The Smart Swarm… Present Day Borg.

The Smart Swarm… Present Day Borg.


Not one to miss an opportunity to jump on something with both feet that I know relatively little about; I came across Peter Miller being interviewed on NPR today. I usually flip away from the host. Thankfully, she was away on vacation. I hung around long enough to know that I wanted to find out more on the topic but a little less on the references to hawk the book over the airwaves.

I am sure it is a wonderful read: "The Smart Swarm: How Understanding Flocks, Schools, and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making, and Getting Things Done” by Peter Miller: [url=http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Swarm-Understanding-Colonies-Communicating/dp/1583333908]Let me google that for you![/url]

Listening caused me to decide that I would rather be part of a smart swarm than a stupid one although the entire idea is that natural selection is supposed to make that determination for us. As I was thinking I probably did not really want to be part of the Borg at all; I started to put on my best leather outfit with all the electronic looking gadgets protruding from it and waded in on the interweb.

Lily Sloane:  Borg? Sounds Swedish.
[after having seen the Borg]
Lily Sloane: Definitely not Swedish.

Yahoo’s book report can be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100805/ap_en_re/us_book_review_the_smart_swarm
“Miller summarizes in two lessons what he has learned from swarms, flocks and colonies of selected insects, birds and animals, whose instinctive processes his book describes in easily understandable detail.
‘The first is that working together in smart groups, we too can learn the impact of uncertainty, complexity and change.
‘The second ... is that, as members of such groups we don't have to surrender our individuality. In nature, good decision-making comes from competition as much as from compromise, from disagreement as much as from consensus.’
Though the lessons aren't new, they do bear some thinking about.”

Cmdr. Deanna Troi:  If you're looking for my professional opinion as ship's counselor: he's nuts.
Cmdr. William Riker:  I'll be sure to note that in my log.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Reports of my assimilation have been greatly exaggerated.

Cmdr. Deanna Troi: Bridge to Captain Picard.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Go ahead.
Cmdr. Deanna Troi: We've just received word from the Fleet. They've engaged the Borg.

On a daily basis we encounter the Borg or the group mentality that just as easily can be doing us in as revealing our survival. We act like a school of sardines using a group mentality to endeavor to outthink or outmaneuver a more formidable force (like every predator off the African Coast). Usually though we are only searching together to outwit our own lack of common sense.

The entire key to this is that ‘common sense’. It is a Neanderthal kind of thinking… and, look at what having it got them - extinction. Maybe this swarm mentality or thinking is not really what we need. Possibly what is really missing from the equation that will balance it and make it work is the intense individualistic thinking of genius. It might be a good idea for bees to get out of the hive where they are succumbing daily to threats they cannot defeat as a group. It is being part of the swarm that is bringing their downfall.

Man is ready for new leadership. That is what is required to move beyond the morass some of this group thinking has gotten us into. We search for our new Copernicus or Galileo. We need to stop giving in to the group think. We must worship, adore and foster idiosyncratic, even eccentric thoughts and people. It was always that one ‘nut’ that popped off that turned the world in a different direction. Progress does not really happen when everyone goes around agreeing with each other. It takes revolution and revolutionary thought to get things moving.


Captain Jean-Luc Picard: It's not too late. Locutus could still be with you. Just in the way you wanted: an equal. Let Data go, and I will take my place at your side. Willingly, without any resistance.
The Borg Queen: Such a noble creature. A quality we sometimes lack. We will add your distinctiveness to our own. Welcome home... Locutus.

The Borg Queen: Locutus...
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile.

Welcome to the Smart Swarm. Where does the Devil’s Advocate fit in?

DakotaDawg, we look pretty stoopid with all this Droid stuff hanging off of us. Besides, it’s hot out and you don’t look so loveable in black leather.

Let’s go for a walk and dream the dream.

© 08.11.2010 steven d philbrick SR+ DakotaDawg