I know, I know, it is outrageous for us to compare ourselves to others in the animal kingdom, but ever since I was a little kid I wondered whether our social behavior could be looked at from the perspective of us not being superior to other members of the animal kingdom, just that homo sapiens could just be viewed as belonging to one of many species.
My nomenclature will not be correct, no doubt, because I have never, unfortunately, taken a biology course, let alone a genetics course. (not that I don't regret that.)
I have been criticized many times for daring to consider that some of our human traits mimic the traits of other species, especially ants. Are we related? Sarah Palen wouldn't think so, but I think we have some stuff in common through the evolutionary path we've taken.
e.g. the socializing and ego stroking we do in a group reminds me of how ants behave.
so sue me, lol.
So when I read Hammerhand's diary today:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
especially this quote from a former Bain Capital partner:
Let’s not kid ourselves about just how cheap offshore labor really is. We not only pay substantially less per hour, we also avoid the costs we would incur if these workers immigrated here. We don’t pay for their medical expenses when they show up in the emergency room without insurance. We don’t pay for their pension costs if they don’t save for retirement. We don’t pay for their children’s public education. Nor do we pay for their out-of-wedlock children, their unemployment benefits and workers’ compensation, their slip and fall torts, their wear and tear on our public infrastructure, and the cost of their drunk driving, drug use and other crimes. We outsource pollution, its adverse effects on our health, and its clean-up costs. Neither the employees nor their employers are here to vote and seek political handouts.
I couldn't help but think of how easily slavery seems to bubble up from our human history and that brought me back around to slavery practiced by other species.
This wiki article on the Polyergus ant describes it's social parasitism Unable to care for themselves or their brood they practice slave raiding on the Formica ants and turn their pupa into slaves just so they themselves can be cared for.
Its workers are incapable of caring for brood, in part due to their dagger-like, piercing mandibles, but more importantly, because in the evolution of their parasitism, they have lost the "behavioral wiring" to carry out even rudimentary brood care, or even to feed themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Polyergus species subsist solely as a specialized brood-acquiring caste, maintaining a worker force by robbing brood of particular species in the closely related genus Formica in massive colony-to-colony raids. The captured ants are generally referred to as "slaves" in scientific and popular literature, though recent attempts have been made to apply other human cultural models, such as describing the Polyergus individuals of a colony as "raiders" or "pirates" and the Formica workers as "helper-ants", or "domesticated animals". Biologists describe the system simply as social parsitism by Polyergus on the host Formica species.
Polyergus obtains its Formica work force by stealing pupae from nearby Formica colonies and carrying them back to its own nest. Back in the Polyergus nest, Formica workers are eventually helped to emerge from the cocoons by Formica workers already living there. The new workers quickly assimilate the characteristic odor of the mixed-species population of the Polyergus colony—completely without violence. The Formica workers that emerge in the mixed-species colony go on to nurse, forage, and perform other colony upkeep duties
http://www.tightloop.com/...
It's somewhat of a shocker to look at this type of trait in human beings because we consider ourselves to be an intelligent species with self determining thoughtful "units" - perons.
But I think we are also in denial much of the time and when I see the likes of people or groups of people who prey on the productivity of others instead of doing work themselves what else can I do but think along these lines a little bit.
Here's a video of the ants returning from a raid:http://www.tightloop.com/...
sort of reminds me of Bain Capital making a raid on a functioning company, n'est ce pas?-