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originally posted by: argentus
a reply to: Wolfenz
I completely agree with your points. I myself don't consider ants and other hivemind creatures to be beneath me in the social order; I believe that the general mindset of humanity is to consider "bugs" of little consequence, unless said bugs are attempting to enter or scavenge from a human's structure.
For all we know, a hivemind-type ET might well feel more aligned to ants and bees than the humans that appear to infest the surface of the Earth.
originally posted by: argentus
a reply to: Wolfenz
Yes, and ants "keeping" aphids as 'cows', and milking them. Interesting ant fact: Fire ants get into electrical switches and often short them out as their fellows just. keep. coming. until the contacts of the switches are bridged and shorted. Why do they keep killing themselves?
It turns out that when fire ants die violently or suddenly, the release a powerful pheromone, which basically communicates the message: "Send help! Come quickly! Danger!" (paraphrasing imagined ant language). Each one keeps stepping up to the plate to answer their programmed call. It's NOT that they aren't smart enough to see the danger, it's that their programming demands it. They are completely willing to sacrifice the individual for the good of the colony. Imo, the concept of "individual" has no meaning for the hivemind.
I could certainly see how an evolutionary path different from our own might favor such a collective socialization. I could also see where "they" might not value the individual in any way that was meaningful to humans; what we might consider to be horrific, they might think of as an interesting experiment.