I was watching the theme to Inception while watching this video! "Dream is Collapsing". Made it feel like a war movie instead of a video with ants scurrying about. XD
There's only one thing to do - learn the language of the ants, earn their trust, and breed with their women. And in time our differences will be forgotten.
@ribkachan Nah. They're pretty focused on the task at hand.
I did intentionally mess with a couple of them and they will definitely bite, sawing back and forth with their mandibles to get really a deep poke, then spraying formic acid into the would to let you know how they really feel about it. But it's not a big deal--kind of like getting vinegar or lemon juice in a cracked cuticle.
@kozmon0t Yeah, but in this case when the black ants die off, the red ants just go get new slaves. Not really any different from any animal who is dependent on specific prey. There appear to be more than one host species--maybe that's why.
@faerthen They're a bit more of a niche species than most single-prey predators if they've lost the ability to forage. They've been biologically altered by their slave-keeping. Evolving the ability to forage again would be difficult.
I think it's mysterious ants manage to evolve at all. They're 100% inbred for millions of years.
@kozmon0t Interesting points. I wonder if any slave-makers have re-evolved the ability to forage?
I assume ants mange to evolve because there are so many colonies (kind of like civilizations). If one goes off the deep end, there are plenty more variations out there. More of evolution on the social scale, rather than the individual scale.
@faerthen How all those variations managed to exist in the first place is what's mysterious. The descendants of two ants inbreeding for generations isn't much of a gene pool. Most species quickly go extinct in such an extreme genetic bottleneck. Either their DNA has some unusual way to survive, or they mate with other colonies.
Some ants are entirely parthenogenetic, with no males at all.
the slaved ants is not that much of a slave because the athor ants treat them like there ther own sister. that is why there was not a civil war of ants in millions of years. or they never had a civil war because of all the rights the slave got. its way better than the slavery in US history.
@MrPadrino123 Actually, there is absolutely no benefit to the host ant species in this relationship. In fact quite the opposite, since the host ant's labor no longer serves to benefit their own relatives. In terms of the individual ant experience, there's no real difference--they still do the same work, just for someone else's offspring benefit. Sounds exactly like slavery to me.
we all know what is going to happen to the ants eventually, there will be a civil war and then all of the slaves will have the same rights as the other ants
@Slappedwithabigblack No no no. There will be a civil war, then afterwards the slave ants will be treated like shit for a hundred years or so until a charismatic leader of the minority ants gets them all of the rights that the other ants have. Although some of the racism would still remain until this day.
@turbogenrockgerator Chill out. It's stock footage of insect behavior, not a freaking video game. Wear your iPod while watching it if it bothers you that much.
Imagine if our economy is like that... everyone is working to make some improvements. As long as you work, spare your time and energy, you can eat and have shelter.
@AoEnigMoonxPhase Hm. Interesting points. But isn't money just an abstraction of labor? The slave-making ants are definitely appropriating that labor to benefit themselves extravagantly much like, I don't know, investment bankers maybe?
And the organization is, as you say, impressive. But it's a property that emerges at a higher view of the complete society. Watching an individual ant is maddening--they are such completely incompetent space-cadets.
@boowallie I'd say that because they are in a position to essentially regulate themselves, their compensation is way out of line with their contribution. Our economy seems to think so, too.
"in a position to essentially regulate themselves"
In my household my parents do exactly that.
"their compensation is way out of line with their contribution"
Actors, athletes, lady gaga, etc.
By the way, their compensation isn't proportional to their contribution? Do you even KNOW any investment bankers? I actually know two. Average person works 40 hours or less, average investment banker works 60h+. You obviously only know what politicians have said on the subj
@boowallie So, who would you conflate with the slave-making ants in our society? We have a choice about how well to compensate Lady Gaga (i.e. don't buy her albums). We don't have so much control over the financial sector--that was my only point.
"So, who would you conflate with the slave-making ants in our society?"
That's where you went wrong, your premise is that there is an exact equivalent of slave-making ants in our society. Things are more complicated than that, not everything is black and white, and if you make a statement like "investment bankers are analogous to slave-making ants" you're making a sweeping generalization that is misleading.
I was watching the theme to Inception while watching this video! "Dream is Collapsing". Made it feel like a war movie instead of a video with ants scurrying about. XD
2Foxxy4U 2 days ago
You guys are coming up with some excellent music choices!
faerthen 3 weeks ago
I was playing my ipod on shuffle and Castle crashers music played over this, I crapped myself.
Thewalrusgod 3 weeks ago
@Thewalrusgod Nice!
faerthen 3 weeks ago
Comment removed
Thewalrusgod 3 weeks ago
The slaves happen to be black
Aspartamebraintumor 2 months ago 7
This has been flagged as spam show
You know, we have created a lot of badasses. But, as usual, mother nature did it first... and better.
Yunai92 4 months ago
for some reason, playing to glory from two steps from hell from about 0:20 onwards makes it epic!
Meerkatmatt2 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
And here come the legion of cracked readers and people looking for thumbs up. How wonderful.
Nefus1988 4 months ago
Listen to The ride of the Valkyries while watching this. pretty epic.
aaabbbeee 4 months ago
I hear their king successfully enslaved a horse
Darkozl 4 months ago
I wouldn't have the balls to film this. Sheesh!
Dojan5 4 months ago
I guess in the animal world being black is an unfortunate case.
MaximilianMontesa 4 months ago
What a bunch of assholes.
MaximilianMontesa 4 months ago
Crackkkeddd
bryant8133 4 months ago 4
/watch?v=mQRyLP-EZRQ
You're welcome, internet.
ross817 4 months ago
It's funny because they're enslaving the black ants.
PompousFlea 4 months ago 10
As if I needed further proof that ants were evil.
OrionoftheStar 4 months ago
...And then my boot ruined their "strike team"
locolalo1364 4 months ago 3
Comment removed
bloodbought91 4 months ago
Too bad they can't support themselves for shit.
buffer545 4 months ago
This shit is awesome if you play music from the Lord of the Rings trailer to it.
Berengier817 4 months ago 5
@Berengier817
Cracked, much?
Corvus887 4 months ago
Communist raid and black ant slavery. What could be worse?
BlueDestinyUnit1 4 months ago
DAMN NATURE, YOU SCARY!
OddRobb 4 months ago
God Cracked I love you.
bunniansprouse 4 months ago 6
1 person is a black ant....
YERFDUDE 4 months ago
....why the hell did i watch all of that?!?! whp cares!!! THOSE ANTS KICK ASS!!!!!!
YERFDUDE 4 months ago
its a good day knowing that i am smarter than an ant
origamikiller012 4 months ago
Is it wrong that I played Lord of the Rings music while watching this?
Derpunit10 4 months ago 4
Playing the track "The Bridge of Khazad Dum" from LotR: FotR made this pretty interesting to watch.
prattrat2010 4 months ago 2
I actually watched this with Lord of the Rings music going in the background, as advised by Cracked. It was pretty epic.
IdiocyKills 4 months ago 9
Cracked
pumaturtle 4 months ago
Thumbs up if you watched this with the Lord of the Rings trailer music on CRACKED.
User2308117 4 months ago 6
All I could think of was: Fucking 6 pools.
jaktuu 4 months ago
These ants are Lannisters! Cloak of red and sat on the Iron Throne, the only thing to check is to see if they sh_t gold! For Winterfell!
mob1900 4 months ago
There's only one thing to do - learn the language of the ants, earn their trust, and breed with their women. And in time our differences will be forgotten.
Nitewolf221 4 months ago 5
Comment removed
Nitewolf221 4 months ago
Man, playing that Lord of the Rings music thing made this ten times more awesome.
jamescfc1 4 months ago
Needs more Slayer.
420Slaterson 4 months ago
cracked
bannanaization 4 months ago
did you get bitten by the ants while recording this ?
ribkachan 5 months ago 10
@ribkachan Nah. They're pretty focused on the task at hand.
I did intentionally mess with a couple of them and they will definitely bite, sawing back and forth with their mandibles to get really a deep poke, then spraying formic acid into the would to let you know how they really feel about it. But it's not a big deal--kind of like getting vinegar or lemon juice in a cracked cuticle.
Maybe I should post a video of that...
faerthen 5 months ago 29
@faerthen i have been bitten by an ant once and it hurt but compared to you, my pain seem like nothing
ribkachan 5 months ago
All hail the red queen!
sweetmonkeylove1 7 months ago
I just don't know, but I think these ants remember me some humans...
Magmaver 8 months ago
This is one of the evils of civilization
And also a reminder that the upper castes make themselves unfit to survive in nature because they are dependent to the point of helplessness.
Anything happens to the black ants, the red ants go extinct.
Anything happens to the workers, the rulers starve. Like the Mayan kings of old, when the people got fed up and went back to the jungle.
kozmon0t 8 months ago
@kozmon0t Yeah, but in this case when the black ants die off, the red ants just go get new slaves. Not really any different from any animal who is dependent on specific prey. There appear to be more than one host species--maybe that's why.
faerthen 8 months ago
@faerthen They're a bit more of a niche species than most single-prey predators if they've lost the ability to forage. They've been biologically altered by their slave-keeping. Evolving the ability to forage again would be difficult.
I think it's mysterious ants manage to evolve at all. They're 100% inbred for millions of years.
kozmon0t 8 months ago
@kozmon0t Interesting points. I wonder if any slave-makers have re-evolved the ability to forage?
I assume ants mange to evolve because there are so many colonies (kind of like civilizations). If one goes off the deep end, there are plenty more variations out there. More of evolution on the social scale, rather than the individual scale.
faerthen 8 months ago
@faerthen How all those variations managed to exist in the first place is what's mysterious. The descendants of two ants inbreeding for generations isn't much of a gene pool. Most species quickly go extinct in such an extreme genetic bottleneck. Either their DNA has some unusual way to survive, or they mate with other colonies.
Some ants are entirely parthenogenetic, with no males at all.
kozmon0t 7 months ago
the slaved ants is not that much of a slave because the athor ants treat them like there ther own sister. that is why there was not a civil war of ants in millions of years. or they never had a civil war because of all the rights the slave got. its way better than the slavery in US history.
MrPadrino123 8 months ago
@MrPadrino123 Actually, there is absolutely no benefit to the host ant species in this relationship. In fact quite the opposite, since the host ant's labor no longer serves to benefit their own relatives. In terms of the individual ant experience, there's no real difference--they still do the same work, just for someone else's offspring benefit. Sounds exactly like slavery to me.
faerthen 8 months ago
we all know what is going to happen to the ants eventually, there will be a civil war and then all of the slaves will have the same rights as the other ants
Slappedwithabigblack 9 months ago 89
@Slappedwithabigblack Now I want to see a Pixar CGI movie about Spartacus but with ants instead.
G4Br1ELCLM 4 months ago
@Slappedwithabigblack No no no. There will be a civil war, then afterwards the slave ants will be treated like shit for a hundred years or so until a charismatic leader of the minority ants gets them all of the rights that the other ants have. Although some of the racism would still remain until this day.
capella1234 4 months ago
Where's the fucking sound!? I need a narrator to watch this shit!
turbogenrockgerator 1 year ago
@turbogenrockgerator Chill out. It's stock footage of insect behavior, not a freaking video game. Wear your iPod while watching it if it bothers you that much.
faerthen 1 year ago 38
@turbogenrockgerator It's presented without audio so that you can play some Lord of the Rings trailer music while watching.
Arguingwithmyself1 4 months ago
@Arguingwithmyself1 so you read cracked articles and steal jokes from them so your comment can get 'thumbed' up?
good for you buddy.
jaekh 4 months ago
@jaekh I'm jaekh and what are references?
Arguingwithmyself1 4 months ago
Imagine if our economy is like that... everyone is working to make some improvements. As long as you work, spare your time and energy, you can eat and have shelter.
AoEnigMoonxPhase 1 year ago
@AoEnigMoonxPhase Our economy is like that, isn't it? :)
faerthen 1 year ago
@faerthen Not to me it is not. They don't use money and they seem more organized.
AoEnigMoonxPhase 1 year ago
@AoEnigMoonxPhase Hm. Interesting points. But isn't money just an abstraction of labor? The slave-making ants are definitely appropriating that labor to benefit themselves extravagantly much like, I don't know, investment bankers maybe?
And the organization is, as you say, impressive. But it's a property that emerges at a higher view of the complete society. Watching an individual ant is maddening--they are such completely incompetent space-cadets.
faerthen 1 year ago
@faerthen
..What? Investment bankers are NOTHING like those slavemaking ants..
boowallie 8 months ago
@boowallie I'd say that because they are in a position to essentially regulate themselves, their compensation is way out of line with their contribution. Our economy seems to think so, too.
faerthen 8 months ago
@faerthen
What a stretch.
"in a position to essentially regulate themselves"
In my household my parents do exactly that.
"their compensation is way out of line with their contribution"
Actors, athletes, lady gaga, etc.
By the way, their compensation isn't proportional to their contribution? Do you even KNOW any investment bankers? I actually know two. Average person works 40 hours or less, average investment banker works 60h+. You obviously only know what politicians have said on the subj
boowallie 7 months ago
@boowallie So, who would you conflate with the slave-making ants in our society? We have a choice about how well to compensate Lady Gaga (i.e. don't buy her albums). We don't have so much control over the financial sector--that was my only point.
faerthen 7 months ago
@faerthen
"So, who would you conflate with the slave-making ants in our society?"
That's where you went wrong, your premise is that there is an exact equivalent of slave-making ants in our society. Things are more complicated than that, not everything is black and white, and if you make a statement like "investment bankers are analogous to slave-making ants" you're making a sweeping generalization that is misleading.
boowallie 2 months ago
I love this species of Ants, I want a colony of them! >:[
PreppyPoser1 1 year ago
Amazing footage you've captured here!
mikeycooper 1 year ago
@mikeycooper Thanks! Glad you like it.
faerthen 1 year ago
Ha, so that's why i seen black and red ants in the same hill. Thanks for this vid, it was interesting!
gerard420gh 1 year ago