Some criticisms on Pluribus regarding the hivemind

I am always on the lookout for hiveminds done right and scientifically. My favorite treatment has been by Peter Watts in Echopraxia and The 21-Second God, and just his general take on stuff like the Hogan twins and Neuralink. So I was initially very excited by the premise of this show and still look forward to finishing it.

However, 6 episodes in, I find it quite hard to accept the portrayed intelligence of the hivemind. We are shown that the brains are connected enough so it’s a single consciousness (and thus arguably a combined intellect), so stuff like this doesn’t sit right with me:

a) The hivemind is constantly surprised by how Carol behaves. The things they do to comfort her, the things they say to act human, and the arguments they give all are so cartoonish and basic. I would expect that a hivemind of countless neuroscientists, psychologists, actors, and just people with raw experiences would have a much better understanding of human behavior and would be able to predict human behavior much more efficiently.

One random example of this: when all survivors first dine together, Carol prompts the kid of the Indian lady to say something medically gross. Now in that instance, the hivemind should have been able to easily predict what Carol was trying to do, and that answering Carol would hurt the mom. That’s like a level of intelligence you can expect from a single human brain.

b) I realize we are meant to suspend our disbelief and just accept that somehow this virus makes people less aggressive. But I think this is a very big leap of faith.

For example, what if the virus affected only a group of extremely aggressive, schizophrenic psychopaths? People who had no sense of empathy. What if it affected only two people who hated each other to death? What if it affected only a group of babies? How will babies know if they hurt a cat without a theory of mind? Will the babies be just less aggressive by default? What does that even mean? So many unexplained questions.

The show gives very little support that such a simple virus can modify something as complex as billions of brains in such a specific way, and somehow all other human emotions like aggression are wiped away. I would expect the emergence of something much more nuanced that’s based on the individual personalities to some extent.

c) And then the argument that they can’t hurt anything – if they are taking it seriously, wouldn’t the most logical thing to do be mass suicide considering the trillions of cells that will die inside a single body every day simply because the body is alive? How is starvation the biggest concern we are shown? Shouldn’t they be allowing mosquitoes to bite them and spread diseases, just so they don’t cause the mosquitoes to starve? Shouldn't they stop eating and consuming energy entirely just to save more for potential non-hive member in the far future?