ants and (r)evolution

[Kyu Six]

Is it possible that ants someday might develop class consciousness and overthrow their feudal state? I watch these little creatures crawl on my bathroom floor and wonder if someday there will be a new type of ant society centered on the worker rather than the queen. Any ideas on how eusociality in hymenoptera evolved in the first place? Ants and wasps are closely related, yet while there are several species of social wasps, overall most are solitary. I believe all ants are eusocial. Is this correct?

[sithsaber]

Is it possible that ants someday might develop class consciousness and overthrow their feudal state? I watch these little creatures crawl on my bathroom floor and wonder if someday there will be a new type of ant society centered on the worker rather than the queen. Any ideas on how eusociality in hymenoptera evolved in the first place? Ants and wasps are closely related, yet while there are several species of social wasps, overall most are solitary. I believe all ants are eusocial. Is this correct?

As dictated by Marx, the ants must first industrialize and shift to a bourgeois dominated society before achieving pure socialism. Unless Maoant arises, and then things get much more complicated.

[Ostrinski]

I think you should be more worried about disposing of the ants on your bathroom floor.

[MarxSchmarx]

If there ever was an inspiring story from the Animal kingdom:
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/the_rebellion_of_the_ant_slaves.php

slave-making ants, like Protomagnathus americanus conduct violent raids on the nests of other species, killing all the adults and larva-napping the brood.
...
Some of its victims (ants from the genus Temnothorax) strike back with murderous larvae. Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors, destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood.
As to eusociality in hymenoptera, it is almost certainly kin/group selection due to their haplo-diploid inheritance scheme. How haplodiploidy arose (e.g., what mutations happened when) and spread to fixation in the first place is still an open question. An intriguing hypothesis is that it was a response to a symbiotic bacteria that happened to kill male offspring.

[Comrade Samuel]

This is a pretty fun topic, I can't honestly say what makes a person think of communist revolution in the bug world other than a really creative mind, substence abuse or both :D

Until they evolve to the point where they can wave their red banners, worship Leninant and sing the international for 13 hours strait I have my doubts a sub human revolution is any where on the horizon.

I think this should be in chit-chat

[Ocean Seal]

Is it possible that ants someday might develop class consciousness and overthrow their feudal state? I watch these little creatures crawl on my bathroom floor and wonder if someday there will be a new type of ant society centered on the worker rather than the queen. Any ideas on how eusociality in hymenoptera evolved in the first place? Ants and wasps are closely related, yet while there are several species of social wasps, overall most are solitary. I believe all ants are eusocial. Is this correct?
Perhaps if the colonies began to survive for many hundreds of years and make production more efficient by delegating powers to a petit-bourgeoisie, which would then create tensions within feudal society shifting it to a bourgeois society.

[Caj]

It really depends upon the material conditions that exist within each unique colony. The ants on your bathroom floor are of a backward colony as evidenced by their allegiance to a feudalistic queen. They cannot, therefore, come to class consciousness on their own. They'll need a vanguard party of the most militant worker ants to lead them.

[Prometeo liberado]

Do you really want these things getting organized, in your bathroom of all places? Don't encourage this. Get an exterminator.

[Optiow]

This thread made me laugh, awesome comments guys :thumbup1:

[Caj]

Do you really want these things getting organized, in your bathroom of all places? Don't encourage this. Get an exterminator.

Exterminators are counter-revolutionaries. They must be destroyed through the organized use of revolutionary terror by the vanguard of the worker ants. All power to the colonies!

[o well this is ok I guess]

Do you really want these things getting organized, in your bathroom of all places? Don't encourage this. Get an exterminator. As usual, when on their last leg the reactionaries will resort to the most extreme of measures. And since humans have two legs, it doesn't take much.

[Rafiq]

Why is the Ant leader called a "queen"? What makes you think it's a feudal society?

[Obs]

I am seriously considering buying an ant farm.

[No_Leaders]

Ah but becareful Obs. They may breakout and crawl over you as you sleep and when you try to scream out they get in your mouth:/


Actually i doubt you'll have to worry about such things i've always thought of getting one just to watch the lil guys. That's a good question though OP, so we can pretend your bathroom floor is Czarist Russia, you just need a strong Leninant. I'd like to see them mobilize and overthrow that brute aka the QUEEN!