Post B6615o2wZ7mS9hxUaO by wyatt_h_knott@mstdn.social
(DIR) More posts by wyatt_h_knott@mstdn.social
(DIR) Post #B660h0q1rxBwaZ5yZE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-08T19:01:37Z
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I continue to read The Social Conquest of Earth by E. O. Wilson. I wish he wrote more about the ants and a little less about human society. He discusses many well-trodden, and I would say well-understood, concepts from sociology, but I do not always agree with what he finds remarkable about them.1/
(DIR) Post #B660qBjeitBQzZUQ88 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-08T19:03:17Z
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For example, he discusses the many experiments in which people are assigned to arbitrary groups and then almost immediately show favoritism toward those groups, even while being fully aware that the groups themselves are artificial . He suggests that this may mean group identification is somehow innate in human beings, (and that may well be true.) However, I think these experiments markable for another reason.2/
(DIR) Post #B660tjbnEvc8utVFQ0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-08T19:03:55Z
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What is remarkable is the swiftness with which people can adopt a new group identification, one without any real meaning at all. If group identification were deeply important, it would be long-lasting and resistant to change. Simply suggesting that a person is part of Group A should be meaningless to them, because their capacity for group membership is already occupied by nationality, religion, family, or some other enduring and much more serious form of identification.3/
(DIR) Post #B6611T42dRp7vDP4S0 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-08T19:05:19Z
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Education may play a part here. Part of learning is learning to offer critique and work with others; to adopt and discard group identifications and roles with little fuss. I would suggest this is why the test subjects who are so often university students were quite happy to decide that, for now, their group is wonderful and should win. But if they were assigned differently tomorrow, then their loyalties would change.This is something that can be taught, and perhaps something worth teaching. 4/4
(DIR) Post #B6615o2wZ7mS9hxUaO by wyatt_h_knott@mstdn.social
2026-05-08T19:06:04Z
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@futurebird Have you seen the new Lord of the Flies? It's quite good.
(DIR) Post #B662K8CoVjLagcyBw8 by sbourne@mastodon.social
2026-05-08T19:19:51Z
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@futurebird This immediately brought to mind Vonnegut's granfalloon: " a proud and meaningless collection of human beings" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granfalloon
(DIR) Post #B662QaAVSVAt9IxzsG by clew@ecoevo.social
2026-05-08T19:21:00Z
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I don’t think important or innate necessarily means immutable. Maybe we’re “meant” to keep adding identifications until we meld with the Oneness.… who researches how and whether we *lose* group feeling? If I was randomly assigned Circles yesterday and Purple today, how do I feel tomorrow about people who were Circles with me? Etc.@futurebird
(DIR) Post #B663FSnubCkN4rf0BE by llewelly@sauropods.win
2026-05-08T19:30:14Z
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@futurebird unfortunately, when E. O. Wilson writes about sociology concepts, it often feels more like he's using them to trod upon other people.
(DIR) Post #B664nxrJkBStC0GhdY by oldclumsy_nowmad@mastodon.social
2026-05-08T19:47:38Z
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@futurebird I think what you're saying is crucial. Most people feel a need for a team. What the team is, doesn't matter so much. Other social animals feel it, too, don't they? The team may be a troupe (chimpanzees), matriarchal herd (elephants), mated pair (parrots), or colony (insects). If your kind are team-loyal and fiercely competitive, it seems you must conform. I admire the humanity and logic of your point, that we can teach that human group identifications aren't immutable.
(DIR) Post #B66DLscQX4Q6Q4zELQ by valdelane@mas.to
2026-05-08T21:23:25Z
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@futurebird "Green. Purple." - Susan Ivanova and Drazi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcBTOU7RvbU
(DIR) Post #B66RWwflCRDlXHiTJY by ophis@brain.worm.pink
2026-05-08T20:56:18.363751Z
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@llewelly @futurebird dude was not a nice guy IIRC (a quick search for {eo wilson transphobia} proves that recollection correct)i'm glad this thread quotes him primarily as a segue into a disagreement with his analysis of something
(DIR) Post #B66RWxe1aNQWYBubFQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-09T00:02:18Z
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@ophis @llewelly I'm not impressed with the history of human evolution and attempts at sociology in this book. It's an OK overview fact-wise, but the conclusions just feel a little trite and obvious. I think he's right there is something very powerful about the "eusocial" strategy of survival. It's a massive hack. But anyone who looks at what I think of as "college student study sociology" and tries to talk about all people gets on my nerves.
(DIR) Post #B66RgpaeO2MqSx2XxI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-09T00:04:07Z
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@ophis @llewelly He's kind of one of the biggest names in the ant world and hard to avoid and dude knew his ants. But some 20-somethings giving more cookies to team blue, because they are are on team blue... it's ... that's not deep group identification. It's roleplaying.
(DIR) Post #B67OpO343AE8wsg80G by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2026-05-09T11:06:43Z
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@futurebird @ophis @llewelly It seems to me as if generalized intelligence on a human level makes it impossible for us to be truly eusocial like ants or naked mole rats are, but maybe this very "roleplaying" ability is important for us having extremely complex societies--we can emulate elements of eusociality in software, so to speak.
(DIR) Post #B68Ue8gtbPtx12HzUG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-09T23:46:40Z
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OK. I don't think "The Social Conquest of Earth" by E. O. Wilson is worth reading. Even if you really like ants a lot. Safe to skip it.
(DIR) Post #B68WrxxKVlKvgUhGwi by bencourtice@aus.social
2026-05-10T00:11:32Z
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@futurebird He who was posthumously outed as a "race science" sympathiser. I started one of his books on sociobiology and gave up because he insisted on conflating social insects' eusociality with humans. How do people like this get famous???
(DIR) Post #B68WwstIloL9QK9rVo by Da_Gut@dice.camp
2026-05-10T00:12:25Z
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@futurebird can confirm!
(DIR) Post #B68WykEBwyNh8PofXU by futurebird@sauropods.win
2026-05-10T00:12:49Z
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@bencourtice He did some good work classifying and studying ants. Which is was I was unwilling to say "don't bother with this book" without at least trying to read it.
(DIR) Post #B68Y7V4dlIQ4hC5UDg by bencourtice@aus.social
2026-05-10T00:25:33Z
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@futurebird I think it's the same book I gave up on. Paul and Anne Ehrlich apparently also did important biology/ecology research (birds I think?) but are much better known for their sad and discredited book "The Population Bomb". Trying to impose legitimate biological theories directly onto human society is fraught and somewhat arrogant I think.
(DIR) Post #B68YlCvud0Jc14wHQW by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2026-05-09T11:13:33Z
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@futurebird @ophis @llewelly The fact that the boons of a complex society can be essential to individual flourishing even while the demands of society come in conflict with it is at the heart of most human literature, drama and political struggle.It doesn't seem to me that eusociality works this way. But it's how we work (and sometimes don't work). We grew this culture monster and we can't really do what we do without it, but we can only be plugged into it so far, and we're also conscious of the damage it can do. So we are balls of conflict.
(DIR) Post #B68YlENbFY3aVEtuDo by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2026-05-09T13:59:41Z
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@futurebird @ophis @llewelly I mean, maybe you *can* basically frame human civilization as the weird shambolic compromise you get when monkeys attempt to be eusocial, despite their monkey-nature pushing against this at every turn. But it really seems like a different kind of thing.
(DIR) Post #B68YlFiCIS7wdPXrxw by llewelly@sauropods.win
2026-05-09T23:07:50Z
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@mattmcirvin @futurebird @ophis if you are certain written history is representative of the whole of human sociality, and leaves nothing out.But it's only a tiny fraction of human history; a relatively minority of experiences from only a few thousand years. A tiny sliver when set against the millions of years of unrecorded history. If the Pleistocene artists of Lascaux or Chauvet were eusocial, would we know? No. Nor would we know if the famous Clovis hunters were eusocial.
(DIR) Post #B68YlGqO5UGy96NvN2 by ophis@brain.worm.pink
2026-05-10T00:28:19.677605Z
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@llewelly @mattmcirvin @futurebird fictional example but every time the speculation of eusocial humans comes up i'm reminded of the sky pirates in Castle In The Sky who are a bunch of big burly guys who all look alike and answer to a single older woman they call Ma