For a long time, humans have been opting for permanent communities, with all their inherent pros and cons, instead of brief alliances. Scholars still wonder who came up with this idea, when, and why. 

According to the pioneering sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, insects are so different from us in terms of anatomy and physiology that they seem to be from an alien planet. Their evolutionary path diverged from ours six hundred million years ago, yet aspects of their existence are perfectly familiar. African termites unite in large, organized communities, inhabit common territory, and cooperate. They are divided into castes, with workers capable of building five-meter mounds, and others engaged in agriculture. In special chambers, using vegetable matter, they raise fungi on which their life depends. Their nests are not built at random, and they form a complex network of chambers and galleries. The termites communicate with one another at various stages of construction, implementing each phase precisely. If they come across an unfinished section, they will work to complete it, according to plan. 

All the insects and their body heat ought to cause overheating and a shortage of air in the nest, but termite mounds are built to eliminate this risk. According to Wilson, the construction acts somewhat like our air conditioners, ensuring that the queen and king’s chamber is kept at an even temperature, with a constant CO2 level (rarely deviating more than 0.1 percent). 

From the outset, sociobiology has been criticized for various reasons, such as its tendency to anthropomorphize the non-human world. A fair complaint: we should always consider if we are judging incomprehensible phenomena by our own standards. But there are striking similarities between animals’ lives and our own. To its credit, sociobiology has raised awareness that communal living, based on rules and common goals, is not unique to humanity. For example, wolf packs, flocks of birds, and swarms of locusts are communities akin to ours: organized groups of individuals of the same species who cooperate and communicate. 

Wilson believes that, in some ways, insects are superior to us. Our society is much worse at showing traits such as altruism or the ability