Comment by Ouman
9 hours ago
They can look altruistic at the individual level while still being completely aligned with self-preservation at the group level
9 hours ago
They can look altruistic at the individual level while still being completely aligned with self-preservation at the group level
Ants are also a special case because the vast majority of ants cannot reproduce. Only the queen and drones are reproductive agents, 99.9 percent of the colony are non reproductive, so their investment in the survival of the colony is total, they have no individual agenda.
As I understand it, the individual vs the group situation is complicated by their shared genetic pool.
I'd imagine it as having dozens of clones of myself, and one of them is tasked with reproducing for the rest of us. It sounds like a total lack of individualism, but if the offspring has my genes and is raised like me (potentially by me), how far is it from being my own ?
eusocial animals are really cool you can kinda treat the entire colony as a single organism. weirdly enough this isn't restricted to insects there are actually some eusocial mammals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality
the book coalescent by Stephen Baxter is an interesting take on what that might look like in humans as well if you're interested in the topic.
*gene level