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Ant Geopolitics
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- richrichie 3y ago[flagged]
- ketanmaheshwari 3y agoThey hold 12 megatons of dry carbon. Kinda opposite of climate change!
- thworp 3y agoPeople hold about 100 Megatons of dry carbon unless I made some fundamental error (9 billion * 65 kg * 0.185 [18.5% carbon by mass]). It's actually a bit amazing when one calculates figures like this.
- Etheryte 3y agoJust wait until this guy hears about bacteria.
- richrichie 3y agoMost of them live inside human gut and are already accounted for.
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- bitwize 3y ago[flagged]
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- ryanblakeley 3y agoAdrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.
- laylower 3y agoHi Ryan, This is really cool. I read the trilogy, time, ruin, memory in 5-6 sessions and I loved it. Questions I would ask: 1) Where does he draw his inspiration from? 2) Should we expect to continue seeing Adrian putting together such amazing books so prolifically? 3) Does he believe that the outcome of his trilogy would be the most probable? 4) Besides arthropods do any other species stand a chance against primates?
- ssnri 3y agoI enjoyed that book. After I read it I made my bio on dating apps: “Active, creative, hairy; but enough about Portia spiders.” My question is: how successful do you think that’s been for me as a straight man?
- gryn 3y agoDepends on your metric for success I guess. - number of matches ? Probably not. - number of fellow fans ? Probably.
- ryanblakeley 3y agoIs sexual cannibalism off the table?
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- snapcaster 3y agoIt depends on how physically attractive you are obviously, that variable confounds everything people say about dating apps and what works or doesn't
- tsunamifury 3y agoThis article seems to be continuing the “genes eye view” of the world. That we are mostly vessels for gene propagation and socialization. Ants are becoming superior gene propagation and socialization vessels and therefor may succeed in reframing the worlds ecosystem to their goals. Of course that discounts intelligence where in we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted.
- kibwen 3y ago> we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted We probably could extinct all the ants in the world if we wanted to, if we were content to extinct all other life on the planet as well. https://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/
- gryn 3y agoThe problem with that is that humans depends on the ecosystem making them extinct would probably have very long chain of negative effects that would poison us in return if not make us extinct too.
- bee_rider 3y agoAlso, lots of our systems depend on people evaluating incentives locally and picking their behavior based on their interests—humans that all decided to pointlessly try and wipe our ants wouldn’t be engaging in normal human behavior! Are we going to give the ants supernatural coordination as well?
- ta2112 3y ago> Of course that discounts intelligence where in we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted. What is that, irony?!
- larsiusprime 3y agoI'm not convinced we could drive ants to extinction even if we tried.
- xipho 3y agoDisclaimer- shameless plug involved. Humans are one species, a complicated on for sure, Ants are well over 15k species. Of course not all are found together, but many species are. As the article notes the diversity of their social structures is collectively nuts. The combinatorics of all these species interacting with a myriad of micro-habitats and resultant behaviors emerging is crazy. The sheer number of non-ant species that have evolved to look and behave exactly like ants, from being drug-pushers to parasitoids, to meme-ready social influencers says a lot about how long they've been around and how important they are to how natural systems work. We're happy that AntWeb (https://www.antweb.org/ https://www.antweb.org/) recently moved their data to TaxonWorks and are now building that site of data curated there. Data for over 250k individuals, with many more coming as we work to aggregate data are there. Check out a wealth of data and images there.
- hammock 3y ago> The sheer number of non-ant species that have evolved to look and behave exactly like ants, from being drug-pushers to parasitoids, to meme-ready social influencers says a lot about how long they've been around and how important they are to how natural systems work. Fascinating to me, and thank you for calling it out. Ants aren't the only "form" that this happens to in the animal kingdom either. Homo sapiens used to live alongside other similar species like neanderthals etc, and eventually we crowded them all out. Often we tell ourselves it's because we were superior to them. Many have wondered what society would be like if we still had close species cousins living among us. Certainly our own approach to geopolitics would be quite different to what it is today
- graemep 3y ago> Many have wondered what society would be like if we still had close species cousins living among us. Certainly our own approach to geopolitics would be quite different to what it is today It would not be great. If you consider the track record human being have of being horrible to those who look very slightly different or have a slightly different culture, how would we treat beings who were far more different? It would be even worse if they were are mental inferiors. Imagine a world in which scientific racism was proven true rather than debunked. They would be perfect slaves or research subjects.
- octagons 3y agoIf you found this story interesting, you may be interested to know that antkeeping is a rewarding and fairly inexpensive hobby. The Global Ant Nursery (GAN) project run by AntsCanada, a popular YouTube channel, is a great way to obtain new queens responsibly. Alternatively, it’s fairly easy to find queens on your own. AntsCanada offers a starter guide, and there are many other resources that teach you when and where to find new queens. I keep a few test tubes in my truck year-round, just in case. Note: I’m not affiliated with AntsCanada in any way.
- ses1984 3y agoAntsCanada is a great gateway into antkeeping but I would beware about the GAN. I connected with someone listed on the GAN in my state. As I was working out the purchase and delivery, there were a lot of red flags, which I ignored because I trusted AntsCanada. The person said that they already gave away the species I wanted, but maybe I would be interested in other species instead. They pushed a species which isn't really known to native to my area, but he insisted he found them locally. They aggressively tried to upsell me on expensive extra supplies they said were critical to the care of this species. When I got my ants, they were shipped from several states away. I reported this to AntsCanada. I'm not sure what happened, but I recently tried to get a different queen from GAN and I ended up talking to the same person under a different identity. I'm sure there are some great people on GAN, just beware. I ended up getting a queen from Atlantic Ants. It did ship across state lines, but the species is one that's ubiquitous in my region.
- octagons 3y agoI’ve also experienced this using GAN. Be wary and use common sense. I never bothered reporting it but I’d be willing to bet we’re talking about the same person. They listed the same advertisement in basically every state with a different Google Voice number so as to appear local. I was under the impression that we would be meeting because they were local, which is how GAN is intended to operate.?Instead, they shipped the queen to me without any USDA permits. The queen also died within a few weeks of arriving. They started a web store not longer afterwards. That said, I’ve had plenty of good experiences with GAN. This was one bad actor out of many good ones.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoAsking because it isn't spelled out in HN Guidelines. What are the actual automated rules for posting 'dupe' stories? This is a dupe from 10 days ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39400770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39400770 When I submit something that is a dupe, it gets labeled as dupe and not posted. But this post was dupe and did get posted. What are the automated rules?
- pegasus 3y agoThere's a somewhat recent post by dang saying that (if I remember correctly) moderators sometimes manually look over rejected posts and give them a second chance if they feel it's worth a shot.
- romaintailhurat 3y agoWeird because the app i used for posting this story usually points me to a dupe when there is one, i'm not sure if it's part of the HN API and why this mechanism has not worked as intended.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoah. thank you. that might explain it. I'll try the app next time, maybe that bypasses some check. Or better, next time I submit, I'll use website regularly, and if it flags as dupe, I can switch to app and see if it bypasses the check.
- TheCaptain4815 3y agoAfter reading the article, I really want a bug/ant RTS game.
- jw_cook 3y agoEmpires of the Undergrowth is probably what you're loiking for!
- hyperman1 3y agoThere used to be SimAnt. The game worked great when you simply let it run itself without actually playing it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimAnt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimAnt
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoI'd play the heck out of an updated version that taught you more about ants while you played it.
- BlueTemplar 3y agoNot sure about the teaching, but there's Empires of the Undergrowth and soon Empire of the Ants ?
- binarymax 3y agoZerg vs Protoss is pretty close, but we need something new!
- TapamN 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Ants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Ants
- derekja 3y agoI've been really enjoying the AntsCanada youtube channel lately. He stages ant wars in a controlled environment and films them really well. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA
- nickthegreek 3y agoFound AntsCanada a few weeks back when his new build blew up on youtube. Its now a Sunday morning staple for my partner and I.
- permo-w 3y agoit's such an interesting subject matter, presented visually in a really nice way, but his script-writing is so jarring to listen to, and it feels like half the time he doesn't even really comprehend the words that he's reading out. perhaps it's just me though; he's got a lot of subs
- make3 3y agoI think it's fascinating that, according to Wikipedia, Argentine ant colonies attack one another in their native range because of the increased genetic diversity (which they detect by smell). The mega colonies would only be a consequence of the inbreeding that follows rapid expansion.
- ysofunny 3y agoif ants were mammals they would be humans equivalently if humans were insects we would be ants
- kevinwang 3y agoWell we're social but we're not really eusocial like they are
- mullingitover 3y agoI can't believe this article doesn't mention the slave maker ants. They're fascinating. These ants live in colonies so small they fit inside an acorn. They raid other acorn ant colonies, kill adult ants indiscriminately, and abscond with their pupae. They then raise the pupae in their colony. The enslaved ants feed and care for their captors and their young, and even help their captors on future slave raids. However, the enslaved ants opportunistically kill the queen pupae of the slave maker ants. It's an ongoing evolutionary arms race. There are other socially parasitic ants in this vein: some will infiltrate a colony, kill only the queen without the colony realizing it, and lay their own eggs which are raised by the slowly replace the entire colony. There are also 'cuckoo' ants which simply sneak into the colony, lay their eggs and leave.
- permo-w 3y ago>However, the enslaved ants opportunistically kill the queen pupae of the slave maker ants. I'm guessing by this you mean the species of ants that tend to be enslaved, rather than the enslaved ants themselves?
- mullingitover 3y agoThe enslaved ants which grew up in the slave maker ant colony kill the slave maker ant queens (along with other pupae, but they kill the queens at higher rates) in their pupal stage. They're basically in rebellion. Researchers think that this behavior is selected for, as it reduces the effectiveness of the slave maker ants and increases the odds of survival of the enslaved ant species.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoWhat's this, an geopolitics article for ANTS?
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- sans_souse 3y ago[flagged]
- m3kw9 3y agoAnd then we have social media for Ants