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Paper: "The evolution of cheaper workers facilitated larger societies and accelerated diversification in ants" https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx806

Paper: "The evolution of cheaper workers facilitated larger societies and accelerated diversification in ants" https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx8068 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx8068 NYT gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/science/ants-exoskeletons-weak.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-E8.xBvG.FQf36KPxsJCu&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/science/ants-exoskeletons... I love it when biology converges like economics. And there are so many cases in both where scale beats unit quality, in ways that might defy our intuition (or desires). "Quantity has a Quality all its own" (Stalin?) Consider: - Roman Legions (or Rome's scale in general) - US WWII tanks vs. Germany's - China's success with low price point products (e.g. solar panels) - (Hopefully) the future success of OS machine learning vs. giant proprietary models I admit to find attractive the (totally speculative) idea that Neanderthals might have been as (or more) "smart" as sapiens sapiens, 1:1, but we were just much more social and would expand faster / better.

marcosdumay 10mo ago
> And there are so many cases in both where scale beats unit quality In human economics, scale and quality usually come together, not in competition. But of course, you follow into military examples. Those are really not as clear cut as you put. Stalin's quantity soon stopped being plentiful because of neglect. Roman military was strong because of advanced techniques and the willingness to throw the status-quo away if it stopped working, often winning even when outnumbered. German WWII tanks were a joke, incapable of working in any real situation. And the economical one, on Chinese solar panels, I recommend you reevaluate their quality and manufacturing conditions.
- sallveburrpi 10mo ago
  fwiw Panzer III and IV were pretty good but they made a bunch of tactical mistakes and the later models were overengineered
- vlovich123 10mo ago
  In human economics scale and quality are most certainly in tension. Rolls Royce hand assembles their cars because it’s easier to guarantee quality when you have masters doing the work. Toyota on the other hand gets the cost down because it’s mostly automated with very mostly unskilled labor doing some work. At some point you can refine scale where you also automate the quality issues away, but there’s always still that tension.

marcosdumay 10mo ago

> And there are so many cases in both where scale beats unit quality In human economics, scale and quality usually come together, not in competition. But of course, you follow into military examples. Those are really not as clear cut as you put. Stalin's quantity soon stopped being plentiful because of neglect. Roman military was strong because of advanced techniques and the willingness to throw the status-quo away if it stopped working, often winning even when outnumbered. German WWII tanks were a joke, incapable of working in any real situation. And the economical one, on Chinese solar panels, I recommend you reevaluate their quality and manufacturing conditions.

sallveburrpi 10mo ago
fwiw Panzer III and IV were pretty good but they made a bunch of tactical mistakes and the later models were overengineered
vlovich123 10mo ago
In human economics scale and quality are most certainly in tension. Rolls Royce hand assembles their cars because it’s easier to guarantee quality when you have masters doing the work. Toyota on the other hand gets the cost down because it’s mostly automated with very mostly unskilled labor doing some work. At some point you can refine scale where you also automate the quality issues away, but there’s always still that tension.