The hive mind
Some people like bees, a lot.
There seems to be a lot of bee metaphors in the news lately for some reason. From an intriguing insight on bee risk management (Farnam Street) to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s perpetuation of the “bees can’t fly” myth (NY Times). I don’t know what I find more alarming, that the president of the ECB subscribes to this ridiculous myth (Science News) or that he basically just implied that by all measurements, the Euro fundamentally can’t work. I know I shouldn’t read too much into that but with Europe’s current economic state, it’s hard not to.
As for the Farnam Street piece, I think it’s important to point out that in nature there is a selective pressure against being too big to fail, extinction. There used to be a useful counterpart in our capitalistic system, bankruptcy, but with implicit government bailouts these days, where exactly is the disincentive?
