In a million years which is more likely to still be around?
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In a million years which is more likely to still be around?
@futurebird ants have been here long before mammals appeared, ants have been first to lean agriculture, ants have learnt the truth of happiness - purpose and their hivemind grana and ultimate purpose for all and there have never been any obstacle their little feet could not overcome.
They are basically lovecraftian mini ancient gods
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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@futurebird Plastic
Plastic ants?
I am confident that if there is enough plastic to make it practical, ants will put the plastic to good use.
Though, silk is a far superior material in many ways.
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In a million years which is more likely to still be around?
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Do you think this was maybe a little mean? I do have a point here.
I was listening to some SF guy going on about "intelligent life on earth" and talking about how if humans can't last for a long time it's kind of over for earth.
But... there are ants.
And the ants of the future? Come on. If we can imagine people of the future with space colonies and amazing technology why not the ants?
They would do it in their own way of course. But they want to fill the stars just as badly.
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In a million years which is more likely to still be around?
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@futurebird pigeons
Birds are pretty robust. Pigeons have a pretty chaotic record. The dodo? Passenger pigeon? It's such a diverse clade of birds. Very adaptable.
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Do you think this was maybe a little mean? I do have a point here.
I was listening to some SF guy going on about "intelligent life on earth" and talking about how if humans can't last for a long time it's kind of over for earth.
But... there are ants.
And the ants of the future? Come on. If we can imagine people of the future with space colonies and amazing technology why not the ants?
They would do it in their own way of course. But they want to fill the stars just as badly.
If ants didn't already have agriculture (selective breeding of scale insects, mass production of fungi, shepherding) people would say "how could an ant ever develop agriculture? Crows have bigger brains and THEY don't have agriculture."
If ants didn't build sewer systems, which some do, people would say the same thing. Or if they didn't practice medical amputation.
Ants achieve these things without knowing what they are. In the ant way.
It will be the same for space travel.
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If ants didn't already have agriculture (selective breeding of scale insects, mass production of fungi, shepherding) people would say "how could an ant ever develop agriculture? Crows have bigger brains and THEY don't have agriculture."
If ants didn't build sewer systems, which some do, people would say the same thing. Or if they didn't practice medical amputation.
Ants achieve these things without knowing what they are. In the ant way.
It will be the same for space travel.
@futurebird Honestly I'm surprised that you're willing to say "without knowing what they are". We know a lot about what ants do, but what do we actually know about what they _know_?
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If ants didn't already have agriculture (selective breeding of scale insects, mass production of fungi, shepherding) people would say "how could an ant ever develop agriculture? Crows have bigger brains and THEY don't have agriculture."
If ants didn't build sewer systems, which some do, people would say the same thing. Or if they didn't practice medical amputation.
Ants achieve these things without knowing what they are. In the ant way.
It will be the same for space travel.
Ants have achieved the same major technological milestones that we celebrate in humans. They grapple with problems of managing major population centers and information that are similar to the problems humans face.
And the solutions found by ants are much more robust than those found by humans.
They have demonstrated they can stand the test of time and they show no signs of being "done" growing slowly more complex and more important in every ecosystem they enter.
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@futurebird Honestly I'm surprised that you're willing to say "without knowing what they are". We know a lot about what ants do, but what do we actually know about what they _know_?
Without knowing what they are in any way that we can recognize.
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Ants have achieved the same major technological milestones that we celebrate in humans. They grapple with problems of managing major population centers and information that are similar to the problems humans face.
And the solutions found by ants are much more robust than those found by humans.
They have demonstrated they can stand the test of time and they show no signs of being "done" growing slowly more complex and more important in every ecosystem they enter.
@futurebird @Peace Sure, because ants are old. The species that were stupid enough to build AI data centers went extinct eons ago.
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@futurebird @Peace Sure, because ants are old. The species that were stupid enough to build AI data centers went extinct eons ago.
I think ants would feel a kind of kinship with the LLM method of solution seeking. They are big fans of brute force. They might even recognize an LLM as a kind of "bad colony" but I'm getting perilously close to talking about "The Book I Can't Talk About Until it is Done" so I'll stop there.
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If ants didn't already have agriculture (selective breeding of scale insects, mass production of fungi, shepherding) people would say "how could an ant ever develop agriculture? Crows have bigger brains and THEY don't have agriculture."
If ants didn't build sewer systems, which some do, people would say the same thing. Or if they didn't practice medical amputation.
Ants achieve these things without knowing what they are. In the ant way.
It will be the same for space travel.
@futurebird
Space insects? 🤯 like in Starship Troopers?
@Peace -
I think ants would feel a kind of kinship with the LLM method of solution seeking. They are big fans of brute force. They might even recognize an LLM as a kind of "bad colony" but I'm getting perilously close to talking about "The Book I Can't Talk About Until it is Done" so I'll stop there.
@futurebird @jmax @Peace Isn’t a lot of algorithm based on bee swarms and ant colonies anyway?
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@futurebird @jmax @Peace Isn’t a lot of algorithm based on bee swarms and ant colonies anyway?
There are whole areas of research on such things but I don't think any of them have yielded the magic that they have promised in their more daring moments.
But I think that says more about primate impatience than the potential.
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@futurebird
Space insects? 🤯 like in Starship Troopers?
@PeaceI mean... kind of. But there were some things about the way that the "hive mind" was portrayed in those books that annoyed me.
The mind of the superorganism is emergent from individual minds. It's not some central clearing house controlled by the queen or the "big brain bug"
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I mean... kind of. But there were some things about the way that the "hive mind" was portrayed in those books that annoyed me.
The mind of the superorganism is emergent from individual minds. It's not some central clearing house controlled by the queen or the "big brain bug"
As creatures that need to cooperate and coordinate our actions over millions of willful individuals we could learn a lot from ants.
They are anarchists, you quickly discover. Anarchists with excellent communications and foundational shared values that make the fact that two ants may each decide to solve a problem in a different, or even in a conflicting way irrelevant.
In fact, the constant push and pull between individuals is essential to "ant genius"
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If ants didn't already have agriculture (selective breeding of scale insects, mass production of fungi, shepherding) people would say "how could an ant ever develop agriculture? Crows have bigger brains and THEY don't have agriculture."
If ants didn't build sewer systems, which some do, people would say the same thing. Or if they didn't practice medical amputation.
Ants achieve these things without knowing what they are. In the ant way.
It will be the same for space travel.
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@futurebird @Peace I would, incidentally, be entirely unsurprised if crows figured out agriculture next month.
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