> But when the material is full of defects, a failure cannot easily propagate from one grain boundary to the next. That's also an argument for the strength of

> But when the material is full of defects, a failure cannot easily propagate from one grain boundary to the next. That's also an argument for the strength of a society of independent thinkers rather than a more uniform hive mind. Or against monocrop agriculture or large scale cloning. Yet that metaphor itself isn't very robust since a diamond is both so regular and strong. But a diamond slightly less regular at the nano scale could be harder to cut than a pure crystal. I don't know if learning more about this would make the pattern more or less relevant to social structures.