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"Exploding" Termite Species Discovered
ananyo writes "A species of termite found in the rainforests of French Guiana takes altruism seriously: aged workers grow sacks of toxic blue liquid that they explode onto their enemies in an act of suicidal self-sacrifice to help their colonies. The 'explosive backpacks' of Neocapritermes taracua grow throughout the lifetimes of the worker termites, filling with blue crystals secreted by a pair of glands on the insects' abdomens. Older workers carry the largest and most toxic backpacks. Those individuals also, not coincidentally, are the least able to forage and tend for the colony: their mandibles become dull and worn as the termites age, because they cannot be sharpened by moulting (abstract)."
Banelings 1.0
Scientists have discovered small crystals embedded in the ants' palms that turn to a different color when the ant's maximum age has been reached. However, in one colony they observed two ants trying to escape this fate by running away from the colony and finding sanctuary. Other ants were tasks with hunting down the two runners and terminating them.
"and get off my #@!& lawn!" KABOOOM!
Table-ized A.I.
no, they just want the pleasures of 72 maggots.
Table-ized A.I.
ANOTHER HINT: Some of the greatest economic growth in this countries history (The USA) occurred when the top marginal tax rate was over 70%. Rich people accumulating money doesn't drive the economy to any great extent. Regular people with money to spend drives the US's economy which is 70% consumer spending.
HINT: If we start confiscating wealth, then nobody will bother accumulating it in the first place. Your plan will work great for all of 6 months and then the entire world will be in the shitter rather than just large parts of it.
Purely as a matter of empirical psychology(I really cannot stomach another tedious " 'communists' vs. 'free marketeers' " flamefest), I have to wonder if that is true...
As you accumulate more of it, the marginal utility of money plummets. There are only so many luxuries one can actually find oneself capable of enjoying. For that reason, I have to speculate that people who end up accumulating enormous amounts of money(especially if they do so over a number of years, rather than becoming wealthy all at once and then quitting) must have a rather weird relationship with wealth. Unless your job is also the hobby you like most in the world(or unless wealth accumulation is essentially a game that you approach with the zeal of a Korean stereotype), what kind of nutjob are you to still be busting ass at work if you've already made a big pile of money?
Given the dubious rationality of accumulating significant wealth for its own sake, it just isn't obvious that a higher effective tax rate would necessarily change much(though, given the dubious rationality, it could also turn out that spite magnifies the effect compared to the hypothetical 'rational man' scenario).
I can tell by observing you and me of course, that we're not rich. All my rich friends doesn't concern themselves with luxuries because as you said, there's only so much you can snort. The short-term reasons as you listed out are also valid. Namely doing what you love and money just comes in by accident, and earning it as a number game because all their friends have the Mercedes and the only way to "win" is to have bigger numbers.
Most what I've seen though, is the idea of a rich lineage. This is for both the second gen (born rich) and first gen (made rich) dudes I know. They aren't just concerned with themselves, but with godlike generations after them. It doesn't mean they'll spoil their kids with crazy luxuries. It means that their kids will have a wider range of choices in what to do with their life versus us. And their grand-kids and so on. When your objective is that, you wouldn't mind "more" money really.
So basically what you're saying is, in order to create banelings, they ... require more minerals?
What the fuck does this have to do with exploding termites?
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