A common theme or meme in Science Fiction is the concept of the “Hive Mind”. One excellent depiction is The Borg in Star Trek, the Next Generation. The Borg is a collective species without a home planet.  Like locusts, they travel through the universe taking and or consuming anything useful to their needs without question.  The object species of a society they encounter are either assimilated through reeducation and biomechanical implants or destroyed if they refuse.

The Borg have no moral code or laws and no remorse for their actions.  They act as one through interconnection of their minds [think the internet today], all working in unison for their common goals.  They are driven by survival and perpetuation of their own species regardless of the effects on others.  This is not a civilization; it is only a mindless driven existence in search of food and raw materials like sharks that swim the oceans – with no purpose other than eating to swim and swimming to eat. There is no concept of free thinking. Only the collective is important. There is no innovation in the hive mind.  It takes (steals) ideas and technologies from societies that are assimilated. 

A young math graduate student shared this definition: “Nobody experiences reality unmediated by a narrative. Often, the narrative through which we experience reality we did not or would not choose but instead were given. When a group of people engage in a narrative, they engage in the hive mind.” 

The alignment of iron filings in a magnetic field is a visual metaphor for the hive mind.  The iron filings will always align with the magnetic field. So, whoever or whatever is controlling the magnetic field controls the iron filings. By inducing a narrative, the Hive Mind gets a populace to align with it resulting in assimilation.

Today we see the hive mind at work in our society under the guise of equality of results vs equality of opportunity, equity by bias vs equity that is earned, drastic environmental regulations that destroy jobs vs reasoned and rational actions… irrespective of the damage it does to individuals and communities - al la the 10000 workers on the Keystone XL Pipeline who just lost their jobs and the thousands of ancillary jobs that will disappear. And now the same workers may be offered jobs in reclaiming “mine lands” in West Virginia assuming the highly technical skill set required to build a pipeline equates to scraping dirt - an oversimplification to be sure, but is it equitable?  Any individual who objects to the Hive Mind’s demands is branded as a racist, homophobe, sexist, misogynist, fascist, Nazi, lunatic, ad infinitum. If one is told a lie long enough and loud enough and shamed if one does not accept the lie, the lie may become accepted.  

The Hive Mind puts forth meaningless strawmen – e.g., fanatics who try to deny Americans the benefit of universal health insurance by screaming about death panels, yet dozens of Hive Mind pundits have basically made that insinuation to gain support and alignment of an unsuspecting people.

The Hive Mind riots, flaunts law and order in the cities, and burns down governmental and police buildings in the name of a skewed sense of justice. The Hive Mind feeds the ‘deep state’ with willing participants perpetuating the cycle of a mindless existence, discourages free association and participation in organizations counter to the Hive Mind’s needs, and attempts to undermine a duly elected government.

The Hive Mind puts forth a ‘new religion’ that includes gender identity, redefines morality, lets male transsexuals compete unfairly in female sports activities, penalizes innovation, discourages free thought, promotes the ‘you didn’t build this syndrome’, and so on. The Hive Mind espouses forth false narratives (see Orwell’s 1984 for how it is done) and maintains strict double standards. The Hive Mind refuses to report factual evidence detrimental to its assimilation goals.

The Hive Mind justifies all actions based on the needs of the ‘unthinking collective’ acting as locusts devouring the results of hard work others have produced – the free-thinking, innovative, and hardworking individual be damned.  “Resistance is Futile”.  Merit, achievement, compassion, love, generosity, morality (adherence to a moral code), compunction, family, freedom, individuality, etc. are non sequiturs. The end justifies the means. Those who cannot be easily reeducated will be sent to the proverbial ‘gulags’ for attitude adjustment – or destroyed? One method will be to withhold health care for those who resist - to encourage conformance and assimilation. Today the Hive Mind newscasters are touting reeducation of the nonbelievers in assimilation to and alignment with their desired outcomes.

The Hive Mind is supported by much or the mainstream press and aided by most of social media by eliminating anything that appears to dissent from its stated goals. It acts through deception, half-truths, mob mentality, censorship, brow beating, attempted humiliation, and outright lies. Or it induces ‘lemming like’ behavior to ‘jump off the cliff’ without rational thought or accountability.  The hive mind can sway elections by any means necessary. The Hive Mind uses ‘death by a thousand cuts’ versus the ‘single silver bullet’.

The Hive Mind proponents may argue that those who follow freedom, liberty, classic liberalism, and capitalism are simply adhering to a different hive mind – now labeled as the new fascism. The difference is: following liberty… is a free choice of voluntary cooperation, not forced assimilation like the iron filings that must align with the magnetic field.  There is no coercion.  It is all voluntary. Milton Friedman’s example of the lead pencil is a wonderful example of how thousands of people who never meet cooperate to make a pencil that is very inexpensive and useful.  No Hive Mind central planning committee could ever duplicate this efficiency, quality, quantity, and timeliness. See this link for a video of Freedman giving this simple explanation: vhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws

The sad thing is those willing to participate in this ‘narrative’ either do not know what the hive mind is or does to a freedom loving society and to the individual, or do not care. As long as it destroys the individual, removes freedom, eliminates free thinking, and censors free speech in achieving its goal of alignment and assimilation, the Hive Mind is successful, and the individual and free society lose. Our society is not perfect and none on this planet is perfect. Our educational system needs great reform to better ensure equal access to good teaching; and there are other reforms needed. But this society is the best one to date in recorded history which the Hive Mind seeks to destroy.

The way to counteract the Hive Mind mentality is to 1) recognize it, 2) report it to your friends, colleagues, and anyone who will listen, and 3) think and act by rationally examining each suggestion put forth by the hive mind propagators and show its fallacies. Stop being the lemmings and mindless ‘iron filing’ foot soldiers the Hive Mind needs to fulfill its assimilation of our free society – think and act rightly and rationally for a free and prosperous society.

Graphic credit: Pixy.org  CC BY-NC-ND 4.0