the ant queen

I found an interesting comparison between the organization of the ants and the city of Manchester. Throughout the entire description of how Manchester quickly became populated and the multiple roles of people began to mesh, I immediately related it to the ant colony. It seemed appropriate to make a comparison of the two when taking into account just how similar the evolution of the two really are. It's worth pointing out how cluttered and disorganized the early stages of the two were, with a hectic overpopulation of people in Manchester and a scattered bunch of ants with no direction. As years went by, the city evolved and became a hub of working and functional societies that came together to support the city. Of course it took years and years for the city to evolve and establish such wonders like blocks and organized avenues of travel and separated areas of work and social niches. The ant colony hadn't started out as organized and complicated as it is now. It took years and years of evolution and constant change before the ants became genetically coded to carry out a task. Their tasks were already embedded in their DNA and were predestined for a role to play in the colony that would allow them to fit well into a functioning society. Familiarly, Manchester was established through the roles and parts that people had to play in order to make the city flourish and flow in an "orderly" and fluid fashion. The avenues alone that ants create to make paths where it is established that a garbage dump and cemetery shall sit, reflects greatly the mannerisms of our own society as humans. I think in a very odd way, this similarity shares so much of a complex argument, that it would be difficult to get through each and every one; arguments like the similarities in evolution, the similarities in organization, the similarities in roles and tasks, the similarities in the handling of large populations, etc. I find that in a very odd but interesting way, the layout of the text (going straight from ant colonies to Manchester with little flow or ease-in) allows the reader to make the connection between the colony and the city, and it gets one thinking deeply about the many different microcosms of our own society that can be witnessed if we just look hard enough to make those connections.