"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> writes:
> Eugene, do you know if anyone's ever found capitalistic algorithms
> operating inside the apparent communism of an ant colony? I wanted to
> make some point about "If selfishness is so efficient, why hasn't it
> evolved in ant colonies", and then I realized that for all I knew, it
> had.
Well, with 'capitalistic algorithms' I guess you mean reciprocal
behavior? I have not seen anything about that. I think it is all a
question about kin altruism.
However, ant colonies are definitely not socialist in the usual sense
since there is no central command system deciding what each ant should
do. Instead they are based very much on a 'spontaneous' order
(evolutionarily designed). Perhaps they could be said to be a true
communist socity in its original sense. (which may very well be what
you meant)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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