MOG

Most people tend to think of ants as marvelously hard-working creatures - selfless, disciplined, dedicated and tireless. But an entomologist will tell you that in reality, roughly 15% of the worker ants in a colony are slackers. When the other 85% head out to collect food or do battle or whatever, they make themselves scarce. They'll join in the line, march out with everyone else, but when no one's looking, they'll sneak off, find some comfortable hiding place, and relax.

With this in mind, someone in the entomology department of (I believe it was) Columbia University conducted an experiment several years ago: he (or she) chemically tagged each of the ants in an entire colony and identified the slackers, then separated them to start their own colony. What would happen to an ant colony composed only of slackers? And would there be any benefits to the colony that no longer had to provide for its layabouts?

What happened was, I think, quite fascinating. When left to their own devices, the slacker ants suddenly got religion. No more waking up at noon, no more getting stoned and playing X-Box. Well, at least for most of them. About 15% retained their indolent habits. The colony from which they had been removed, meanwhile, had a sudden outbreak of laziness among its workers. About 15% decided to lift their noses from the grindstone and leave the hard work to the suckers.

If someone has devised a compelling explanation for this phenomenon, I haven't yet heard it, but nature has spoken. Ants have existed for over 100 million years; they compose about 20% of the collective biomass of all land animals (exceeding our own proportion); there are about 20,000 different species of them, and they can be found in every climate and terrain from desert to tundra. They have been called "arguably the greatest success story in the history of animal metazoa." Whatever those 15% are doing, there's a reason for it.

Incidentally; a similar experiment was conducted with human beings. In school, or at summer camp, did you ever notice how consistent the chemistry was in the group (of 15-25 or so)? There was always a "leader" kid, a "clown" kid, a "bully" kid, a "troublemaker" kid, etc.? Some sociologist or anthropologist or something decided to take a bunch of kids who had been identified as "leaders" and put them all together in a summer camp for a few weeks. One would remain a leader, yes, but the rest abruptly decided they would be more comfortable in new roles - as a bully, or a clown, or a troublemaker...

So the next time someone starts complaining about "the nanny state," or having to pay taxes so other people can receive welfare or see a doctor when they're sick, remember the last line of John Milton's On His Blindness:

"They also serve who only stand and wait."