Superior/inferior story is a very misleading starting point. There are 10^7 billion ants crawling around the earth, doing robotic mindless things for reasons no human can understand, without any machines controlling them. What's up with that? Does Samuel Butler sit around wondering what comes after the ants?
Whats interesting is exploring what natural forces encourage some species of ant to variate between more loner styles vs hive/communal super organism. Then seeing if the same forces are acting on humans, and where.
Superior means superior in power, i.e. the ability to act constructively or destructively to further their existence.
The power of the industry grows faster than the power of humans, and while humans are more than ever reliant on the industry to survive, the industry is busy stripping out its meaty bits and destroying ecosystems (bye ants).
