Nature is primed for removing the weakest links -- the principle of decentralization

I'm a big fan of looking at Nature outside of human society. It's even cool to see how animals and plants adapt to our complex society of buildings and destruction and take note of the strategies they take. For example, the birds be like, "Oh, you cut down every tree in sight? I'll just use your thrown out straws and hair pins to make a nest for my baby girlz. How you like them apples? Lolz."

The thing I keep seeing again and again loosely overlaps with our current idea of Decentralization. Every species is built around survival. Let's start with that as a basis to agree on. If animals and plants (and humans in this case) didn't fight to align themselves with survival, we'd be a planet of dirt and oceans. Ok, let's start with that.

So we got a wide pee-tree dish to work from by only looking around our home planet, if you're willing to introspectively look at it. One common theme is that a species or group of animals never depend on a single member to function. At first blush, you could argue that there are plenty of species with leaders. Apes, for example, are known for having groups led by an alpha male. Yet it's been shown that other contenders for Alpha Male are conspiring against the leader constantly. The alpha male gets old or senile and can't hold his own, one or multiple of the contenders duke it out, and finally one firmly takes the alpha male's place without much more arguing. Things run the why they should and the group survives just fine without the old leader.

While Apes set up a structure somewhat closer to the humans than any other species, it's not a complete copy. They are more aligned towards removing weakest links that threaten the group's survival. If a group depended on a single Alpha member to function, that is a huge weak link. Living things get old, lose their edge and faculties, and die. Nature knows this is a fact of life and works with it, rather than ignoring and denying it.

Ants are small, stupid insects that can literally run people out of their homes ?

Ant colonies are an extreme example of decentralization. Every member has a very rigid and narrow role to play, even the Queen Ant. The Queen Ant isn't running the show, but is merely an important role type that isn't needed in large quantities. She can be replaced without a hitch.

A colony works as a single organism. The ants figured out that they don't stand a snowball's chance in hell when they have to fend for themselves individually. When they stick hard to a principle that adheres a massive number of individuals fighting for the same goal of survival, they are a force to be reckoned with. Their strict decentralization allows for massive scalability. That's why you hear sometimes on the news about an infestation with a colony population that sounds astronomical. When you can get millions of pea-sized anything around a cause, shit gets real fast.

A huge downside that humans may not be able to accept with this setup is that they can't sacrifice self-interest for the group to this level. Our brains are lured too much by power, money, fame, etc. -- even if the evidence is that aligning yourself with a large group of people has the potential to make epic changes to the world faster than you ever could alone. With all of our brain power, much bigger than the ants, we can't accept the facts that we, alone, can't do anything as big as a group.

Ant colonies are the closest thing this world has seen to a purely communist society. The ego of humans has gotten in the way of what Ants have been doing a long time. They didn't need to read fat Carl Marx books to find a system that worked for them. They don't have a tyrannical dictatorship which always seems to screw up a pure implementation of communism.

Looking at the Decentralization with humans

You may be asking, "What about those big shot fuckers like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who fucking own the show?"

Well, one of them is dead for a while now. Apple is a great example of the breakdown of centralized leaders. They owe their massive success to Steve Jobs. He was a brilliant man who didn't play by the rules and pushed global technology into a new era. I wouldn't deny that, as a central leader, he did amazing things.

But again, Nature has her way with humans as much as apes and ants. Steve Jobs passed away. There was no other leader anywhere near the level he was on. It also doesn't seem that there were leaders groomed to get near his level while he was still alive. Again, I'm using a basis. I believe that other people can be training/groomed to reach a level that contends with the gifted, especially if it's the gifted doing the grooming. The immediate successor may not be great, but if he/she happens to come across one already gifted, their principles are then applied to a higher degree of accomplishment. Extreme progress doesn't always happen under the time frame we hope.

Now, we see that Apple's tech isn't considered the gold standard it used to be. Often, it's having to play catch-up with other innovators. My estimation is that the entire company was delusion about how dependent they were on Steve Jobs and didn't make contingency plans.

Bill Gates will die one day too. He still comes back into Microsoft once in a while to whoop their asses into reality. A good example is when he came back and told them Windows 8 was complete dog shit and they needed something better. I highly doubt he used those terms, but it seems Microsoft to it to heart with good results. I'm going to look for more sources where he's probably very open to current management about his thought processes. I bet you that he is humble enough to share his secret sauce with future leaders. He's definitely not as sexy or loud as the cult of Steve Jobs. But that nerdy shy dude lives by some powerful principles. He knows he is mortal. He's freaking built a massive non-profit that he's written a lot of his wealth to go to in his freaking will. Writing a will feels like shit, but he's accepted his fate.

The final point

The main point is that decentralization is the principle that works over the long haul. Sudden bursts of genius are always part of this life, but it should be tempered with sober facts, such as decay and death. Genuis should always be encouraged and given wide freedom, but it's not a wise thing to hang your hat on.

Billions of years of evolution keep showing to me that this is true. Sometimes it's important to look at simpler structures outside of our over-complicated human society to verify your hypothesis.

Perhaps take a walk in the forest when you get some free time. The answers to the big questions swirling in your mind could be right there in front of you.