4 ms·

The meek did inherit the Earth, at least among ants

• marojejian 10mo ago
  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.
• ahmedfromtunis 10mo ago
  This reminded of a CK Lewis bit about how modern humans deploy a lot of resources trying to save "weak" babies, and thus undoing evolution's natural selection process.
  • AdmiralAsshat 10mo ago
    So...Eugenics, then?
    • jacobr1 10mo ago
      Already happening at the in vitro level, might be possible in vivo as well. Neither require the more abusive approaches from the first eugenics era.
    • FrustratedMonky 10mo ago
      In todays world, yes, that is back on the table.
    • calmbonsai 10mo ago
      Yep. It's inevitable and societies will have to grapple with it far sooner than most thing.
    • cryptonector 10mo ago
      Eugenics is also "undoing evolution's natural selection process".
  • like_any_other 10mo ago
    As long as some people and societies have more children than others, evolution continues.
  • nephihaha 10mo ago
    You're talking about physical weakness which can be caused by non-genetic factors. Such a person may turn out to have a great intellect or other personal quality. However, the big story in the west is that most sexual congress does not produce babies anymore.
• like_any_other 10mo ago
  The paper is interesting, but "meek" is the wrongest word they could have chosen - they're territorial, viciously attack intruders, and literally wage war between colonies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_ants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_ants