First off, I really see these as 2 different issues and while the "ant colony" concept is worth discussing I see it as necessary to separate it from the "demonizing of the automobile".

However, I watch the steady stream of autos in and out of Boston every day and think it looks as much like an active "ant colony" as anything. The auto dehumanizes the person and causes them to move in a highly linear, organized fashion- maybe more like "auto-matons" than ants but it is not a way of life that I fear happening in the future- it already has happened. We have become, in a sense, automatons.

An automobile is a machine, a thing, a device of our own creation but like Dr. Frankenstein's monster it can become a demon. Mary Shelley's prophetic novel, written at the dawn of the industrial age, serves as a potent warning of a creation of human genius spiraling out of control. Just as the townspeople "demonized" the creature as opposed to the misplaced genius that created it we do the same thing to the automobile. Not that I particularly feel a sympathy towards the auto- it's an inanimate object- but the responsibility for it's destructive nature lies with all of us.