58: 怠けものは社会に大切な役割の理由/why slackers are important for society

研究によると、働き蟻の労働者４０％は労働しない、ただの怠け者だ！でもそれも、巣には大事な役割も果たしているそうです！何でしょうか？人間の社会も蟻の社会から何を学べばいいでしょうか？

今日の記事のLINK：

https://www.sciencealert.com/many-worker-ants-are-actually-lazy-slackers-but-there-s-a-good-reason-for-that

関連LINKS：

元の研究記事（細かい研究方法の説明と結果の分析）

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0184074

単語LINKS:

https://ja.glosbe.com/en/ja/ant%20colony

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%9F%BB%E3%82%B3%E3%83%AD%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC%E6%9C%80%E9%81%A9%E5%8C%96

ME:

Site: http://www.tensaimon.com
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CREDITS:

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Sounds: https://freesound.org/people/tensaimon/bookmarks/

TRANSCRIPT:

40% of Worker Ants Are Actually Lazy Slackers, But They Have Their Reasons

Spend any amount of time gazing at an ant's nest (hey, what you do with your time is your business) and it's clear that the whirling mass of tiny bodies is an impenetrable, chaotic mess to the casual observer.

 

Researcher Daniel Charbonneau and his team wanted to understand what individual ants are doing, so

 

"We apply tiny dots of paint to them," he said,

“so we can track it in our video recordings."

 

And their analysis shows that some 40 percent of the workforce are actually inactive slackers: they either do nothing, or they do minor chores around the nest, like a bit of brood care or grooming other workers.

 

After discounting various other hypotheses – such as ants taking breaks, or seasons or circadian rhythms affecting their work ethic – the researchers simply concluded that some ants basically 'specialise' in being lazy layabouts.

 

They proved this because when the researchers removed inactive ants nothing really changed about the active ants (none of them became lazy) but when active ants were removed inactive ants started working.

 

This shows that the inactive ants really aren’t doing anything useful (they are not, for example, helping with colony-wide communication). They are just a reserve labour force that only gets called upon when they're needed.

 

So, while some of us might pine for the idyllic, leisure-filled life of the lazy ant, it's not an existence without its own compromises: chiefly, being aware that in the eyes of your well-regarded, go-getter colleagues, you're an anonymous, disposable unit of labour.

Hey Simon what do you think?

私に一コメントさせていただければ・・・

Let me get my tea...sound effect...so I can do some drinking with my thinking....

I think this might be true, or at least important, for human society. Right now we make everyone work, because that maximizes productivity (and therefore profit...for the rich) but

1) we are much too productive : we are destroying our environment

2) we are not ready for a crisis – everyone is already busy so there’s no slack in the system.

I also think human inactive workers usually find something to do, and those things often turn out to be useful in some way:

1) people who lay on the sofa reading books learn a lot,

2) people who do creative hobbies end up doing something new – they move human culture forward,

3) and people who play sports keep themselves fit and healthy - and inspire the rest of us to keep healthy too!

So I kind of think that we should leave lazy ants, and lazy people….ありのまま！少しも役に立ってないわけないわ・・・

That's what I think - thanks for letting me vent!

気持ちを吐き出させてくれて・・・ありがとうね❤

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Hey listeners what do you think?

Your turn to vent!

Would you like some tea?

1.Do you think we humans are doing to much work? Do you think this is part of the reason why we are destroying our environment?

2. Do you think it would be good for society to let lazy people be lazy?

どうぞ vent your thoughts and feelings on this issue - send me an email!