It can be said that hive-living creatures, like the ant or the burrowing naked mole-rat, share a collective intelligence. In the case of ants or the Borg, the individual has no concept of itself. There is no personal concern: individuals lay down their lives as necessary for the good of the group. Add to that tenet a reliable system of mass communication and you've got a great society for the promotion of the group. There are no heroes, alas, in the hive...but the hive itself is the organism, that which must live and succeed.

Some fear the hive mind and speculate that humanity is evolving that way with the kind of technology we're becoming increasingly more reliant upon. Not me, though. I'm witnessing just the opposite: maybe we're not getting more enlightened, but we're certainly becoming more vocal about our individuality...nonconformity is the standard we conform to where I live.

A humbabba-rescued nodeshell--your donations at work.