5 ms·

The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" reminds me of a paper regarding the tunneling and movement behavior of ants: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0

The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" reminds me of a paper regarding the tunneling and movement behavior of ants: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/ants-worker-idleness.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/ants-worker-idlen... The gist of it is that 30% of studied ants do 70% of the work in digging tunnels. Other ants come in, see that it is too crowded, and don't try to force their way in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants. This ends up being an ideal strategy for the colony because overcrowding reduces the overall work throughput, but requires all ants to be comfortable allowing some of their ant peers to work less while remaining in the vicinity of where work is being accomplished. Pretty interesting stuff, if you ask me! :)

Nevermark 3y ago
> The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" [...] I would have opted out. But I never figured out how to be "in"! I suspect a lot of people forging their own paths didn't really choose too, although they might assume they did. When you see things differently, you don't just have different visions of where to go, but an aversion to those well worn paths that often seemed inexplicably depressingly difficult.
- bloomingeek 3y ago
  Very nice answer! For me it was always about being myself, not that I had much against the 'in' crowd, I just wasn't interested enough to play along, they weren't me and I wasn't them.
- RHSman2 3y ago
  I’m gonna write my book called ‘living with a difficult person (me)’ I don’t mean to be, it just is that way.
quickthrower2 3y ago
The MBAs could learn something from this!
zentropia 3y ago
Worker ants are all sister and they don't reproduce, so no problem letting others do the hard work.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I think the “letting others do the hard work” makes it easy to interpret your comment as somehow very negative. The reproductive success of an ant hill is determined at the hill level, so the ants have no evolutionary incentive for selfishness at all.
  - justinjlynn 3y ago
    Individual ants in a colony can be understood as cells of a multicellular organism operating at a higher level of independence. It's a fascinating adaptation and one wonders what "selfishness" would even mean in such a context. Do ants have memetic behavioural evolution or are their reactions to environmental stimuli purely genetically determined? It's actually quite a fascinating question with a number of implications and avenues for exploration.
- bloppe 3y ago
  True. The evolutionary success of ants happens at the colony level rather than the individual level, so they have an evolutionary pressure to "unfairly" divide the labor like this if it's more efficient overall. I'm sure there is no "awkwardness" for them. We humans cannot evolve this way because it disadvantages the productive ones. No wonder communism works so well for ants and bees. (Not saying successful communism is impossible for humans, especially at smaller scales, just that evolution is working against it, rather than for it).
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Evolution is working for it, on those smaller scales, though. Families will happily help each other, friends don’t need a detailed ledger to figure out who’s buying the next round. Most people have a good inherent sense of fairness I think.
ChatGTP 3y ago
This is so cool. We have a lot of ants in our place at the moment and they're fascinating to watch. They do seem to solve problems and even show empathy towards each other. Sadly one was badly injured the other day and two other ants tried to come to the rescue, it was beautiful and sad to watch.
- RHSman2 3y ago
  I have a cherry tree. Grown from a sapling. A few years ago I noticed the leaves turning in. Aphids. I then discovered that Ants farm those aphids. They place a guard ant to stop predators (lady bugs) and let this black little fellas grow and grow. Then the other ants feed off their sugary goodness. Incredible. Where does that direction come from? Collective consciousness with inherent intelligence?
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    It is interesting, an ants brain must be the size of a pin head and runs on how much energy ? Yet some how they solve problems like that and can co-ordinate in large numbers. I despise using poisons of any kind against insects and animals for this reason. Even watching butterflies dance together while flying around is quite fascinating. I guess they must have some kind of self-awareness too? I have a bird near my place who stops nuts from a large height to crack then open. I only can imagine what that bird might do if it had hands ha
    - RHSman2 3y ago
      Being lucky enough to have a garden and partaking in ‘experiments’ of growing things really has opened my eyes to the magic of nature. I was always an outdoors person but was a consumer of sorts. Digging in some beds and doing my own compost I have really started to think about soil, the role of worms and the lower level, taken for granted, entities. Life has a frequency and observing it in play is incredible.
    - soco 3y ago
      Which is why I always squint at people claiming only humans have intelligence. Have they ever seen an animal? And I don't mean now the "soul" discussion, just the intelligence for which the goalposts often get swiftly moved "oh they can't solve equations" "most humans can't either" "ok but they can't paint" "elephants do that" "yeah but...".
LesZedCB 3y ago
some ants love to work, it brings them meaning. some ants love to mountain bike, and who can blame them?
- knodi123 3y ago
  sounds like we need a universal basic antcome.
  - TomK32 3y ago
    Let's put an ant to those silly jokes.
    - m_mueller 3y ago
      Hive had enough!
- tuatoru 3y ago
  Other ants have to look after their disabled a[u]nts and antkle-biters. Others still brighten the nest with their antics and antworks.
lazide 3y ago
Guessing when working ants get too tired (burned out?) it also gives the ‘work-adjacent’ ants a chance to get in with it being less crowded.
jasmer 3y ago
That's some heavy handed humanization of ants attitudes there. "in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants" "all ants to be comfortable allowing some of their ant peers to work less" Or maybe on some instinctive level they realize they just literally cannot work in the crowd and wait until they can and that's that.
- grrdotcloud 3y ago
  Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. - written some 2400 years ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- SeanAnderson 3y ago
  It was intentional! :) After all, the title of the post we're commenting on is contrasting human behavior to bees. No, I don't believe ants are actually acting with intelligent, social behavior in an attempt to win over their fellow ants. They're just little statistical robots searching for optimality. That said, there have been times that I've been frustrated when I feel I am working harder than my peers and, in those moments, it's been easy for me to feel justified by looking at what's optimal for me rather than extrapolating to what's optimal for the greater good. I thought adding a little anthropomorphism to my descriptors would be a gentle way of helping others reflect on similar situations.
  - tuatoru 3y ago
    ant-hropomorphism? Yes, there needs to be a statistical distribution of effort for intrinsic reasons --in this case of physics. Even if it wasn't needed, it would exist. The workers can console themselves with the thought that when times get hard, the idlers will be nice, tender, succulent food.
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    Social behaviour doesn’t imply intelligence, or at least conscious intelligence. Most ants will never reproduce. Their life has no meaning beyond the wellbeing of the colony. It make sense that what is statistically optimal for the ant is social behaviour.

Nevermark 3y ago

> The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" [...] I would have opted out. But I never figured out how to be "in"! I suspect a lot of people forging their own paths didn't really choose too, although they might assume they did. When you see things differently, you don't just have different visions of where to go, but an aversion to those well worn paths that often seemed inexplicably depressingly difficult.

bloomingeek 3y ago
Very nice answer! For me it was always about being myself, not that I had much against the 'in' crowd, I just wasn't interested enough to play along, they weren't me and I wasn't them.
RHSman2 3y ago
I’m gonna write my book called ‘living with a difficult person (me)’ I don’t mean to be, it just is that way.

quickthrower2 3y ago

The MBAs could learn something from this!

zentropia 3y ago

Worker ants are all sister and they don't reproduce, so no problem letting others do the hard work.

bee_rider 3y ago
I think the “letting others do the hard work” makes it easy to interpret your comment as somehow very negative. The reproductive success of an ant hill is determined at the hill level, so the ants have no evolutionary incentive for selfishness at all.
- justinjlynn 3y ago
  Individual ants in a colony can be understood as cells of a multicellular organism operating at a higher level of independence. It's a fascinating adaptation and one wonders what "selfishness" would even mean in such a context. Do ants have memetic behavioural evolution or are their reactions to environmental stimuli purely genetically determined? It's actually quite a fascinating question with a number of implications and avenues for exploration.
bloppe 3y ago
True. The evolutionary success of ants happens at the colony level rather than the individual level, so they have an evolutionary pressure to "unfairly" divide the labor like this if it's more efficient overall. I'm sure there is no "awkwardness" for them. We humans cannot evolve this way because it disadvantages the productive ones. No wonder communism works so well for ants and bees. (Not saying successful communism is impossible for humans, especially at smaller scales, just that evolution is working against it, rather than for it).
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Evolution is working for it, on those smaller scales, though. Families will happily help each other, friends don’t need a detailed ledger to figure out who’s buying the next round. Most people have a good inherent sense of fairness I think.

ChatGTP 3y ago

This is so cool. We have a lot of ants in our place at the moment and they're fascinating to watch. They do seem to solve problems and even show empathy towards each other. Sadly one was badly injured the other day and two other ants tried to come to the rescue, it was beautiful and sad to watch.

RHSman2 3y ago
I have a cherry tree. Grown from a sapling. A few years ago I noticed the leaves turning in. Aphids. I then discovered that Ants farm those aphids. They place a guard ant to stop predators (lady bugs) and let this black little fellas grow and grow. Then the other ants feed off their sugary goodness. Incredible. Where does that direction come from? Collective consciousness with inherent intelligence?
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  It is interesting, an ants brain must be the size of a pin head and runs on how much energy ? Yet some how they solve problems like that and can co-ordinate in large numbers. I despise using poisons of any kind against insects and animals for this reason. Even watching butterflies dance together while flying around is quite fascinating. I guess they must have some kind of self-awareness too? I have a bird near my place who stops nuts from a large height to crack then open. I only can imagine what that bird might do if it had hands ha
  - RHSman2 3y ago
    Being lucky enough to have a garden and partaking in ‘experiments’ of growing things really has opened my eyes to the magic of nature. I was always an outdoors person but was a consumer of sorts. Digging in some beds and doing my own compost I have really started to think about soil, the role of worms and the lower level, taken for granted, entities. Life has a frequency and observing it in play is incredible.
  - soco 3y ago
    Which is why I always squint at people claiming only humans have intelligence. Have they ever seen an animal? And I don't mean now the "soul" discussion, just the intelligence for which the goalposts often get swiftly moved "oh they can't solve equations" "most humans can't either" "ok but they can't paint" "elephants do that" "yeah but...".

LesZedCB 3y ago

some ants love to work, it brings them meaning. some ants love to mountain bike, and who can blame them?

knodi123 3y ago
sounds like we need a universal basic antcome.
- TomK32 3y ago
  Let's put an ant to those silly jokes.
  - m_mueller 3y ago
    Hive had enough!
tuatoru 3y ago
Other ants have to look after their disabled a[u]nts and antkle-biters. Others still brighten the nest with their antics and antworks.

lazide 3y ago

Guessing when working ants get too tired (burned out?) it also gives the ‘work-adjacent’ ants a chance to get in with it being less crowded.

jasmer 3y ago

That's some heavy handed humanization of ants attitudes there. "in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants" "all ants to be comfortable allowing some of their ant peers to work less" Or maybe on some instinctive level they realize they just literally cannot work in the crowd and wait until they can and that's that.

grrdotcloud 3y ago
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. - written some 2400 years ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
SeanAnderson 3y ago
It was intentional! :) After all, the title of the post we're commenting on is contrasting human behavior to bees. No, I don't believe ants are actually acting with intelligent, social behavior in an attempt to win over their fellow ants. They're just little statistical robots searching for optimality. That said, there have been times that I've been frustrated when I feel I am working harder than my peers and, in those moments, it's been easy for me to feel justified by looking at what's optimal for me rather than extrapolating to what's optimal for the greater good. I thought adding a little anthropomorphism to my descriptors would be a gentle way of helping others reflect on similar situations.
- tuatoru 3y ago
  ant-hropomorphism? Yes, there needs to be a statistical distribution of effort for intrinsic reasons --in this case of physics. Even if it wasn't needed, it would exist. The workers can console themselves with the thought that when times get hard, the idlers will be nice, tender, succulent food.
- mr_toad 3y ago
  Social behaviour doesn’t imply intelligence, or at least conscious intelligence. Most ants will never reproduce. Their life has no meaning beyond the wellbeing of the colony. It make sense that what is statistically optimal for the ant is social behaviour.