Hivemind

It traces the growth of homo gestalt with the uniting of six lovely outcasts of society who have psi powers and come together as a hive mind, thus creating a gestalt super-being.

Though now extinct, the rachni once threatened every species in Citadel space. Over 2000 years ago, explorers foolishly opened a mass relay to a previously-unknown system and encountered something never seen before or since: a species of spacefaring insects guided by a hive-mind intelligence.

We have the villainous Borg of Star Trek: a hive mind of individuals robbed of their individuality, communicating with each other not by touch or even speech but by omnipresent computer networks.

The marvel of “hive mind” is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from very dumb members.

The hive mind should be thought of as a tool. Empowering the collective does not empower individuals — just the reverse is true.

In any case, culture and technology are increasingly reliant on the hive mind–and whatever its faults, Lanier's broadside helps us consider the consequences of this momentous development.

There are many places, of course, on the internet where a utopian ideal of "here comes everybody" prevails, where the anonymous hive mind is fantastically curious and productive.

It is not my metaphor–the notion of a hivemind, a group sort of consciousness and/or collective body of knowledge, has long been discussed in both academic settings and in common parlance.