Jackson: You probably think of yourself as a highly evolved primate, right? Top of the food chain, big brain, all that. But what if I told you that your social life—your patriotism, your identity, your deep-seated sense of 'us' versus 'them'—has more in common with an Argentine ant than a chimpanzee? Olivia: That is the wild, and surprisingly convincing, premise at the heart of The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall by Mark W. Moffett. And it’s one of those ideas that, once you hear it, you start seeing it everywhere. Jackson: And Moffett isn't just some armchair philosopher throwing out wild ideas. This guy is a world-renowned entomologist. They call him the "Indiana Jones of entomology." He spent decades in the jungle studying ant societies, mentored by the legendary E.O. Wilson, before turning that same lens on us. Olivia: Exactly. And the book has been widely acclaimed, often put on the same shelf as big-history books like Sapiens or Guns, Germs, and Steel. But it comes at the question of human civilization from this completely unique, biological angle. It starts by asking a question so basic we never think to ask it: what even is a society? Jackson: I thought I knew! It’s a group of people working together, right? Cooperation, teamwork, all that good stuff. Olivia: That's what we all think. But Moffett argues that's completely wrong. And to prove it, he takes us not to a human city, but to a battlefield near San Diego.

Jackson: A battlefield? What happened in San Diego? Olivia: It wasn't a human battle. It was a war between two supercolonies of Argentine ants. And when I say super, I mean it. We're talking two societies, each billions strong, locked in a territorial war that stretched for kilometers. Workers from one colony would instantly attack and kill workers from the other on sight. Jackson: Billions? How do they even know who to attack? They can't possibly know every other ant in their own colony. Olivia: They don't! And that's Moffett's entire point. A chimpanzee society is limited by what we call Dunbar's number—they can only maintain a society with individuals they personally know, maybe 50 or so. But these ants, and humans, operate in anonymous societies. You and I don't know every other person in our country, yet we feel a sense of belonging. The ants do the same. What holds them together, and what holds us together, isn't personal relationships or even cooperation. It's a shared identity. Jackson: But hold on, cooperation has to matter, right? I mean, trade, laws, building cities—that's all cooperation. That feels like the bedrock of society. Olivia: It's a huge benefit of society, but it's not its defining feature. Moffett uses the tragic story of Christopher Columbus and the Taíno people of the Caribbean to make this point. When Columbus arrived, the Taíno were incredibly cooperative. They greeted the Spanish with food, water, and gifts. They were open and trusting. Jackson: And we know how that ended. Olivia: Horribly. Columbus wrote in his journal, "They would make fine servants... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want." The Taíno offered cooperation, but Columbus's society saw them as 'them,' not 'us.' Their identity as outsiders, as foreigners, overrode any potential for cooperation. They were a different swarm. Jackson: Wow. So it's not about being nice to each other. It's about having a clear, hard line between who's in the club and who's out. And that's the same for us and for these ants? Olivia: That's the core argument. We function like a swarm. We have this incredible ability to feel kinship with millions of strangers we'll never meet, simply because they are part of our 'us.' And we have an equally powerful, and often dangerous, ability to see other entire societies as 'them.' It’s a social technology that allowed us to conquer the planet, and it's a technology we share with the ants.

Jackson: Okay, that's a mind-bending idea. If we don't know everyone in our national 'supercolony,' how do we know who belongs? If it's not personal recognition, what is it? How does an ant, or a human in a giant city, know who's 'us'? Olivia: They use what Moffett calls 'markers.' Think of them as passwords for belonging. For the ants, it's literally a chemical password. Each colony has a unique cocktail of hydrocarbons on their bodies, a specific scent. If you have the right scent, you're a nestmate. If you don't, you're an enemy. Jackson: A scent? So it’s like a secret handshake they can smell. Olivia: Exactly. And it's non-negotiable. Moffett tells this incredible story from a pest control lab. Researchers were feeding a colony of Argentine ants some local cockroaches, which was fine. But one day, a technician fed them a different species of roach, one from Africa. The moment an ant touched one of these new roaches, her own sisters swarmed and killed her. Jackson: What? Why? Olivia: Because the African roach had hydrocarbons that were chemically similar to the scent of an enemy ant colony. By touching the roach, the ant had effectively put on the wrong uniform. Her scent, her password, was wrong. And her own society executed her for it. Jackson: That is insane! It's like putting on the wrong team's jersey and getting tackled by your own players. So what are the human equivalents of this chemical password? We don't go around sniffing each other... I hope. Olivia: We don't, but our markers are just as powerful, and often just as subtle. They can be obvious things, like a flag or a uniform. But more often, they're things like language, a shared dialect, an accent, or even a simple gesture. Moffett points to that brilliant, tense scene in the movie Inglourious Basterds. Jackson: Oh, I know the one. The tavern scene. Olivia: The British spy is undercover, passing as a German officer. He's doing everything right—the language is perfect, the uniform is perfect. But then he orders three glasses by holding up his index, middle, and ring fingers. The German officer across the table freezes. Because a true German would signal three with their thumb, index, and middle finger. That tiny, almost imperceptible marker, that wrong password, gets them all killed. Jackson: And this is all happening subconsciously, right? We're not actively walking around checking people's hand gestures. Olivia: Almost entirely. We learn our society's markers through osmosis, from childhood. Moffett brings up the fascinating case of British plane spotters during World War II. The military desperately needed more people who could distinguish Allied planes from German ones at a glance, but the expert spotters couldn't explain how they did it. They just... knew. Jackson: So how did they train new ones? Olivia: They had the trainees guess. An instructor would point to a plane in the sky, the trainee would guess "ours" or "theirs," and the instructor would just say "yes" or "no." Over and over, until the trainees started getting it right consistently. They learned to recognize the 'gestalt,' the overall pattern, without ever consciously knowing the specific details they were looking for. That's how we learn our society's markers. We just know who feels like 'us.'

Jackson: This is huge. So these markers, these subconscious passwords, are what allow us to build these massive, anonymous nations and feel connected to millions of strangers. But the book's title is The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall. Are these markers also the reason why they fall apart? Olivia: Precisely. That's the tragic irony that Moffett lays bare. The very same mechanism that allows us to unite with millions of strangers is what creates the fault lines for our collapse. Societies are not static. Markers are always in flux. A new slang word, a different way of dressing, a new political belief, a new dialect that emerges on the fringes of a society—these are mutations in the code. Jackson: And over time, those mutations can become so different that the two groups no longer recognize each other's password. Olivia: Exactly. The 'us' shrinks, and the 'them' grows, even within what was once a single society. Factions emerge. And eventually, the society splits. Moffett argues this isn't a flaw in the system; it is the system. It's why societies are inherently impermanent. He quotes the powerful words of Chief Seattle, spoken in the 1850s as his own society was being swallowed by America's. He said, "Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless." Jackson: Wow. It makes you look at everything—every flag, every accent, every cultural inside joke—completely differently. It's not just culture; it's the code that's holding our swarm together... or getting ready to split it apart. It makes me wonder, what's one marker in your own life you never realized was a 'password' until now? Olivia: That's a great question, and a great one for our listeners to think about. Is it the way you talk? The references you get? The food you love? Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear your examples. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.