2008-08-01, 09:27 AM
Hivemind.
It's a very interesting concept, but I honestly haven't taken the time to do any serious research on it. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex touches on the idea. Basically, copies without an original. It's a natural aspect of the way society functions. It is seen especially in social insects, which is where the term comes from (as in a beehive).
But hivemind manifests itself heavily in the anonymous environment of the *chans. This is because in all being this one entity "anon", each person is contributing to a single goal, regardless of the individual's direct effect on the goal. In that instant, the individual can cease to be (in theory), as the person's consciousness acts to serve this anon entity's whim. The most amazing things are when multiple people respond a thread in identical fashions at roughly the same exact time (or in quick enough succession that copycatting would be impossible), EVEN when the response is not immediately obvious and not coordinated in some way. The response given might only be tangentially relevant, but due to hivemind at work, it can lead multiple individuals to post the same tangentially relevant comment. There are even instances of two different people posting two different images of the same exact thing (two different screen caps from the same scene in a porn, for example), and both asking for a source on it (this would be in /r/). Don't know if a screenshot exists of that porn example, as I stumbled upon it myself a long time ago, but encyclopedia dramatica has a few screenshots of examples in their article for "hivemind" (be forewarned, however, that site has a lot of NAUGHTY things on it and is definitely NSFW for the most part).
It's a very interesting concept, but I honestly haven't taken the time to do any serious research on it. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex touches on the idea. Basically, copies without an original. It's a natural aspect of the way society functions. It is seen especially in social insects, which is where the term comes from (as in a beehive).
But hivemind manifests itself heavily in the anonymous environment of the *chans. This is because in all being this one entity "anon", each person is contributing to a single goal, regardless of the individual's direct effect on the goal. In that instant, the individual can cease to be (in theory), as the person's consciousness acts to serve this anon entity's whim. The most amazing things are when multiple people respond a thread in identical fashions at roughly the same exact time (or in quick enough succession that copycatting would be impossible), EVEN when the response is not immediately obvious and not coordinated in some way. The response given might only be tangentially relevant, but due to hivemind at work, it can lead multiple individuals to post the same tangentially relevant comment. There are even instances of two different people posting two different images of the same exact thing (two different screen caps from the same scene in a porn, for example), and both asking for a source on it (this would be in /r/). Don't know if a screenshot exists of that porn example, as I stumbled upon it myself a long time ago, but encyclopedia dramatica has a few screenshots of examples in their article for "hivemind" (be forewarned, however, that site has a lot of NAUGHTY things on it and is definitely NSFW for the most part).