Swarms of the Future

Reader 'R' sent me this article about swarming instincts a few days ago, noting it reminded him of a post I made three years ago about cows.

Y'see, the cows are just like the mormon crickets, except different. And John Locke and Thomas Paine were both right except that they were both wrong. And while human capacity for effective swarming is far inferior to that of many insects and small fish, cows are still just plain dumb. Even though I recently spent another weekend doing their work for them. Um. Obviously.

Anyhoo, this debate and all others, will be moot in not too long because there's no way this story won't someday be related to human extinction.

Researchers using robotic roaches were able to persuade real cockroaches to do things that their instincts told them were not the best idea... roaches followed them about 60 percent of the time, in essence deferring their own judgment as the preference grew more popular

Flash forward... ABC Exterminator, Inc's weekend office manager, to a junior field technician, Feb 21, 2028: "What do you mean one of them didn't come back ?!?"