All last week I played capitalist. Out of town, out of state (Oregon), far away - flying first class to and from (flights were packed out), expensive dinners with other capitalists types (I thought some were over-priced), and just generally having a good capitalistic productive time. The down side was I had limited time to go online so I limited my couple of am online sessions to pursuing a few of my favorite sites and not posting.
There was one late night - think it was about 2ish - I was flying through the channels before blackout time and came across a documentary about ants. I know, weird thing to watch before sleep but I found it amazing and the photography quite well done. I was not in a total cognitive state to recall the type of ant and only caught about 20 minutes but what I saw is definitely applicable to some humans.
Seems like in the ant world socialism reigns - and it has been a system that has remained that was for millions of years. These ants would work as a total solidarity. There were those that took long trips and actually attacked other animals and dismembered them for the trip home. Others had their task to be living bridges to help the other ants going back and forth in the hunt. In the hive - at least the huge one in this program - every ant had their purpose. When the hunters brought back the rewards from the hunt each and every ant had equal opportunity to eat as if they were the ones that did the hunt.
In the ant world no one went hungry - all were taken care of in the same way as any other ant. There were not poor ants or rich ants - all ants appeared to be equal, "knowing" that no matter what the individual role each contributed in some was to the whole colony.
It seemed an exact model of socialism in action, and this action has sustained for millions of years. Hmmm - ants have been around for at least 120 million years - at least if you believe some scientists. So if one of the most primitive species have socialism working for them, why not people?
Like most things there is a downside. It turns out that ants don't really live - they merely exist. Never making anything better for their species they remain unchanged for millions of years. No desire to improve, no ambition, no recognition for achievement - just utterly boring existence doing the same activity every day of their short life.
The animal world can teach humans much. As one goes up the chain of intelligence in the animal world, the total socialism the ants live by is discarded for something far better - survival of the fittest. Me - live the life of an ant - just exist without accomplishment, without achievement, without rewards? Not on your life! I will strive to be a better capitalist than ever before!
Some lazy and ignorant others would prefer to regress to the social structure of the ant world - what a waste. Let's hope for a sunny day and lots of magnifying lenses, LOL.
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