this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
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Yeah, hearing about this technique for the first time was a ride. Like, yeah, it's kind of cool? But also, you're doing a genocide.
Fire ants deserve it. Fuck em.
Invasive ants can overwhelm and genocide native ants.
A lot of the castings I've seen have specifically been done on invasive ants for this reason.
I wanted to comment on fire ants for this (which are an invasive one). Anyone who has experienced fire ants would not feel sorry for a genocide on them.
It's impossible for fire ants to be invasive in general.
They're invasive to SOMEWHERE. We don't all live in the same neighbourhood.
The way I understood it, invasive simply meant a species that grows and spreads at an aggressive speed in an ecosystem that it did not originate from. Fire ants very much match this definition as they were introduced outside of south Africa into several ecosystems where they spread at an aggressive rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_of_the_World%27s_Worst_Invasive_Alien_Species has a nice list of examples of species that are simply classified as invasive. Fire ants are on the top 100 list there.
That being said, while fire ants are not invasive to South Africa technically, this can be said about all species in the world (that they're not invasive to SOMEWHERE). I didn't feel the need to say where I was located in my message since it felt redundant, and as the term invasive should be assumed to talk about how whatever it is, is invasive to somewhere else, wherever that is.
They are invasive in most places except for a relatively small part of South America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_imported_fire_ant
TBH if you live somewhere where fire ants are native, MOVE.
I'm not going to let the ants win.
My immersion is ruined.
Classic US defaultism. They often have problems understanding the concept of the world wide web.
Invasive fire ants aren't just a US problem. They're one of the worst invasive species in the world.
They also never said anything that would suggest they were talking globally. They just said they were an invasive species of ants.
If you zoom out a little and look at the phrasing more than the ant problem, it is classic us defaultism. You can read it all the time here. Maybe you haven't noticed it, if you're from the US yourself.
But sentences like "don't replace your grass lawn with cloverleaf, it's invasive" can be expected like clockwork.
The european honey bee is also quite often given this title.
Everyone is constantly talking globally, except US Americans. If I mention something local to me, I always preface that. As do all other participants of the internet. Except for ... you know
Yes, if you are dumb about it. Actual scientists doing this use abandoned colonies or move the colony first.
They're more like a single superorganism.
So are humans. We still call mass killings of humans a genocide. There's no really good reason to make an exception for ants.
You don't think it cheapens the word "genocide" just a bit to lump an ant hill cast and the holocaust under the same umbrella term?
Technically it's the same, but if we want to apply emotion to human genocide, then what word would we alternatively use to describe eradicating a colony of beings we don't care enough about?
Gonna be honest here.
I dont care enough to have a whole ass word.
I see you're point, I was a bit hasty when saying there's no good reason to make an exception.
I still do not agree with the argument that 'Ants are a superorganism, so it's not really a genocide'. For humans it's a genocide, because we're trying to describe a social crime within humanity. For everything else, extermination is communicating the same thing, but generically.
No collective of humans is a superorganism by a longshot.
The term was literally coined in an analysis of human social interaction by Herbert Spencer in his book "Principles of Sociology". The term was created to describe humanity.
From the 19th century, who coined term super-organic.
It has practically nothing to do with the biological concept involving eusociality. So, no, humans aren't eusocial creatures: etymological fallacy.
You're carrying out a similar fallacy by claiming use of the term in its original field is illigitimate in this argument. On top of that, right on the wikipedia page for Eusociality, it states that biologists such as E.O. Wilson have previously argued that humans are weakly eusocial, weakening your whole argument in the first place.
The concept of humans as super-organisms is explored in both sociology and biology, and i'd argue that that means humans fit the bill. Whatever no-true-Scotsman version you've been gate keeping with doesn't even fully agree with the field you're supposedly arguing on the behalf of.