Earlier quoted context omitted.
sounds like we need a universal basic antcome.
Let's put an ant to those silly jokes.
Hive had enough!
What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
141–148 of 148 posts
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#142It's obvious that this is beneficial for the population, but is it (typically) beneficial for an individual? Probably, selfish individuals would only want to try this if they're already well-fed, or if they're confident that there will be some food left over if they don't find any of their own. So, for the benefit of the population, we should probably make sure that everyone is well-fed, so that everyone feels confid…
Or if they simply prefer to explore, to learn new things, or to fail or succeed on their own, and to enjoy the potential profit of those actions.
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#143The whole "opt out of expected group-think behavior" reminds me of a paper regarding the tunneling and movement behavior of ants: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/science/ants-worker-idlen... The gist of it is that 30% of studied ants do 70% of the work in digging tunnels. Other ants come in, see that it is too crowded, and don't try to force their way in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants…
That's some heavy handed humanization of ants attitudes there. "in in an effort to prove they're working hard to the other ants" "all ants to be comfortable allowing some of their ant peers to work less" Or maybe on some instinctive level they realize they just literally cannot work in the crowd and wait until they can and that's that.
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. - written some 2400 years ago
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some fraction may not go through the normal cycle, but it can't be many. Maybe it is because I just saw an animated video on cancer (I’ll find the link when I get home) on YouTube but then so are we thinking of a bee hive as one individual? Like in the video, they talk about how cancer cells refuse to die when something bad happens like they are supposed to… So this is going to sound cheesy but now I have to wonder…
The Earth ecosystem is made of living beings. Why would they be compared to cancer cells? It sounds more reasonable to me to compare them to worker bees.
Cancer cells are essentially a new parasitic life form living inside of you. It is born from you but it is not you. It decided to play by its own rules and pursue its own goals, ignoring the signals that makes the host body functional. Often, it is attacked by the host body immune system like other intruders and it has to defend itself. Some cancer cell lines HeLa have well outlived their host and are used in scientific research.
In a way, cancer is life and life is cancer.
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure - but the part I quoted is urging people to consider that they themselves might choose not to "follow the swarm" as it were. I think you could use this example to argue that a lot of the diversity in how human brains work (autism, adhd, oppositional defiant disorder like you said) should be viewed as a strength and a source of alternative and interesting viewpoints that are grounded in biological difference we s…
> But - people in those situations don't chose how their brains work. It makes one wonder how much choice you have in believing otherwise... After all, such things may not be knowable, at this point in time anyways.
I think it's good to be suspicious of things that we consider out of our control, but it seems to me that suspicion is pretty "built in" to modern psychiatric medicine and I don't have any reason to doubt their conclusions around these conditions.
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But - people in those situations don't chose how their brains work. It makes one wonder how much choice you have in believing otherwise... After all, such things may not be knowable, at this point in time anyways.
I think it's good to be suspicious of things that we consider out of our control, but it seems to me that suspicion is pretty "built in" to modern psychiatric medicine and I don't have any reason to doubt their conclusions around these conditions.
A reason I doubt their conclusions is because of the complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space, as well as their methodologies.
By default I think the epistemic status we should assign to such things is unknown, not the experts' beliefs are correct until proven otherwise.
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's good to be suspicious of things that we consider out of our control, but it seems to me that suspicion is pretty "built in" to modern psychiatric medicine and I don't have any reason to doubt their conclusions around these conditions.
A reason I doubt their conclusions is because of the complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space, as well as their methodologies. By default I think the epistemic status we should assign to such things is unknown, not the experts' beliefs are correct until proven otherwise.
Those are all very fair things to think - though it occurs to me that feeling confident about the accuracy of your understanding of the "complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space" greatly depends on the judgement of the same people whose judgement you don't trust.
That said I think "how should we talk about and hold things when we are uncertain" is an important and interesting discussion in itself. One does know some things about some things - but not all things about all things. Language is hard to use well, but we could improve our use of it!
Re: What if you did the exact opposite, like rogue bees do (2020)
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
A reason I doubt their conclusions is because of the complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space, as well as their methodologies. By default I think the epistemic status we should assign to such things is unknown, not the experts' beliefs are correct until proven otherwise.
Those are all very fair things to think - though it occurs to me that feeling confident about the accuracy of your understanding of the "complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space" greatly depends on the judgement of the same people whose judgement you don't trust. That said I think "how should we talk about and hold things when we are uncertain" is an important and interesting discussion in itself.…
> though it occurs to me that feeling confident about the accuracy of your understanding of the "complexity and inconsistency of the underlying problem space" greatly depends on the judgement of the same people whose judgement you don't trust.
I'd say: it can depend on this, to some degree, but does not necessarily.
For me it's both: the problem space is too complex for any human to understand, plus I do not trust The Experts, because they constantly demonstrate that epistemology is not a first class concept in their model of reality.
This space holds massive potential for human benefit,it's a shame so many people have such strong aversions to it....being a conspiracy theorist, I often wonder if this aversion is 100% organic.