In a war between humans and ants , who would win ?

[Akka]

Humans loosing to ants ?
It's perhaps some funny catastrophic scenario to make a movie, but it's simply ridiculous to the extreme.

Even totally naked, there is, as noted, about 200 000 ants for each humans. It's a lot, but the ants only stand a chance if the human is actually totally naked and trying to step on the ants.
Even if the ants were intelligents, they would loose. Of course, if they were intelligents, the casualty level for humans would be simply staggering, because they could infiltrate about any human facility, destroy crop and cattle, and so on. But they would still lose. After a tough fight, but still.

Give each human a firethrower, and see if 200 000 ants, or even ten times as more, are anyhow a match for them.
Add that we can rerout entire rivers to flood an area, effevtively killing 100 % of the ants in the area (and also damaging badly everything in the area, but we're talking about a total war of extermination here, right ?).


The absurdity in the "we would loose to ants" is that it expects ants to fight in a genocidal war, but humans basically fighting while keeping Westerner standard of peace-time and comfortable life... Yeah, sure, if we stay in our houses looking TV and stepping occasionnally on ants, we would lose if they were intelligent.
But in the case of a war of total annihilation, I think we would actually do a bit more than that...

 

[anarchywrksbest]

We'd be HUMAN SLAVES!! In an Insect Nation! Aaaah AAAAAH AH AH AH!!!!!

 

[Bozo Erectus]

If ants were as smart as humans, and had our technology, theyd wipe us out.

 

[Vanadorn]

If ants were as smart as humans, and had our technology, theyd wipe us out.

"That's why experiments on superintelligent, gene spliced super ant, stem cell research must stop, and stop now! The sooner the American public wakes up to this threat in our own backyard, the sooner we can eradicate this insidious hatred the insect kingdom has on the United States. So please, help us keep America strong this Novemeber: vote Bush and you'll stop the destruction of American values by unthinking scientist and their middle eastern axis of evil mega ant project."

This message paid for by the Bush reelection committee.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Yeah instead of Willy Norton ads, the Republicans will run ads showing Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda and a giant cockroach.

 

[Akka]

If ants were as smart as humans, and had our technology, theyd wipe us out.

Well, first they CAN'T have our technology. It's simply IMPOSSIBLE. They are not big enough.

To produce iron, for example, you need to build big furnaces, because a small fire can only barely make iron goes red, and quite not melt it.
Ants could not produce furnaces, and if they could they could not make fire. As such they could not melt iron, and without metal, it would be a bit hard to make any decent technology. Anyway, such problems would exist for about everything.

Additionnally, if we have to take the basis that ants ARE as intelligents as us, AND has our technology, AND are big enough to have this technology, AND...
Well, in this case, we aren't talking about ants anymore, and the point is moot.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Akka, thats where their ability to work together comes in. Millions of ants working together could build a furnace big enough to smelt iron. We humans are pretty resourceful ourselves. If we suddenly found ourselves reduced to the size of ants, we'd figure out a way to make fire and smelt iron etc.

 

[Akka]

No.
There is simply physical limitations. You can't make a fire big enough when you are so small, because you can't approach, or build anything that can approach, a fire hot enough.

 

[Tassadar]

Give each human a firethrower, and see if 200 000 ants, or even ten times as more, are anyhow a match for them.

lol, you loose, let say we split the ant in 3 wave attack, the first wave, waht do you think happen in Paris or New-York if each human have a flame thrower shooting everywhere, lol, too funny, the whole city burn, and the second wave eat human BBQ. lol try again.

 

[Tassadar]

No.
There is simply physical limitations. You can't make a fire big enough when you are so small, because you can't approach, or build anything that can approach, a fire hot enough.

We are able to create million of degree into tokamak experimental fusion reactor. The heat is contain into a magnetic field trap. But i dont expect the ant to do the same.

 

[Akka]

We are able to make high technology because we have the ability to build the intermediary tools.
The ants can't. There is simply a step in size that you NEED to reach, because if you're too small, you can't build big/strong enough tools.

As for your example, I suppose that people with a firethrower are actually able to make the difference between ants and people, and then are able to direct them in the correct way.
And you don't require to have everyone with a firethrower. You only need firethrower to burn big assemblies of ants (in which case each flame would burn millions of them), and if they aren't in big assemblies, they aren't any threat to a grown human.
Additionnally, I was only talking about flamethrower to show that a simple and easy-to-build human weapon can wipe a huge quantity of ants in a single flash. But if you talk about massive invasion of a city, it's much easier : flood the streets. Humans can perfectly walk in a 10 cm-high water. Ants drown.

 

[Xi 12]

Humans can perfectly walk in a 10 cm-high water. Ants drown.

The drowning ants will make flaoting bridges for the other ants. Ants are much more ready to use their own casualities for their own use, that is if they are intelligent.

 

[Tassadar]

flood the streets. Humans can perfectly walk in a 10 cm-high water. Ants drown.

You should read the link i provide on page 2, i ll quote it for you. BTW iam just having fun to be a ant general.


Fire ants have developed a unique method to keep from drowning. At first hint of rising water, worker ants gather the entire colony into a ball - sometimes as big as a basketball. As the water overtakes the mound, the ball rides the flood like a living raft, rolling in the water so all the members can take turns breathing. When they strike a solid object, be it a swimming dog or your canoe, they quickly swarm aboard.

 

[Akka]

And I suppose humans just look and do nothing during this ?
Personnally, I'm in war against ants, I see such a ball, well, I throw a rock on this. A simple rock, kind of big like my hand. Doesn't even require technology. Ants are welcome to board the rock when it sinks.

Perhaps you need to remind yourself that ants are cool and all, but if we wage war against them, we will actually not stand by and watch why they do perform all their nice tricks...

 

[WS78]

I too believe that numbers are overwhelming, as well as survival rates. Only if they walk into a volcano like lemmings, do we have a chance to survive.

 

[Tassadar]

And I suppose humans just look and do nothing during this ?
Personnally, I'm in war against ants, I see such a ball, well, I throw a rock on this. A simple rock, kind of big like my hand. Doesn't even require technology. Ants are welcome to board the rock when it sinks.

Perhaps you need to remind yourself that ants are cool and all, but if we wage war against them, we will actually not stand by and watch why they do perform all their nice tricks...

Dont forget that there is 200 000 ant per human, they are able to climb about anything, so even if you flood a city, they climb the wall, the car, the tree, even on you, everywhere.

I mean did you ever play starcraft, if so you should know what a swarm is. And if there is 200 000 ant per human in a city and there are aggresive and peform a coordinate attack ( which they do easily in nature), we are done. I am serious.

 

[Akka]

Seriously, people should quit the drama scenario and come back on reality sometimes...


Ants need to climb a human to kill him. A human can kill ants from afar. He can walk in a water that drown them. Even barehanded, he can splat them by the hundreds before sustaining any serious damage, and that suppose he stays still in the middle of the swarm. Even outnumbered so badly he would be dead, and without any weapon, a human can walk slowly and still outrun a swarm.
And I'm not even talking about a coordinated counterattack by humans, involving any kind of weaponry specially designed against ants. Just imagine how many ants can destroy a team of a dozen humans that simply put boiling water/oil, or even napalm if you wish the pyrotechnical effects, on hives. Imagine how many teams like that could be formed if there was a total annihilation war against ants.


200 000 ants per humans IS NOTHING !

It's barely HALF A HIVE PER HUMAN. 200 000 ants all together are barely the size of the chest of a human ! A human can be badly bitten by so many ants, but he would have to stay still and let him be eaten to be actually in any kind of death danger.



In any kind of mass, ants can be EASILY flooded/burnt by any area effect weapon (a bomb, a flamethrower), or drown by rerouting a river.

If NOT in mass, ants don't pose a serious threat to any human. They can bite painfully, but not seriously endanger him.

So, the only way for ants to be threatening, is to put themselve in an extremely vulnerable position.
Numbers are NOT overwhelming when a single human can kill ants by tens of millions in a handful of seconds, and when any coordinated attack can kill ants by hundred of milliards in a day.

 

[WS78]

So why don't we?

 

[Tassadar]

Ok Akka, you already read that even the US b-2 bomber loaded with toxin did nothing in southern USA. here another exemple.

Killer ants threaten Australia

An infestation of ants which is attacking numerous animal species in Australia is threatening to spread across the country, scientists have warned.
Described as one of the world's most vicious species of ant, the yellow crazy ant sprays formic acid into the eyes of other animals, leaving them vulnerable to attack and unable to feed themselves.

YELLOW CRAZY ANTS
One-centimetre long
So named because of their erratic behaviour when a nest is disturbed
Originally from India
The ants have already wiped out up to 20 million red crabs, as well as birds and other animals on Australia's Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean since 1989, and have since spread to 63 locations in the Northern Territory on the mainland.

Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2807289.stm

I wouldnt like to see 200 000 ants per human spreading formic acid everywhere, oh my god, the more i dig, the more i am scare. Perform your own search about formic acid and formaldheyde. i am done.

 

[Chimp]

there are single colonies containing numbers of ants that surpass the human population of earth. I say the ants would win by sheer numbers. Imagine the floor and walls covered with ants. Imagine that happening to every individual on earth. The ants would so win. Now, if they had to travel from their current locations to kill all humans, I could see it being substantially more challenging for the ants to win. The South Americans and Africans would fall within a month, as well as agricultural parts of Asia, but I think the industrialized parts of civilization would hold strong for quite a while probably never giving in to the ants, but never defeating them as they inhabit every corner of the earth.