For years (decades) I thought the concept was largely just a McGuffin (something Alfred Hitchcock described). A McGuffin is a thing, a device or technology, which requires no explanation but which is needed to move the story forward. PsychoHistory is an as-yet undiscovered branch of mathematics.

Imagine my surprise when I learned there really are people who study and teach Psychohistory. How much like Asimov’s imagined Psychohistorians are today’s Psychohistorians? I have no idea.

But there have been other scientific advances in the past few years which have led me to believe that human behavior is defined by macro forces and influences as much as by individual choice. Intelligence and self-awareness empower us to recognize and make choices differently from the instinctual and near-instinctual levels of species like bees and ants.

Nonetheless, we react in communal ways — even when we don’t share information — to events and trends. Some psychologists are fond of saying “You cannot NOT communicate”.

Even when SEOs hide their tracks and keep their ideas to themselves, their acts of optimization leave footprints in the sand. Time may wipe out some of those footprints but not all of them. Those footprints that we do find usually very closely resemble our own.

In any event, I think we can indeed learn something about ourselves by observing how our neighbors on this planet live together. We only need to look for insight, not answers.

I have two comments to make:
1. I suspect that there is another flaw in the comparison between bees and the SEO community. The majority of the SEOs do not take any part in the swarm activities. They are working along. Making their own experiments, practicing their own techniques and never share their findings with the community.
2. human behavior defer from animals mainly because humans have a free will. Humans are unexpected, and unpredictable. Even if you’ll form a theory about people – there will be a big percentage of people that would not fit into your theory (especially when they will know that you were enframing them). The fall of the Berlin wall is a great example of this unpredictability.