[ExI] ants again

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of CryptAxe
Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again

 

>…So does this make you ant god? :) 

 

Ja, and I demand they worship me on bended knee (all six.)

 

>…Do you think they are so focused on murdering eachother that they don't notice you?

 

This is an interesting question.  Ants (and bees) don’t really reason through a plan and carry it out (as far as I can tell.)  They just act on instinct driven by the chemical environment in their tiny brains.  But other than that, they aren’t much like humans.

 

>…Why don't they team up against the bigger enemy?

 

Hard to say.  Consider this however.  We know that they don’t really act on command of a queen (she is just as dumb as her sisters.)  They don’t have any kind of audible commands they give each other, no waving the antennae like semaphore flags or anything.  It is all chemical signaling that makes them go and they act in hive-minded unison when that chemical or pheromone is present.

 

We have ant control poisons which work to some extent which have unintended and undesirable side effects.  Wouldn’t it be cool if we figured out how to synthesize whatever drives them and cause a pest colony to drop what they are doing and fight each other?  Or how about a chemical which is laid down in a trail carried by a tiny crawl-bot which goes inside your walls and finds the termite colony, then instructs them to fight the termites?  We find two warring colonies, a big pile of them like I found yesterday, scoop a million of them into a cup, put in a drop of chemical tranquilizer which tells them “calm down, let that bitch go.” 

 

We take them to our house, they go up the chem-trail, fight the termites to the death.  Then they perish, because there is no queen in an ant war.

 

>…I wonder what kind of reaction humans would have if something bigger and smarter scooped us all up right now in the middle of our bickering?

 

 

Wouldn’t it be cool if we were to stop fighting each other and work on only real problems?

 

spike

 

 

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