[ExI] ants again

[William Flynn Wallace]

  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?  spike

I thought you just had to take a few of one and dump them on the other's
hill and vice versa.  bill w
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Wouldn’t it be cool if we were to stop fighting each other and work on only
real problems?



spike


I truly wish everyone would read "Moral Tribes";. Mostly utilitarian morals
at the end and new ways of looking at the US versus THEM problems.  But it
may be pie in the sky - it requires a metaethics that enables people of
different beliefs to compromise.  Otherwise we will always have 'my god is
the only one'  - 'no mine is' and on and on ad nauseam ad infinitum.  Or
substitute for 'god' any set of beliefs of your tribe.


bill w





On Mon, Sep 11, 2017 at 8:42 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *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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>
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