The last big similarity between ant society and human society is that with the development of society, the increase of "elderly" and the emergence of the advantages of the elderly.

In human society, some traditional communities treat the elderly very cruelly, while others are extremely respectful and respectful. At these two extremes, most primitive societies tend to favor the former.

Traditional societies of primitive tribes tend to abandon the elderly. One reason is that in some communities, elderly parents become a burden that endangers the safety of the entire community and ends up being abandoned or killed. For example, hunter-gatherer communities who have no permanent home have to move their camps from place to time, carrying everything on their backs: infants, children under the age of four who cannot keep up with adults, weapons, tools, etc., as well as food and water for the journey. If you have to carry the elderly or sick again, it is really difficult to walk.

Another reason is the environment, especially in Arctic or desert areas. Because there is always a shortage of food and there is no surplus, it is impossible to feed everyone. At this point, the community has to sacrifice the least productive or useless, or the survival of the community as a whole is threatened.

Older people who become a burden on their communities are abandoned. The first is the most passive one, which is to be deliberately negligent and leave them to fend for themselves. For example, give them very little food, let them starve, even if they get lost, and let them die. Such as the Hopi people of the North American desert, the Vitoto people of tropical South America, and the aborigines of Australia.

The second practice is to deliberately leave the elderly and sick behind when the tribe moves to the camp. The Bushmen who were engaged in fishing and hunting often migrated from one place to another for hunting, and at this time, they usually abandoned their elderly relatives and left only a piece of meat and a portion of water for the old people.

The third approach is to allow the elderly to commit suicide. The fourth option, as opposed to self-suicide, is assisted suicide, or strangulation, stabbing, or burying alive with the cooperation of a person who wants to commit suicide. For example, the Japanese movie "Narayama Festival Examination" records a cruel tradition: a seventy-year-old man must be sent to the mountain by his son to die! In the Eskimo tribes, the elderly "old men" were often given a sleigh and let them slide deep into the snowy fields.

The fifth practice is very common, which is to brutally kill the elderly against their will.

However, in the traditional communities of primitive tribes, the elderly still play a very important role. And as productivity grows, the role of the elderly in the tribe as a whole gradually exceeds their own consumption when they are able to support more members.

Although young people can play a role, it is mainly the specialty of the elderly, especially the skills that require years of experience, so it is especially suitable for the elderly.

Elderly people can provide food for their grandchildren and reduce the burden on their children, sons-in-law or daughters-in-law. One of the main reasons why Samoans immigrate to the U.S. today is to take care of their grandchildren, so that their children can work away from home, and to help ease the burden of childcare and household chores.

Older people can also make things that adult children need, such as tools, weapons, baskets, jars, or textiles.

Older people have a lot of social advantages because they have been building networks throughout their lives. They can take advantage of the abundant network resources to help their children.

The most important function of the elderly in traditional communities is to be the keepers of knowledge. Obviously, in a society where there is no written language, the memory of the elderly contributes to the survival of the clansmen. The knowledge and experience possessed by the elderly is often the key to the survival of the tribe.

With the advent of settlement and agriculture, the custom of "abandoning the elderly" in primitive society gradually changed to the custom of "respecting the elderly". The reason for this is that agricultural production activities are very cyclical, and at the same time, they are greatly affected by climate and solar terms, which depends on the experience of producers. The elderly, especially the elderly, naturally have more experience in production. Traditional agriculture often achieves the transfer of farming skills and experience through "word of mouth from father to son, hand-to-hand teaching", thereby improving the status of the elderly in social production and politics.

It can be said that if a civilization wants to change from a child to a child, it must have elders to pass on experience and knowledge, which is the so-called "elderly" advantage.

Tribes with more elderly people may not have as much food surplus as those composed entirely of young adults, but they have more advantages in raising and educating children, as well as in dealing with internal conflicts, and have better prospects for development.

The same is true of ant societies, although the term "elders" here still refers only to the males and females of the ruling class, not to the working ants.

Originally, the life of male ants in the ant world was very short, and many races of male ants would die after their marriage, and a few would survive with the queen.

Although the queen ant has a long lifespan, the number of queen ants is very small, and it is difficult to shoulder the heavy responsibility of passing on the knowledge and experience of civilization completely.

Until I don't know when, the males began to die after the marriage flight, and they would not be killed and expelled by the nest, and they formed a large class that did not perform physical labor, but was only responsible for mental work, similar to the "old people" in humans.

It is the presence of a large number of male ants that allows any bit of advanced knowledge in ant society to be retained, and little by little it has evolved to the current level. Therefore, in the vast majority of the more advanced ant races, it is the male ant that has become the ruling class. In some cases, male and female ants are co-managed. Only in a few of the more primitive tribes is the queen dominant.

The protagonist has never been so serious about comparing the similarities and differences between ants and human society before, only after surviving in this world for two years, accumulating a lot of observation data and mastering the rules from it, only in this lonely winter day without worrying about all kinds of complicated trivial matters, so as to have a precious opportunity to think deeply, the protagonist can grasp that trace of context.

The races on both sides of the river have obviously reached the dawn of civilization, and the countries in the upper reaches of the river represented by the Big-headed Ant Remnants have even more advanced civilizations and are already on the eve of a real state.

So, will there be a more advanced ant civilization in this world?

After all, even outside the highly developed human societies of the twenty-first century, beyond the sight of most civilized countries, in the Amazon, in the Arctic Circle, in the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, there are still indigenous people in the primitive stage of ignorance.

Ants, on the other hand, are small in size and have a weak ability to overcome natural obstacles, and are more likely to have extreme imbalances in development!

The protagonist suddenly wants to see this vast world like never before!