Settled civilisations leave a legacy; Nomadic ones leave no trace

CorporateNature No 145

Most of what we know about ancient civilisations is from the remains of their settlements. Nomadic people leave almost no trace. In a similar way, army ants and forest ants can be observed as long as they are alive but it is the "cities" of termite mounds that change the landscape.

Leading a nomadic lifestyle, both professionally and personally, is good when you are young. It makes perfect sense to try out many new places, experiences, and career paths as possible in your youth, in order to find out what you enjoy. However, to build anything of substance, you need to find your place, settle down, and pull your sleeves up.

To illustrate this, let’s look at two species that predate us by millions of years and that will probably outlast us.

1. ARMY ANTS

The life of a colony of army ants passes in a constant cycle between two phases - nomadic and stationary. The nomadic phase starts about 10 days after the queen has laid her eggs. During this time, the whole colony covers long distances in search of food for the new larvae. The ants are always on the move during the day and only settle down in temporary camps at night. Once the larvae are big enough, the whole colony settles down for the stationary phase. This only lasts a few weeks and, in no time, the colony is out foraging again.

2. MOUND-BUILDING TERMITES

In sharp contrast to the destructive army ants, some species of termite are best-known for their impressive building abilities. Termite mounds are true engineering masterpieces, which have inspired architects to build more efficiently. A termite mound is essentially an insect-scale skyscraper, which acts as the external lungs for the whole termite colony living below. The mound helps control the temperature, humidity, and the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen within the nest. Building such a complex structure is only possible with a settled lifestyle.

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TAKEAWAYS:

A nomadic lifestyle is consumer-based but not sustainable in the long run and does not leave much trace.

Significant achievements, such as building a termite mound, take time and considerable effort but also leave a long-lasting legacy.

Termite mound (image source: Wikipedia) 

Path-dependent ants and the dangers of the pheromone trail

Ants always follow other ants; Thank god humans sometimes stray from the beaten path
By George ILIEV

Ants are famous for following each other's pheromone trail. This is how ants find their way home or to a food source. If given two possible paths, the shorter path ends up winning because more ants will follow it in a given time and more of them will leave their pheromone trace. Thus the signalling on the shorter trail will become more pronounced and this route will trump the longer trail.

An interesting conundrum, however, is presented to ants when a new food source appears that is not on their path. The ants still keep following their old path and rarely manage to reach the new food source. This form of stigmergy leads to absurd situations known as an "ant mill" where ants that have lost their original pheromone trail end up marching in a circle following each other and eventually die of exhaustion.

Human organisations and societies are different thanks to the existence of dissenting groups. In feudal times these were called rebels. Nowadays they are called "inventors", "early adopters" or "divergent thinkers" - people who do things differently.

Many prominent thinkers, from George Bernard Shaw to Elon Musk, have encouraged people to be different and start new things. G. B. Shaw says: "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

Yet, often times human society has found itself following the wrong pheromone trail. You may recall the VHS versus Betamax videotape format wars in the early 1980s, in which VHS won not because it was the superior standard but because more customers and producers had chosen it originally.

Another prominent case of path dependence in business is the establishment of the QWERTY standard of typewriters over another more modern standard.

We could even broaden the path dependence argument to religions. Once established they profoundly shape human culture and turn an area's population into conformist collaborators working towards the religion's objectives. Groupthink is not confined just to small groups but applies to entire societies.

So after all Kafka was right: at times we are human but there are times when we turn into insects. Beware of the pheromone trail.

Photo: Ant trail. Source: Wikipedia

Rafts of ants and investment banks in distress stay afloat by "banking" on their young

Ant colonies and banks "employ" their young to improve survival chances
George ILIEV

1. Ants build floating rafts using their eggs in the foundation:
When threatened by flooding, ants build floating rafts using their own bodies and put their eggs in the foundation of the raft to increase the buoyancy of the structure. This does not damage the chances of survival of the unhatched ants in the eggs.

2. Investment banks retain the most junior people in mass redundancies:
The youngest recruits are the cheapest employees, which justifies the investment banking practice of retaining these people when cost-cutting requires mass redundancies. It is rare that the new recruits would be let go before the higher-earning mid-ranking employees.

3. Next generation often serves the present generation:
The young exist for reasons beyond merely as a vehicle to pass on your genes (or corporate culture) to future generations. In the two cases above, the young are employed to increase the chances of survival of the present generation... which isn't too different from the traditional family model where children would work on the family farm from a very young age. The ants just take it to a new level of utilitarianism - using the generation that hasn't hatched yet.

Photo: Ants (Source: Wikipedia)

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