Ants vs. Humans

Saddlepoint · #1 09-26-2005, 10:17 PM

Okay [censored] it, I didn't want to post this, because how can you live up to How Many 5 Year Olds...?, but clearly the time is right.

The following argument has followed me from summer camp to middle school to high school to college. I've had it with dozens of people and it's never been resolved to my satisfaction.

Tomorrow morning, when the sun comes up, every single ant on planet Earth has one purpose and one purpose only: to destroy the human race. Humans receive no prior warning. The ant colonies are not working together, have no more intelligence than they would otherwise, and are still aware enough to understand that tasks like reproduction and food gathering are necessary to the war effort.

They will not stop until every single human being is dead. They would not be able to understand, nor would they accept, any kind of resolution or truce. The last ant alive will keep fighting until it's killed.

Who wins and how quickly?

Mason Hellmuth · #2 09-26-2005, 10:21 PM

Humans and it's not close. The key is here:

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The ant colonies are not working together [and] have no more intelligence than they would otherwise...

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yoshi_yoshi · #3 09-26-2005, 10:23 PM

It's gotta be humans, though the vast majority of people will die. The reason is because we have a large # of people in the oceans, and once these people know of what's going on, they can devise a plan to continue the human race. Once survival is secured, killing every ant would be really tedious but inevitable.

shant · #4 09-26-2005, 10:23 PM

The ants lose because we will arm ourselves with aerosol hairspray flamethrowers and they will stand no chance Trust me, I caused many an ant genocide when I was 10 years old with some AquaNet and a lighter.

TheIrishThug · #5 09-26-2005, 10:30 PM

I think some of you are vastly underestimating the number of ants there are in the world. they also have the advantage of being able to evolve MUCH faster.

Mason Hellmuth · #6 09-26-2005, 10:44 PM

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they also have the advantage of being able to evolve MUCH faster.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Saddlepoint · #7 09-26-2005, 10:50 PM

He might mean "adapt." Really, though, everybody is SEVERELY underestimating the ants.

TheIrishThug · #8 09-26-2005, 10:57 PM

ants reproduce faster and have natuarally shorter life spans. stronger traights will become more wide spread in the new ants because the ones that are survinging have some traight that benifited them.

Mason Hellmuth · #9 09-26-2005, 11:34 PM

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Really, though, everybody is SEVERELY underestimating the ants.

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After further consideration, I agree. Proof:

Blarg · #10 09-27-2005, 12:38 AM

Evolution wouldn't matter.

The number of ants in the world is astounding, but they aren't that deadly or hard to kill. The bit of many is nasty, but the bite of many others hardly hurts at all.

Further, most ants don't have a mobile way of living. You can't kill a lot of people when you need to build a immobile hive and keep it running, as most ants do. They don't go gathering all that food and bringing it back from long distances because they want to, but because they have to. It's a full-time job and it needs to be done. And even if done well in a rich area, a successful hive doesn't become unbelievably enormous or breed a checkerboard of hives that take over the earth.

Being an ant has natural limits. They can't afford to empty out their hive's resources in suicide attacks, unless they want that hive to wither and die. Either way, humans win.

The most they could do is be sporadically dangerous and extremely annoying. They could probably drive us out of your minds.