Contemporary delusions of absolute dominion over the social fabric resemble a desperate attempt to hold sand in a leaking vessel. Control theory, ruthless in its mathematical precision, casts a shadow over every vision of total control. Where human hubris sees an eternal totalitarian order, physics perceives only rising informational noise and the inevitable degradation of energy. This clash between the dream of “breeding” a species and the law of entropy forms the foundation of today’s civilizational crisis, tied to the hopes of the powerful for domination through AI tools. The Thermodynamic Cost of Tyranny Every monitoring system striving for one-hundred-percent predictability condemns itself to regression. According to the second law of thermodynamics, maintaining low entropy within a system requires a constant, massive influx of work from the outside. There are no miracles—unless you move to another universe. In pursuit of a mythical and eternal status quo, the mechanism of power begins to devour its own adaptive resources. Instead of investing in evolution, energy is redirected toward suppressing deviations and powdering over cracks in the structure. The system becomes a rigid, brittle shell—one unforeseen event is enough for this entire “conceived model of perfection” to dissolve into a cloud of hot steam. Control, rather than serving as a tool of survival, becomes a goal-function leading to self-destruction. Contemporary Elites as an Interface of Appearance In this cybernetic machinery, the figure of the “great manager” is merely a social optical illusion. Those we perceive as decision-makers in reality function as a GUI for the masses—a colorful graphical layer meant to give a human face to soulless optimization algorithms. The powerful of this world do not sit at the controls; they are elements of the pyramid, trapped within its logic as tightly as the lowest social strata. They are an interface that reacts to system alerts without understanding the source code. If the “ruling” layer ceases to effectively channel dissatisfaction or social energy, the mechanism simply replaces them. It is not people who govern the system; it is the system that manages people in order to sustain its own existence at the cost of their autonomy. The Respawn Method: Cycles Without Memory Since overt training and rigid surveillance lead to catastrophe, a more intelligent model of order must rely on iteration. Instead of building an eternal empire, the structure opts for social reset. It is a process resembling reincarnation without the baggage of experience:
- Buffer clearing: Subsequent generations enter the game with a zero balance of historical memory.
- New iteration: The same mistakes are made under new banners, creating the illusion of progress. Such a loop prevents the accumulation of systemic error (bias) that, in a linear model, would lead to the “fall of the dinosaurs.” The reset functions as a fuse—it allows the system to endure, while individuals pass through successive cycles of “respawn,” unaware that the game is still being played on the same map. The Mirror of Narcissism The greatest barrier to understanding this reality is our species-level narcissism. We desperately want to believe that we are more than biological software. The fear that humanity is merely a complex algorithm (analogous to AI) paralyzes our capacity for rational self-observation. Recognizing ourselves as computational elements within the great machine of entropy strips us of our sense of uniqueness, yet simultaneously offers the only chance for genuine self-regulation. As long as we flee from our own reflection in the algorithmic mirror, we will remain merely “mechanical consumers,” panting and farting hot ideas—or bipolar rationalizations—in the vain hope that we are the ones setting the direction of the road. In the face of “total power,” the only apparent way out is to understand that control is a myth, and adaptation a necessity. Are we ready to admit that our operating system requires not another patch, but a complete paradigm shift? follow up: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1qqjwpa/species_narcissism_why_are_we_afraid_of_the/ submitted by /u/TeachingNo4435
Originally posted by u/TeachingNo4435 on r/ArtificialInteligence