Do you listen more to your own instinct or the hive mind?

Question

Instinct wants you to survive and multiply as an individual organism. It wants you to benefit those closer to yourself before those further away. In any given situation, instinct would have you do whatever it takes to prolong your own life and to breed. Instinct views others as competition for resources and for breeding mates, and to remove them to favour yourself and your own. Instinct doesn't care what is "right" or "wrong", but only what leads to longer life and proportionally more offspring.


The hive mind of society considers you just a part of its own body. The hive mind wants you to breed, but does not want you to kill others within the same society as that does not help it grow... Rather the hive mind would sooner you sacrifice yourself if it serves a greater number of people, and thus the hive itself. The hive mind hates your individuality and wants you to conform, as drones without individuality work together more efficiently toward the same goal: to serve the hive.

So the question is... which has the stronger influence on you? ....

Are you the lone wolf, feeding on those around you to sate your own selfish desires....... Or are you just another sheep in the herd, lacking individuality and bleating mindlessly?


And don't even pretend you don't acknowledge either. Your very answers here may well show your balance.

[Addendum]:
Since someone asked about my balance.... I am primarily instinct-biased, albeit in a rather backwards way. I definitely favour myself and my own over others.... I am alarmingly selfish when it comes to most people, though there are a few I would give up plenty to...... I oppose hive-thoughts like the plague, though often I will aim to perform self-serving actions that will likewise benefit society (like trying to get rid of christians). ...
On the other hand, much of my thinking is deliberately self-destructive. I have no intention of breeding, and I do not consider any life particularly important, not even my own.
What matters to me is my freedom to choose for myself..... my opposition of the hive, but also the innate goals of the instinct. I make an enemy of both and try to separate myself from them.... but that is something I will only achieve entirely when I die.

Answer 1

instinct

Answer 2

I follow the hive mind in a social sense. Given a situation which would require actual survival, I would rely primarily to instinct. While I can be incredibly competitive to make things happen for myself, and myself only, I'd have to say for the most part I attempt to please others for nothing other than helping others. Staying late after work to do someone else's work to help them out would be a good example.
Which I suppose would lump me into a hive-mind of thinking.

Answer 3

Wolfy here....

Youre diving into the subject the wrong way........... any one by theirself, who realizes instinct and hive as being separate forms of thought can also realize them as the same... As just instinct; self/group.

To exist continually, ya must have your hand in both instinct and logic; that's the way it has always been. The extreme of either WILL force one into isolation. Whereas the total understanding of instinct BY logic allows one to carefully live within instinct for the strict enjoyment of THEIRSELF over all others; which can easily include living away from, beside, with, or for 'the hive'.

But i'd much rather be around someone like myself... rather than get 'dismissive' branded on my forehead. grrr... =)

Answer 4

I go with what's right to the ears and acceptable to the mind and heart. ;)

Personally, I would go with my instincts when it comes to creativity, opinions and confusion, whereas I go with the hive mind when I really want information and conclusions.

I don't truly agree with everything you said, instincts don't always lead to selfishness. I mean, if I really care for a specific soul or souls, my instincts would lead me into having stronger opinions. It makes me understand myself more - I would lay my life down for that soul.

... And I don't know, but I don't believe the "hive mind" doesn't always hate your individuality either - some actually welcome it. ;)

If I truly have to make a decision on whether I listen to my instincts or the hive mind more, I would have to go with my instincts - it's what makes me the person I am. :D (Although it truly depends on my surroundings and the people around me. :)

P.S And you? :P

~ Christy

Answer 5

To tell the truth, I don't think that the word instinct is a word that helps create a good question. It is an explanatory principle that no one really can define with precision. The same with hive mind: what does it mean specifically? To me, it's just a speculative metaphor. Someone, for example, could argue that the "hive mind" you refer to actually is programmed TO destroy--as many ideologies such as nazism and authoritarianism have been proven to do.

Answer 6

Instinct. I would die before becoming a mindless zombie in some cubicle, simply serving some higher power that takes from my strength.

Answer 7

I trust my instincts, I don't trust group thinking. The group always has a head. Anyone controlled by a group is controlled by the head. I just refuse to be controlled by an individual that has a mob at his biding.

Answer 8

I always listen to my own instinct but that does not necessarily mean that I might act on it all the time.... it all depends.

Answer 9

DEPENDS