it's a finger-sized burrower.
In contrast, the whole family of primates tends toward social clustering, mostly variations on "tribes". More importantly, both our primate and our human intelligence, is tightly intertwined and co-developed with our social behaviors That intelligence, driven largely by intragroup competition, is the reason we took over the planet in the first place. I doubt it'll easily adapt to eusociality.
Over evolutionary time, we'll hopefully find some interesting solutions to the liabilities of our social patterns... but I doubt it'll look much like eusociality. (Perhaps the Internet communities represent a foreshadowing of future development!)