People talk about how "efficient" ants are.
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@futurebird ants just sort of operate on the principle that semi-random actions can bring emergent results don't they?
Yup. Every ant is working hard "for the best of the colony" but they do whatever they feel like to make that happen. Sometimes they coordinate a little, but not as much as people seem to think.
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Do the majors help dig? Not really, small workers tend to do most of the digging. Majors do gnawing, killing prey, and carrying lots of food home in their big gasters.
They can smell the food and want to go get it and bring it home for the larvae. But, don't see how by trying to go in the tube they are making it harder for their small sisters to expand the opening.
I could watch this forever... they are so funny. They all want to help so badly.
One of the smaller workers just dragged a major out of the opening and now she is just standing staring off into space confused.
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One of the smaller workers just dragged a major out of the opening and now she is just standing staring off into space confused.
@futurebird
People often confuse industriousness or dedication for efficiency.
But considering no one is in charge, they seem to be doing as well as infinitely more intelligent humans when no one is in charge or organizing -
@futurebird
People often confuse industriousness or dedication for efficiency.
But considering no one is in charge, they seem to be doing as well as infinitely more intelligent humans when no one is in charge or organizingI'm a big fan of how ants handle unhelpful ants who think they are helping. They just pick them up by the mandible and put them somewhere where what they are doing would make more sense.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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Yup. Every ant is working hard "for the best of the colony" but they do whatever they feel like to make that happen. Sometimes they coordinate a little, but not as much as people seem to think.
My impression is every ant is just wandering around doing whatever little "ant things" that seem most urgent and interesting to her. This could be digging in a random corner, cleaning larvae, gathering food, cleaning other ants, exploring, fighting "enemies," tying to escape, deciding to move the location of the graveyard (They recently exhumed everyone and moved them to a new location further from the nest. At first it was just one ant doing this) ... and more.
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My impression is every ant is just wandering around doing whatever little "ant things" that seem most urgent and interesting to her. This could be digging in a random corner, cleaning larvae, gathering food, cleaning other ants, exploring, fighting "enemies," tying to escape, deciding to move the location of the graveyard (They recently exhumed everyone and moved them to a new location further from the nest. At first it was just one ant doing this) ... and more.
I suspect if I tried to unilaterally move a graveyard it wouldn't become a community parade as it did with the ants.
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I'm a big fan of how ants handle unhelpful ants who think they are helping. They just pick them up by the mandible and put them somewhere where what they are doing would make more sense.
@futurebird
In the fire service, a big training point as far as large scale disaster type stuff is that you're going to need to organize or somehow direct people, who are going to help, no matter what. -
People talk about how "efficient" ants are. These people do not watch ants.
I just hooked up a new area for my Camponotus pennslyvanicus colony.
The tube was shoved in the sand so only the small workers can fit into the entrance to the new area. (there is food there)
Majors are crowded around the entrance trying to go in, other workers are trying to dig it out so every ant can fit, but the majors are in the way.
It's just like the subway when people won't move from the door.
@futurebird Have you ever seen Zoe Bee's "In Defense of Inefficiency"? Very much relevant to any reasonable discussion of statistics, this is the type of thing I which more "techies" were exposed to:
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My impression is every ant is just wandering around doing whatever little "ant things" that seem most urgent and interesting to her. This could be digging in a random corner, cleaning larvae, gathering food, cleaning other ants, exploring, fighting "enemies," tying to escape, deciding to move the location of the graveyard (They recently exhumed everyone and moved them to a new location further from the nest. At first it was just one ant doing this) ... and more.
@futurebird @waitworry huh, today I learned ants are natural anarchists. Now I’m going to be even more annoyed at people personifying them as monarchists!
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@futurebird @waitworry huh, today I learned ants are natural anarchists. Now I’m going to be even more annoyed at people personifying them as monarchists!
@bwebster @futurebird (human sees an ant whose entire purpose in life is to produce babies) "ah clearly this is their leadership"
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@futurebird
In the fire service, a big training point as far as large scale disaster type stuff is that you're going to need to organize or somehow direct people, who are going to help, no matter what."please re-stack these boxes"
is the equivalent of getting gently picked up by the mandible and removed from the real work.
