# Hive Minds Give Good Hugs

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/hive-minds-give-good-hugs/39419
**Category:** General
**Created:** 2026-07-28T09:13:55Z
**Posts:** 4

## Post 1 by @randomperson — 2026-07-28T09:13:55Z

I just finished the book [“Hive Minds Give Good Hugs” by Thundamoo](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/45048/hive-minds-give-good-hugs).

Which gave me a lot to think about and somewhat of an **insight, why privacy is so much under threat in all modern societies**.

The main character lives through two stories. One in the present, where she is isekaied (born in another world with previous life’s personality intact) into an alien body that can endlessly reproduce and is all her aka. a hivemind, one contentiousness spread out over all the bodies. She also can engineer those bodies from elements of samples (eating new species). The other one in the past, becoming the friend and later lover of an alien landing on earth, in the same circumstances.

Both stories end with the hive mind character taking over the world, **abolishing privacy in the process** (which is just a side note in the story) and becoming an omnipotent “benevolent” tyrant “solving all the worlds peoples problems”.

What makes it so interesting to me, is the very obvious psychologically profile of the main character and her very clear value system. Tyranny by a higher being “with good morals” is an inevitable and good thing, within those constraints. Since this is so clear it reveals to me underlying needs that lead to this conclusion. **It makes me understand what makes people support mass surveillance and their motivation.**

_Disclaimer:_ The following “truths” is my personal interpretation and my understanding. They are based on reading the story, with my personal background and beliefs. You might come to other conclusions and that’s fine. My aim is not to convince you of my opinion, but to offer it for your consideration, because the time I still spend thinking about it, makes it an important one, from my point of view.

Since the main elements of the story are a lovers relationship and an ascendance to pseudo godhood (immortal, extremely powerful, basically omnipotent), I’ve identified patterns and underlying needs that lead the main character to embracing tyranny. I’ll try to explain those in relation to “love, relationship and family structures” and religion. I hope I can show how those two elements of life can be capable of satisfying the identified needs and how people might choose tyranny as an replacement.

Let’s tackle the harder to explain one first: “love, relationship and family structures”

In her relationship the main character occupies a very “classical feminine role”, which is the following. She needs a safe space, provided by a partner, that loves and accepts her as she is. She can’t deal with the outside world, it’s dangers and conflicts on her own and needs protection from those.

In her isekai story, she is thrust in a “classical masculine role”, struggling with the dangers of the world, the need to be strong, the ability (and need) to dominate and protect what’s important to her.

In both story lines, the “masculine” part goes all the way to make the world into a place where she can feel save and that aligns with her values. - This is the fulfillment of her needs.

Those needs are normal and we all start as children, protected by and fully under the control of our parents (even if parents might disagree with the latter). While growing up we gain privacy, self reliance and independence, while loosing protection and restriction. That happens to different degrees. The “classical feminine role” is closer to the needs of children, which makes it’s desired environment (more restricted and very protected) more suitable to birth and raise children (which is why it became the “classical feminine role” in the first place).

That role has gotten a bad reputation, because it’s need to relay on a strong dominant “classical masculine role” as a partner and inherent restrictiveness makes it very vulnerable to oppression. People do not like to admit to have the need for a “classical feminine life” and very generally blame men for being oppressors of women. Instead of finding a partner which takes on the classical husband role (protect and provide for the family), people are left to find a replacement, “that absolutely can not be a human male partner”. So people look at the state or an organization to provide the safe space, the missing husband should have provided within an old fashioned family structure.

Of course, the problem is the weakness of the model. If the protector is benevolent and puts the interest of the protected first and the protected, wants to protected and isn’t bothered by the restrictions that come with that protection, everything is fine. But that’s a lot of ifs and only a percentage of (generalized) women could found (generalized) a husband, that got it mostly right. Giving that role to one person, system or organization that has to get it right for everybody is just impossible.

I hope, I was able to navigate that mine field half way decent and we can take a look at the religious part. Which will be another mine field.

Since I’m mostly familiar with Christianity, I’m prone to have it as a bases I try to generalize.

One aspect of religion is the moral compass it provides. God is (or the gods are) watching what you are doing and they judge you by your actions. For society that role is important, because it softly enforces a common scene of right and wrong and provides incentive to work to be “good”.

The main character of the story is an atheist. In her head, there is no god to watch her, judge her, love her and help her be a good person. But the need for feeling protected, feeling seen and accepted, feeling known and understood is still there. So she needs a replacement. In the story her god like alien grows into that role and embraces the same role, when she gets all the power similar to a good in a pantheon, because she projects her needs to the people of “her planet” and does not accept their “false god” and it’s teachings. It is a common trap for people who are “not religious” to turn to real things that fulfill the same needs, religion does.

**My Conclusion:**

Surveillance is on the rise and tyranny is gaining popularity because modern society has eroded safe spaces (physical ones, like traditional family) and those in peoples minds (like religion). Modern communication technology and especially the companies that abuse them to capture peoples attention, have created a world of real stress and permanently present perceived threat. People desiring a safe and predictable environment to live in and raise children in are desperate for a protection and guidance. Organizations and Individuals seek out that opportunity to establish their own tyranny. They find people willing to accept such as long as they seem to match their needs.

Thank you for reading. If you want to experience the perspective of someone embracing total surveillance and absolute tyranny and experiencing it as a good thing, I can highly recommend “Hive Minds Give Good Hugs”. I’m still not sure how, but I hope the experience I gained from this book, will help me to communicate better with people who are foreign to the idea of protecting you privacy.

How about you? Is this an interesting perspective to you? Could you understand my perspective (especially after reading or listening to the book yourself)?

---

## Post 2 by @overdrawn98901 — 2026-07-29T01:16:57Z

Suppose we could make this a privacy-in-fiction and musings like thread.

I came to a similar experiences of both ends of the spectrum, viewing it in a positive and negative light.

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov is perhaps see in some idealistic positive light. One of my favorite short stories.

[https://open.ocolearnok.org/collegecomposition/chapter/the-last-question/](https://open.ocolearnok.org/collegecomposition/chapter/the-last-question/)

And for the negative side, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

> **[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream)**
>
> "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. The story depicts an AI uprising in which a military supercomputer named AM gains sentience and eradicates humanity except for five individuals. These survivors are kept alive by AM to endure endless torture as a form of revenge against its creators. The story unfolds through the eyes of Ted, the narrator, detai...

And of course video games greatly explore this concept, my favorite being the horror games by Mike Klubnika: [Tartarus Engine](https://mikeklubnika.com/games/unsorted_horror); [s.p.l.i.t](https://mikeklubnika.com/games/split).

I think these stories tell how the interconnected parts of what privacy is with [transhumanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism). How do we see begin to see humanity as it is today with humanity as its integrated with more advanced technology further and further? Part of the exploration is in part of what makes us human - the idea of the self, community, and where we see ourselves tied with this unalive higher order “intelligence”: i.e., the ant to a colony, a person to its government.

I believe that digital life will likely have significant privacy erosion and that surveillance states will eventually be the norm for established technology-forward countries. But I like to believe a lot of what is fought and pushed for now will determine what it means to be a person living in those times, and maintaining the semblance of a self even if just in digital pursuits.

---

## Post 3 by @overdrawn98901 — 2026-07-29T01:37:02Z

> [@randomperson](#):
>
> Organizations and Individuals seek out that opportunity to establish their own tyranny. They find people willing to accept such as long as they seem to match their needs.

My reply likely didn’t exactly touch on this, but I suppose this is always the push-pull nature where the privacy line shifts on what is invasive or not. I think works of fiction help us think about this shift with ideas of comfort and warnings. Security and safety of the community and individual privacy is always balancing act. But yeah, its not uncommon to push security at the cost of individual privacy, as we always see in the news.

> [@randomperson](#):
>
> It is a common trap for people who are “not religious” to turn to real things that fulfill the same needs, religion does.

I don’t think this is an athiest vs theist argument, albeit even if the author is pushing that view. I’d argue its a question of spirituality and meaning in life. To say morality is strictly tied to religion I’d say is a bit antiquated, and moral and ethical philosophy has made plenty of strides in tandem with ethical theosophical life approaches.

---

## Post 4 by @randomperson — 2026-08-02T12:09:25Z

You’re making good points here and I definitely need to check out those stories.

I don’t agree with the idea, that loss of privacy is an inevitability of a modern society. It’s not needed. It’s done because there is an opportunity for power and control for those pushing the erosion of privacy. Technology offers that opportunity. That’s why often goes hand in hand.

The reason, why “Hive Minds Give Good Hugs” had me think about it so much, is that I’m mostly the opposite of the main character. I’m a private and fiercely independent person. Everything in the story works out well for the main character because of very specific circumstances and character trades. Those are very obvious and one can find many flaws by just changing a view of the parameters and/or perspective.

Giving up privacy for community is a trade of every person makes. The more important it is, we have communities not bound to central power structures, that give people comfort and protection. Having your personal friends and neighbors giving access to your apartment in your absence is a very different thing from giving it to Google, Amazon or the Government, both in quality and scope.

You are right in terms of spirituality. It can offer the same comfort and even moral compass as religion. I’m also not advocating for being more religious. I’m just pointing at specific human and societal needs, namely moral guidance and harmonization and a feeling of being known, loved and protected, that religion can address. A decline in religion just means that more people are missing those things more, which opens up opportunities to fill those gaps. - The ones taking advantage of those opportunities don’t do it in the interest of the people, they pretend to serve.

(Just to be clear, I’m perfectly aware that many churches and religions movements used the same patters for doing harm. Most people wary of religion, are actually wary of those organizations who abuse religion to further their goals. But even without religion, the pattern repeats, only with different labels.)

Thank you for the exchange. I like the idea of making this a thread about fictional stories viewed in relation to privacy. I’d love to hear from more people. **What stories had a solid impact on your understanding of the world? How did this changes your views, especially in regards to privacy or community?**