[flagged]
Just wait until this guy hears about bacteria.
Most of them live inside human gut and are already accounted for.
Ant Geopolitics
11–20 of 99 posts
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#12This article seems to be continuing the “genes eye view” of the world. That we are mostly vessels for gene propagation and socialization. Ants are becoming superior gene propagation and socialization vessels and therefor may succeed in reframing the worlds ecosystem to their goals.
Of course that discounts intelligence where in we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted.
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#13Disclaimer- shameless plug involved. Humans are one species, a complicated on for sure, Ants are well over 15k species. Of course not all are found together, but many species are. As the article notes the diversity of their social structures is collectively nuts. The combinatorics of all these species interacting with a myriad of micro-habitats and resultant behaviors emerging is crazy. The sheer number of non-ant species that have evolved to look and behave exactly like ants, from being drug-pushers to parasitoids, to meme-ready social influencers says a lot about how long they've been around and how important they are to how natural systems work.
We're happy that AntWeb (https://www.antweb.org/) recently moved their data to TaxonWorks and are now building that site of data curated there. Data for over 250k individuals, with many more coming as we work to aggregate data are there. Check out a wealth of data and images there.
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#14Disclaimer- shameless plug involved. Humans are one species, a complicated on for sure, Ants are well over 15k species. Of course not all are found together, but many species are. As the article notes the diversity of their social structures is collectively nuts. The combinatorics of all these species interacting with a myriad of micro-habitats and resultant behaviors emerging is crazy. The sheer number of non-ant sp…
> The sheer number of non-ant species that have evolved to look and behave exactly like ants, from being drug-pushers to parasitoids, to meme-ready social influencers says a lot about how long they've been around and how important they are to how natural systems work.
Fascinating to me, and thank you for calling it out. Ants aren't the only "form" that this happens to in the animal kingdom either.
Homo sapiens used to live alongside other similar species like neanderthals etc, and eventually we crowded them all out. Often we tell ourselves it's because we were superior to them. Many have wondered what society would be like if we still had close species cousins living among us. Certainly our own approach to geopolitics would be quite different to what it is today
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#15This article seems to be continuing the “genes eye view” of the world. That we are mostly vessels for gene propagation and socialization. Ants are becoming superior gene propagation and socialization vessels and therefor may succeed in reframing the worlds ecosystem to their goals. Of course that discounts intelligence where in we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted.
> we as humans could probably roundly poison them into extinction if we wanted
We probably could extinct all the ants in the world if we wanted to, if we were content to extinct all other life on the planet as well.
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#16Disclaimer- shameless plug involved. Humans are one species, a complicated on for sure, Ants are well over 15k species. Of course not all are found together, but many species are. As the article notes the diversity of their social structures is collectively nuts. The combinatorics of all these species interacting with a myriad of micro-habitats and resultant behaviors emerging is crazy. The sheer number of non-ant sp…
I am an avid ant hobbyist and use AntWeb regularly to aid in identification and distribution of ant species when hunting for new queens. I’m glad to hear about this change - the site had needed a bit of a refresh for a while!
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#17Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.
I enjoyed that book. After I read it I made my bio on dating apps: “Active, creative, hairy; but enough about Portia spiders.”
My question is: how successful do you think that’s been for me as a straight man?
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#18Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.
I enjoyed that book. After I read it I made my bio on dating apps: “Active, creative, hairy; but enough about Portia spiders.” My question is: how successful do you think that’s been for me as a straight man?
Depends on your metric for success I guess.
- number of matches ? Probably not. - number of fellow fans ? Probably.
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#19If you found this story interesting, you may be interested to know that antkeeping is a rewarding and fairly inexpensive hobby. The Global Ant Nursery (GAN) project run by AntsCanada, a popular YouTube channel, is a great way to obtain new queens responsibly.
Alternatively, it’s fairly easy to find queens on your own. AntsCanada offers a starter guide, and there are many other resources that teach you when and where to find new queens. I keep a few test tubes in my truck year-round, just in case.
Note: I’m not affiliated with AntsCanada in any way.
Re: Ant Geopolitics
#20Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi book Children of Time has a pretty cool take on the future of ant wars. I'm interviewing him in a couple weeks to talk about ecology in science fiction. If anyone has a suggestion for a question I'd love to hear it.
I enjoyed that book. After I read it I made my bio on dating apps: “Active, creative, hairy; but enough about Portia spiders.” My question is: how successful do you think that’s been for me as a straight man?
Is sexual cannibalism off the table?