The evolution of expendability: Why some ants traded armor for numbers

Ants with lots of workers tend to put less energy into making them armored.

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[Komarov]

Ants sacrifice the individual for the collective.

So, they're Borg?

Who knew?

Not Borg, just communist.

Someone mentioned capitalism upthread, couldn't be more wrong.

 

[Komarov]

Economic system doesn't really map to political system. The US, China, Nazi Germany are all capitalist, though the political systems are different. I guess the USSR would be an imperfect example of communism (everything owned/operated by the state, though not by the commune) but it didn't last.

I have to object to this usian definition of communism as "ownership by the state". That's just horribly wrong, I have no idea where they teach such crap.

Communism implies ownership by the people, which is a different beast entirely*. Also the wealth distribution "from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their needs." It quickly becomes clear that communal species are, surprise surprise, as close to the commuist ideal as you can come.


* Yah. The real reason why communism doesn't work is literally because people aren't ants. The "owned by everyone" becomes "cared about by no-one" and "according to their needs" morphs to "some animals are more equal than others."

 

[Komarov]

It's also more prone to centripetal collapse as at least if you have a bunch of gazillionaires owning everything they will tend to pull in different directions, but if everything is doled out by the state you end up with a black hole of bureaucracy swallowing everything.

Misconception again: not "the state". The intended goal is a giant co-op where everyone is a member and everyone has equal say. The quintessential direct democracy.

Which doesn't work because of self-interest leading to grift and a majority if ιδιωτης in the original Greek meaning.

ETA: which is exactly how DJT became 47 ... now I wish he was a drone instead of an oaf.

 

[Komarov]

Sure that's the theory, but what large polity ever even thought it was possible without state control (you can have a commune in small groups, obviously - they might even work for a while)? Actual attempts at communism were always state-centred.

I happened to grow up in one where the stated goal was to massively decentralize the state and reduce the role of the government. And we were notorious for killing off the 5-year planning in favour of employee participation in management, innovation and "cooperative competition" if you can imagine such a thing.

It worked fairly well for a while but ultimately failed because of the reasons I mentioned earlier.

I wonder if you can guess which state I'm talking about.

 

[Komarov]

The author from ARS said something like “some ant colonies invested…” and I have to wonder if the study they are reporting on had those exact words because investing implies thought and choice whereas evolution just happens.

From the little I've read on the subject of survival strategies, "invest" in this context doesn't imply conscious decisions. Just as there's no assumption that the subjects (i.e., any living things) can do maths even though the strategies can be analysed with mathematics.