This is just a useful distinction to keep in mind as we decentralize and create new institutions. Kinda of similar to the Cathedral vs the Bazaar network states, DAOs, and other new memetic forms broadly come in two shapes: Hives, and Swarms. #### Hives Hives are much more similar to traditional organizations and therefore often share their faults. The best analogy for hives are IRL beehives. Hives have fairly rigid roles and procedures, that most likely have founders (equivalent to queen bee). All the individual people are replaceable (new queens) but the structure and relationship between roles is fixed. Hives are very subject to fractures because of this. A good example of a meme that exhibits hive like tendencies are religions. The pope, bishop, and cardinals all change but the church is still the church, and disagreements lead to schism. #### Swarms Swarms are much more complex, and chaotic. Both hives and swarms rely on emergence but swarms way more so. Swarms are organized along a fairly complex idea and goal set, then each individual member of swarms uses their assessment of the current state of things to decide of which actions they think will move the world most in that direction. This often leads to chaotic, inefficient, beautiful, and unpredictable behavior. Each member is changing roles and tasks in response to a dynamic set of inputs. Ecosystems are best described as swarms there is no leader and each participant is trying maximize similar things, swarms are chaotic but they end up being remarkably god problem solvers.