Concrete Poured Into Ant Colony Reveals Insect Megalopolis | Hacker News Reader

Concrete Poured Into Ant Colony Reveals Insect Megalopolis

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66 pointspeterkong25 comments

Everything looks like it has been designed by an architect, a single mind, but of course that isn't true. This colossal and complex city was created by the collective will of the colony, the super organism.

These things are a lot simper if you have a less restrictive view of what qualifies as a 'mind'.

Alternatively, you can read a book on self-organization:

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Organization-Biological-Systems-S...

Read this before you watch the video: https://www.readability.com/articles/gsgv3e8z

It makes what you see a hundred times better.

I liked the story, thanks for the link.

How could you read that in under 2 minutes and respond?

"Leiningen versus the Ants" is a fairly famous short story; I read the first sentence and said "Oh, yeah, that one!", and was back in under a minute.

That is odd, if the time-stamp actually said that. I responded after reading that, and it took me a while, with interruptions in between.

I am in Houston, Texas, if timezones have to do with it. It is also possible I had the 'reply' open while reading it, don't remember.

When the AIs are deciding what to do with the humans that keep infesting their solar panel farms, I hope they don't watch this video.

I was reminded of the movie Contact (I don't know if it's the same in the book) when Eleanor argues that aliens would not be hostile because it would be analogous to us sailing from one continent to another to destroy an ant colony.

And yet...have you never stepped on an ant on vacation?

Has anyone ever gone on vacation specifically to step on ants?

Do those ants care about your motives?

christopher columbus

The entire documentary is online here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj1v8hqtH18

I hope ants were given enough time to protest their eviction notices.

  - But the plans were on display.
  - On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
  - That's the display department.

I for one welcome our new ant... oh sorry, wrong website.

so, there was an amazing structure built by ants and humans poured concrete into it, which i took for destructive, for studying?

Gooooo useless science!

I did feel a little sorry for the ants, but it's not as if they're endangered, or have any higher-level brain functions.

No but they seem to have great meta-cognitive functions (ie the colony itself).

I think it registers as creepy because the narrator is anthropomorphizing while we watch.

Although I agree that in the abstract I'm not bothered by it. I mean, we also kill mice in large numbers for science...

I think they generally only do this to abandoned colonies.

The farmer that discovered the colony on his farm killed the infestation before the concrete was poured. They were doomed anyway.

I had friends in that ant farm...

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