That previous one was, indeed, somewhat rambling. For which I apologise. Call it the lateness of the hour, perhaps.
Here is a brief recap, then. What I have come to call dystopians are essentially and simply those irredeemable aberrations produced as a consequence of evolution having a random element to it. They never amount to more than around 1%, if that, and in any social group sufficiently similar in size to the evolutionarily determined Dunbar’s number – the brain’s capacity to know a certain number of other individuals’ biographies to a sufficient detail to know whether they are good or evil – those aberrations will be ostracised, so they can do no harm to the social group. In such a situation, a social animal, like a human, will live in social harmony and without fear, either of the natural world (once they have learned to control fire) or each other.
This is the (social and natural) environment in which humanity evolved – that is to say, in which the human brain evolved. This is humanity’s true nature.
They may simply have only forgotten.
Or, rather, they have been deliberately misled about it by – you guessed it – the dystopians themselves. This kind of understanding is the very last thing they would want included in the education system or the study of psychology (let alone putting this kind of psychohistory itself on the curriculum – as any sensible lifeform would do).
Once the agricultural revolution happens, however, and humanity starts to live in larger groups, the detection – and therefore ostracism – capacity diminishes, whilst the social structure becomes more complex (in order to organise larger groups in collective endeavours – like agriculture or masonry, or religion or social administration/bureaucracy). Those aberrations become increasingly likely to escape detection and therefore to survive – for which purpose they develop various adaptations.
Eventually, they get themselves into positions of social responsibility and turn those positions into something resembling a hierarchy. In humanity’s case, this took perhaps 7,000 years – from, let’s say around 10,000 BCE to 3,000 BCE. At which point we have the earliest archaeological evidence of war between large social groups (state versus state warfare, that is). Racism, in other words – that’s what war is, after all.
Likewise fear. Or to put it more accurately, chronic psychological stress. The human brain was not evolved to be adapted to chronic stress. Immediate, fight or flight response to a predator kind of stress, absolutely, but not permanent stress. The higher brain functioning shuts down and one cannot think straight – thus, the detection ability is lost. Evil people can then manipulate this, misdirect people’s focus and convince them the source of that stress or threat is somewhere, anywhere else but the enemy within, and then provide the false lifelines (thus making themselves look like the benefactor – to escape detection, evil always pretends to be good). This is the essence of how they maintain their control. The manifestations of this method, well, these are multifarious (and nefarious). But they all resonate to the same discord.
So, rather than enter into all the myriad ways these aberrations develop and maintain their social dominance, we’ll simply describe their psychology. The first point to bear in mind is their self-awareness – as aberrations. They are perfectly aware of the fact that normal people would see them as ‘evil’ – or rather, as a threat, were they ever to detect them. Therefore, they spend the larger part of their time obsessed with concealment (hence the existence of conspiracies, and therefore conspiracy theories, and the demonisation of those who investigate them). The other half of their time is spent in maintaining all their systems of domination. But both of those, at the core, amount to the same thing. That is to say, they have the same purpose.
This, then, is how to understand the last five thousand years of human history. It really is that simple. Those five thousand years have, indeed, been entirely shaped by the actions of those aberrations. Sometimes this is visible, sometimes it is a hidden hand (especially as we reach the modern age – this is one interesting contemporary observation in fact – it’s become more visible – perhaps because they have learned that they can ‘get away with it’ – it’s an interesting development. Either that or they have become desperate. Equally likely.).
Where humanity goes from here, then, is one of two ways. They either, en masse (or in sufficient numbers) experience a revelation, let’s call it, all those lies and aberrations are exposed and then humanity does what must be done and then – one hopes – makes sure it never forgets and permanently resumes detection and ostracism, thus preserving a utopia. The other option, well, the dystopians create a totalitarian system of control in which resistance is impossible. In which case you are looking at many centuries of dystopia.
This latter path will not last forever, however. Given they would never be allowed to leave this solar system (one suspects they already know this), at some point they will be forced to accept that there are no new worlds to conquer and, more so, ‘there’s always a bigger fish’ – quarantine, that is. This would most likely precipitate an internal collapse. Factions will form, vying for power, civil war, and so on (maybe even a space opera – who knows?). How that pans out, well, how should I know? I will not be here (I’ll make sure of that, trust me).
What I do know, however, is that this quarantine will continue until pathway number one is finally chosen. Containment, then, is our strategy. Except, well, what upsets me, I guess, is the pain and suffering and trauma humanity will be forced to endure until that time comes. Do they have themselves to blame? I think that’s somewhat harsh as a judgement.
I think if it was up to me, I would want to intervene. It’s not really possible, after all, to look away – one would still know it was going on. And I think humanity has been through enough to know what suffering feels like, to be acutely rejecting of evil.
And what should this intervention look like? What form should it take? That answer is rather obvious – create the circumstances – which is to say reveal the information – which pushes humanity onto pathway number one. Human beings, after all, make their decisions based on the information they have. If they have false information, they still make correct decisions with a correct internal logic, but to we who are in possession of other information, such decisions are mistakes. Game theory again. But give humanity the correct information and they will not make such mistakes.
Hopefully, my dearest readers will understand now the importance of intervention, and perhaps gain an insight into the form these interventions take. In the end, it really does come down to information. In the beginning, we help humanity to eat the apple and consciously understand, and not forget, why they eat that apple – the apple quite simply being detection and ostracism. Of course evil would do everything in its power to prevent humanity from doing that. In that bible, for example, it scares them into not doing it. Coercively controls them with the fear of violent punishment. Replace the word ‘god’ in that book with ‘evil psychopath demon’, and psychological understanding comes aplenty. God doesn’t appear at all in that book (except in the guise of a snake, of course – a symbol of wisdom in the ancient world).
One of the reasons why Atlantis was so harmonious was because this ‘detection and ostracism’ (or, in many cases, ‘healing’ rather than ostracism) was standard, widespread practice. This was, essentially, one of the principal means of guidance with regards to our interventions. The hope being, of course, that this kind of self-protective behaviour, this wisdom, would become simple habit. Once that happens, we, the guides, can leave, Atlantis can dispatch colonists in all directions and pass on what they have learned.
Why it didn’t exactly turn out as hoped, however, is another, longer story, for another time. But presumably you get the point.
I am in fear of digressing once again. Must rein in that kind of thing.
Anyhow, perhaps that really is enough for now. This is how to understand the way your world is today, and how it got to be this way. It really is as simple as I have described. That’s your entire history in a nutshell. That’s who the dystopians are today. Their names or positions, to be honest, are really not important at all. Remove any of them and they will be replaced. And to understand them, and everything they do, you only need to remember they have a permanently conscious terror of being detected and punished accordingly. They are utterly paranoid and obsessive.
They are the ones who are scared.
You should not be.
Because they are pathetic and unevolved.
And you, my dearest things, are not. You are nothing like them. No resemblance at all.
Paschat Diplomacy and Guidance for your Spacefaring Age 