Oct 07 2007
Of Ants and Us!
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By Jean-Louis Turcot and Emily Spence
10/7/07
One of the authors of this piece once read that, based on size and weight, ants proportionally consume more than humans. And the current number of ants present in the world, according to E. O. Wilson’s judgment, is between ten to the sixteenth and ten to the seventeenth (roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000) in totality [1].
These facts raise a question: Should we reduce their population since there are so many of them and they use up so much?
To further consider this question, let’s examine what the ants do for a living. They work in a colony and perform specific tasks, the most important of which is to obtain nourishment since nothing else is possible unless they can eat and drink as a precondition of survival. Therefore, they consume, rest at night and go out the next day to forage for more provisions.
During the winter, they settle down to use up the rations that they accumulated during the other seasons, particularly in climates where harsh weather does not allow ants to do much besides a few other curtailed activities. They don’t drive cars, don’t live in homes heated by fossil fuels, nor eat exotic fare imported from far away places. Likewise, they don’t wear clothes made by people who have a hard time surviving because they are paid slave wages.
Similarly, they don’t go to the races, don’t watch sporting events whose teams fly all over the world to compete and don’t fly across the globe to relax. Meanwhile, there might be as many as 10,000 fossil fuel burning planes in the sky at any given time, which, amongst many others, fly diplomats, environmentalists and politicians around the globe to discuss ways to reduce greenhouse gases.
In contrast, ants stay close to where they were born. It could be kind of dull, but at least they don’t have a propensity to travel long distances in order to slaughter huge numbers of each other in fights over resources elsewhere on the Earth. Indeed, they generally don’t fight all that often with other colonies as they largely DO remain stationary and simply use whatever is immediately close at hand within their respective territories.
In a similar vein, ants don’t watch TV and don’t travel to South Sea Islands on five star cruise ships. At the same time, they don’t get obese because they know limits in personal consumption. Furthermore, they don’t have banks that control their money because they don’t need any money and, if the rent is not paid at the end of the month, they don’t get an eviction notice. Moreover, they simply walk to work.
Ants don’t go out in winter because whatever they need was stored prior to the winter, as mentioned. So they do plan ahead and prepare themselves for any unforeseen lean times.
In addition, they don’t go to movies, spend time at the bar, talk about politics, get married and face divorce. Overall, ants may not be happy, although who can say for sure? Yet, then again, neither are most humans. How could we be with so much unnecessary suffering in the world?
In any case, if we can cope with the idea that we humans are simply animals, we might begin to see that we are closer to the mentality of ants than to the mentality of divine Gods. In other words, most of us want to survive in our finite forms at all costs. Therefore, we haven’t unconditionally shared all of our assets with those who are hungry, especially since doing so would possibly lower us into the ranks of the poverty-stricken masses without providing any assurance of long term relief. For example, it is estimated that, while the number of overweight people has topped one billion, the number of chronically malnourished is roughly 850 million or fifteen percent of the population. Meanwhile, their number is on the rise. [2]
However, we need to understand that were we not to evict each other from our homes and abandon each other to starve, we would likely be able to live in relative peace. We would probably be smart enough to produce enough food for everyone alive today were we able to learn about equitably sharing the planet and its bounty while not destroying each other in the process. For example, there is ample space for the seven billion people who inhabit the Earth. Two billion three bedroom modest homes would occupy an area of about one hundred thousand square miles, an area smaller that the State of California.
At the same time, we could likely learn to gather free energy from the sun and sink holes into the Earth for geothermal benefits, as well as connect homes to an intercontinental solar grid energizing heat pumps to acclimatize living spaces. So, it’s not that we are not smart enough to be able to comfortably live with our present population size. It’s not that we can’t figure out plans to overcome our addiction to fossil fuels, curtail global warming and limit resource depletion.
Instead, it’s just that we are not smart enough to get along, truly help each other and let each other live in peace. Just as we do, ants work together. However, they do not compete with each other to get the biggest monetary gain and the largest cache of goods, which together represent a largess way beyond whatever might be needed to survive well.
We need to change the way that we treat others. In short, we need to alter the way that we think and go about life to survive, both as individuals and as a species.
Homelessness and starvation have plagued us ever since our ancestors decided to make an exodus from the forests and plains. Yet while ants build ant hills and tunnels to address homelessness and starvation, we make weapons of mass destruction, warships and armies to ensure that we get whatever we want when we want it. Simultaneously, we create the conditions in which some humans don’t “deserve” to live in a home, even when they are simply small helpless children — such as those listless bodies with those pitifully bloated bellies and spindly toothpick limbs — who are occasionally pictured on glossy magazine covers. Do they represent our collective atrocious callousness towards humanity or some other sort of pathology? Can you ever imagine an adult ant abandoning its larvae in such a fashion when calamity strikes?
Human adults who cannot pay the mortgage are thrown out with their entire families like garbage on the street. And never mind those who manage to keep their shelters, yet still freeze to death as they struggle to keep themselves warm, without heat and electricity, even though they live in areas of the world wherein there is an abundance of everything needed for survival.
In the end, perhaps ants are smarter than us. Nonetheless, if we can wisely imitate them, at least to some degree, the longevity of our species may yet exceed that of the infamous Dodo birds.
All the same, our innate nature perhaps is such that we cannot share the planet. Consequently, we will perhaps have to fight to the “bitter end” in order to outlive each other, have ever more glitzy products, look more fashionable, and feel more special, even though isn’t one iota of necessity in these behaviors.
Furthermore, Bush or one of his counterparts may yet pull the nuclear trigger, an act that will surely reduce our numbers to a more “acceptable” level after which those who are left won’t have so many others with whom to compete for special services and goods. Yet, what will the survivors have gained other than the creation of more horror and the same old cycle that we already have?
Any real change could only transpire if those remaining alive would finally learn to live without making war and denying a basic living to each other. Then again, this is a tall order to achieve. All the same, how could any real improvements for our kind and the world as a whole be possible otherwise?
In the end, we can passively wait to see what happens. Or we can each strive to bring about the type of world that we want for ourselves and each other. As Mahatma Gandhi urged, “We must become the change we want to see.”
Doing so certainly represents a monumental task (given our propensity to hoard and fight). Yet if one unassuming, peace-loving man like Gandhi could adjust so well, surely the rest of us can begin similar struggles. Let’s get started now!
[1] This information is from: Number of Ants in the world vs. Number of Leaves@Everything2… (everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1793020).
[2] Discussions of this topic are located at: Chronic Hunger and Obesity Epidemic Eroding Global… (www.worldwatch.org/node/1672), Malnutrition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition), 842M Malnourished People Worldwide Due to Poverty, AIDS … (www.thebodypro.com/content/art11611.html), World Hunger Notes–World Hunger Facts 2007 by World Hunger … www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunge and BBC NEWS | Health | Overweight ‘top world’s hungry’ (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4793455.stm).
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“The Man Who Hated Frogs” by Jason Godesky, has a nice tribute to the ants:
http://anthropik.com/2006/09/the-man-who-hated-frogs
Of Ants and Us
I wonder what ants do to some of colony members who will not help gather, but insist on living in the colony and eating the communal food supply. I doub that these lazy ants would be allowed to be members of the colony.
Ants DO fight. and, when ant colonies get too big, they branch off and build a new colony or “hill.”
And, when ant colonies get too far apart and their communications with eachothers break down, they have wars.
Wishful thinking. The chance of all the groups that know something is wrong coming together is between slim and none at this point in time. The entities that control things are going to keep things the way they are until the sheeple can unite. They are doing a very good job of keeping us in disarray.
“Go to the ant thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise; Which have no overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gatheeth her food in the harvest.” Proverbs 6:6-8
I am with the ants…now we just need to see how many of us are. We only believe our eyes and feel safety in numbers, strength in unity and power in our mass - finding eachother is the issue.
I think I may have been (unknowingly) ant-like when creating Arms Against War (www.armsagainstwar.info)…an attempt at acting individually, in unison - en masse.
Great read, thank you.
Namaste,
Tina Louise
That´s a nice article. However, it´s a bit naive (obviously). The wars, the death the greed - they do not happen to exist. They are made to exist by the elite to keep the masses down, the “useless eaters”. We are being treated like cattle because that´s what we are - a mindless horde without a clear future, arguing about petty things year after year. Yes, we are partly kept that way, but it´s also in our cultural nature .. but then again, our culture(s) has been manipulated for a long time.
Check out sites like surfingtheapocalypse.com for a different view. Yes, it looks ridiculous and has ridiculous articles as well, but at least it´s a free media. Make up your mind, think for yourself. Open your eyes.