1/ One of the coolest things I learned about in computational social science?
Ant mills.
(Video made at @tandayapa. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0HoqjxfvJ4 … )pic.twitter.com/GKbWvk2tej
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2/ "... phenomenon in which a group of army ants, which are blind, are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
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3/ I'm not a myrmecologist so don't take my explanation too literally. (Follow
@Myrmecos if you want one.) But from a computational perspective, essentially,1 reply 0 retweets 16 likesShow this thread -
4/ The ants coordinate via message passing (pheromones) through the environment (stigmergy) with a chemical TTL (decay). But, their path dependent history conspires to create a feedback loop that dooms them all. Anywho I study belief systems and social media. Totally unrelated.
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Replying to @generativist
This feels absolutely like how some patterns become self-reinforcing in academia. (Also, fascinating - thanks!)
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Replying to @dsky
It sure is similar! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woozle_effect …
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Replying to @generativist
Omg. I am now going to call some folks Woozles forever and I'm so very amused. (Also, I've got at least 2 social and 1 religious movements that are basically this in my current research.) thank you!
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