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The author has an overly narrow view of what constitutes division of labor. Division labor doesn't mean that can't switch tasks or that you can only do a task y

The author has an overly narrow view of what constitutes division of labor. Division labor doesn't mean that can't switch tasks or that you can only do a task you were specifically born with the special ability for. Indeed, any system of division of labor has to operate with the sort of adaptability she describes in ants.

djsumdog 10y ago
I think what the author is trying to get at here is that there is no control system. There is no central brain coordinating things. Each individual ant brain evolved to do different things based on the signals it receives from others. Useful behaviours that lead to a higher fitness tend to survive and progress to future generations of ants. When you look at the human analogy, the queen doesn't have all the resources and food she could ever need. In human society, we prise those people at the top who convince others to give them resources. Human societies are not equal. They never have been. In fact, equality is a completely human social construct that we must actively and consciously pursue: http://khanism.org/society/created-equal/ http://khanism.org/society/created-equal/
- winstonewert 10y ago
  Yes, but the author still continually describes it as a rejection of the division of labor.
- program_whiz 10y ago
  Even our concept that the brain "controls" things is just our own projection of things. Think about it, you get hit hard in the leg, so the leg releases chemicals that trigger a bunch of repsonses, perhaps using the brain as the intermediary point of communication, but to say the brain "controls it", is just one way to look at it. The brain was really told what to do by the leg, or maybe the nerves, or the blood. There is no system in nature that has centralized control, all systems with "central authority" are really just a projection of human conditioning. For example, even in government, how exactly is centralized control maintained? Its a bunch of distributed interactions that cause people to go out and take actions that result in overall changes, but there isn't a "government" per se that is like a giant telepathic mind controlling anyone's actions, its just millions of interactions of people choosing what to do (some soldiers, some merchants, some politicians), flowing in all directions.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    See also: the only person Hitler ever killed was himself.
gumby 10y ago
At the beginning he describes a historical view of human division of labor (which is in fact pretty specialized -- think of Adam Smith or, as he mentions, Henry Ford) and the longstanding belief that hive insects are programmed as pupae to do only one task. The rest of the article shows, including his millet experiment, that our longstanding belief is wrong at least in regards to ants. In fact the only such ant is the queen.
SixSigma 10y ago
The Toytoa Production System has division of labour (As Taichi says : "if the plant can operate without you, why are you there?") but also fungible workers - they train to do each other's jobs too.

djsumdog 10y ago

I think what the author is trying to get at here is that there is no control system. There is no central brain coordinating things. Each individual ant brain evolved to do different things based on the signals it receives from others. Useful behaviours that lead to a higher fitness tend to survive and progress to future generations of ants. When you look at the human analogy, the queen doesn't have all the resources and food she could ever need. In human society, we prise those people at the top who convince others to give them resources. Human societies are not equal. They never have been. In fact, equality is a completely human social construct that we must actively and consciously pursue: http://khanism.org/society/created-equal/ http://khanism.org/society/created-equal/

winstonewert 10y ago
Yes, but the author still continually describes it as a rejection of the division of labor.
program_whiz 10y ago
Even our concept that the brain "controls" things is just our own projection of things. Think about it, you get hit hard in the leg, so the leg releases chemicals that trigger a bunch of repsonses, perhaps using the brain as the intermediary point of communication, but to say the brain "controls it", is just one way to look at it. The brain was really told what to do by the leg, or maybe the nerves, or the blood. There is no system in nature that has centralized control, all systems with "central authority" are really just a projection of human conditioning. For example, even in government, how exactly is centralized control maintained? Its a bunch of distributed interactions that cause people to go out and take actions that result in overall changes, but there isn't a "government" per se that is like a giant telepathic mind controlling anyone's actions, its just millions of interactions of people choosing what to do (some soldiers, some merchants, some politicians), flowing in all directions.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  See also: the only person Hitler ever killed was himself.

gumby 10y ago

At the beginning he describes a historical view of human division of labor (which is in fact pretty specialized -- think of Adam Smith or, as he mentions, Henry Ford) and the longstanding belief that hive insects are programmed as pupae to do only one task. The rest of the article shows, including his millet experiment, that our longstanding belief is wrong at least in regards to ants. In fact the only such ant is the queen.

SixSigma 10y ago

The Toytoa Production System has division of labour (As Taichi says : "if the plant can operate without you, why are you there?") but also fungible workers - they train to do each other's jobs too.