--- > *The social contract is always post-facto rationalization of power relations enabled by technology—a tool—a Promethean fire. If there is a single takeaway from nature, it is—the darker the void, the brighter the flame. Humanity is not defined by its tools, but by what it becomes through them—the art which is produced, the perspective it taught and the reality it dared to define.* > *`- Mars`* ## Society and The Catalyst for Change Every society is built on a set of rules, a "social contract" between the classes, between the individuals and the citizens. These rules delegate and outline a way of life, which all parties can agree is mutually beneficial. If you do this behaviour, then you will be rewarded or punished in this way. This cause and effect, is directly correlated on how severely you disturbed the established status quo, the social contract. However, when those with power in the system, begin to accumulate more than what was prescribed to them, the contract begins to break down. This is the catalyst for "Social Justice," the idea that everyone should have equal rights and opportunities, and that society's benefits, and privileges should be fairly distributed. Of course in this definition, we begin to poke holes in the theory. What is meant by "fairly distributed," what does it mean to have "equal rights and opportunities," what does it mean to "distribute society's benefits?" All theses terms are simply dependant on the established social contract, they speak not to a solution, but to change itself. The wording "fair" is so implicit, that it needs no definition, only the recognition that what is currently established is not "fair." The role of the revolutionary isn't one of governance, nor equality, but of destruction, of action, and of enlightenment. The role of the revolutionary is to show the masses in such a clear way, that it forces society to a confrontation, exposing the injustice done onto the masses. The greater the moral outrage, the more the gears turn, releasing the pressure built up within the system. ### A Thought Experiment Imagine you are either in an Pre-modern Aristocratic or Futuristic Republic Society. Recently discovered is a new medicine. One of the well known Aristocrats, has a daughter, aged 12, who suffered from a rare disease. Recently she was cured due to this new medicine. However, the components of this medicine are so rare, that it has become prohibitively expensive. Should the ruling class spread knowledge of this new development, or keep it amongst themselves? Simply I ask: Is it better to know of a solution but have it be inaccessible, or for the solution to exist without your knowledge of it? For those in the lower classes: When you know of an inaccessible solution, your only path to it would have been different past choices or circumstances - essentially, fate. Without knowledge of the solution, you still believe in fate, but without the specific pain of knowing what could have been. **Rephrased:** The question becomes how technological development effects the social fabric, in this case the contract between Aristocracy and the working class. If you are within the working class, does this development mean that your children, if affected, don't deserve to live? Is that the contract you signed up for? In that sentence, you can see how the roots of revolution begin to take place. - Systems arise from circumstances - Social contract is broken, changing circumstances - This causes demands for change, and cries of injustice - New systems emerge, but inevitably recreate similar hierarchies What's important to note here is that, revolution is a perspective on change, a perception of injustice. However, it itself is not righteousness, rather a psychological mechanism to exonerate the weight of circumstance. Consider the previous example, the disease was rare, if those in the working class had crowd sourced funds, perhaps they could've afforded the medicine. Maybe, if they had been more communicative or more business minded, instead of satisfied with the status quo, they would've had different circumstances. This is just an example, but what's to notice here is that, revolution isn't *the answer*, it is simply just *an answer*. Do not be fooled by the rhetoric, even perfectly egalitarian revolutionaries must eventually accept a hierarchy based on the bell curve of human capabilities. ## The True Catalyst of Change It's been established now that social change is not about justice, rather it is about injustice. It is about the broken social contract, about perceived injustice, and how it creates dissonance between reality. The question becomes, what enabled this injustice? In the previous example it was a medicine, however, this is only part of the truth. The aristocrats didn't necessarily violate any explicit terms - technology simply created new possibilities that the original social contract never contemplated. A true catalyst creates new possibilities that didn't exist before, like how the printing press created new possibilities for information distribution, while Social Catalysts primarily redistribute or reorganize access to these new possibilities, like movements for literacy or education reform. The revolution is as follows, some system is born from a set of circumstances. This system will always set a hierarchy, which will prioritize some set of individuals. As technology advances, this allows those individuals to accumulate more than what the system initially intended. This causes those lower in the hierarchy to “demand social change” or revolt. Thus restarting the cycle. **Technological-Social Contract Cycle**: - **Initial State**: A society establishes a social contract that defines power distribution and expectations - **Disruption**: Technological advancement enables power accumulation beyond the implicit bounds of this contract - **Tension**: This creates cognitive dissonance between the original "agreement" and new reality - **Pressure**: The gap between technological capability and social structure creates psychological strain - **Release**: Revolutionary sentiment emerges as a response to this strain - **Reset**: A new system emerges, but inevitably recreates hierarchical patterns due to human nature and technological reality ### The True Purpose of Revolutionaries There's an inherent tragedy in this role - the revolutionary often believes they're fighting for fundamental transformation of social relations, when they're actually just participating in an almost mechanistic cycle of system adjustment to technological change. Their genuine belief in transformative change (and often sincere moral outrage) provides the emotional energy needed for this adjustment process, even though the end result may not match their idealistic visions. 1. **As a pressure release valve** - they channel and give voice to the collective psychological distress caused by the gap between the original social contract and the new technological reality 2. **As a mechanism of power redistribution** - whether successful or not, revolutionary movements create opportunities for new groups to leverage emerging technological capabilities and networks, essentially "updating" the hierarchy to match new technological realities 3. **As a catalyst for making explicit what was implicit** - revolutionaries force society to confront the ways technology has already changed the effective power structure, even if their proposed solutions may recreate similar patterns It's particularly interesting that the most "successful" revolutionaries are often those who intuitively understand this dynamic and can navigate it strategically, rather than those most committed to pure ideological transformation. They recognize how to leverage new technological capabilities and networks rather than focusing solely on social/political change. The true "role" of the revolutionary is quite different from their self-conceived role - they're more like a forcing function for system adaptation than agents of fundamental social transformation. ### The Question of Time If the cycle always restarts the same cycle, is social change necessary as a catalyst for change? *Those who end up at the top will always be those who can leverage the new technology or the existing / revolutionary network.* If power structures naturally evolve or die with time, what is the true cost of attempting to force change? Is accelerating change by a decade worth setting overall progress back by several? The key question becomes not how to remove existing power, but what technologies will naturally make certain forms of power obsolete? ### A Modern Example Consider the United States' current situation: a technological revolution has enabled unprecedented concentration of power, creating cognitive dissonance between the American ideological self-image and reality. This spawns competing movements that scapegoat different aspects of "the system" - some blame corporations, others blame government, each imagining their preferred revolution would break the cycle. Yet the same voices calling for rapid replacement of aging leadership rarely consider that violently accelerating change by a decade might set the nation back half a century. Meanwhile, emerging technologies like advanced computational algorithms and digital networks are already creating parallel power structures that may naturally obsolete traditional forms of control - suggesting that understanding and adapting to technological evolution might be more transformative than any attempted revolution. What technology makes change inevitable? What is our modern printing press? How do we leverage it? ## Disruption What if the most effective "revolutionaries" today are actually those building new technological infrastructure rather than those pursuing direct political change? Here I'm not really referring to one individual, or one technology, instead consider how the following individuals are treated in public and establishment perception. *Julian Assange, Pavel Valeryevich Durov, Satoshi Nakamoto or even those who might be on the establishment's side, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Peter Thiel.* What systems do each of these individuals wield control over? What effects do they have? How do they leverage them? ### A Short History Agriculture and Metallurgy killed Tribalism, leading to Chiefdoms, Engineering and Papyrus killed Chiefdoms leading to States, Jesus and Banking killed States, Leading to Christianity, Science and paper Killed Christianity, leading to Aristocracy, The printing press and steam engine killed Aristocracy leading to Democracy, The internet and Encryption killed Democracy leading to globalism, and now automation, scalable manufacturing and networks will kill globalism, leading to something new. Modern revolution isn't about storming the Bastille, but about building systems that make existing power structures obsolete. The real power lies not in challenging the system directly, but in creating alternative infrastructures that naturally supersede it. We are about to enter a world where understanding becomes trivial but knowledge of systems becomes extremely guarded. We're entering an era where an individual or small team has the power to wage war on a whole state. Just image what a state actor could do with an AI system that socially engineers old people. Sounds far fetched? Just look at the primitive Houthis, or at Tiktok, this is an era of asymmetry. We're just breaching the surface, you can feel the bubbles of change coming but nothing new has yet to be seen. Look at history, look at the wheels turning, looks at the systems of revolution. #### A Prediction Real time analysis and predictive measures will be the new vector of control. It will be about the identification and effect delegation on critical system nodes to induce a behaviour. Furthermore, specialized data and the crowd sourcing of it will take a front stage for these new systems. However, where they get their data from, how it's collected, etc will be tightly guarded knowledge. **Power lies in:** - Knowing which data points matter - Understanding how they interconnect - Being able to predict cascade effects - Having the capability to influence key nodes Future power won't come from controlling territory or resources, but from understanding and manipulating system dynamics in real-time. The most valuable knowledge won't be the data itself, but the methods of collecting and analyzing it. Think mimetic theory and weather prediction. If you could control the weather through seeding with a specific chemical at a specific location, could you also control mimetic effects? ##### Going Further There will be significant power in the preservation and control over a discrete lifestyle. Discrete here is framed off of macro societal sentiments - Power in controlling what information you consume - Value in maintaining independence from mass social movements - Strength in being able to step outside mimetic cascades - Ability to observe system dynamics without being caught in them ###### One Step Deeper Consider what makes up a "life style." The people you surround yourself with, the activities and opportunities that are available to you, the information and education of those around you, the clothes you wear and see as acceptable, the environment, the architecture... This becomes about creating complete, self-sustaining microsocieties that are: 1. Insulated from external mimetic effects 2. Able to maintain their own internal dynamics 3. Capable of selective interaction with broader systems 4. Protected from uncontrolled outside influence The real power then lies in: - The ability to create and maintain these discrete reality spheres - Control over who gets access to which spheres - Understanding how to manage interfaces between spheres - Capacity to monitor and influence without being influenced Future power might not be about controlling the masses, but about controlling access to key individuals. To maintain management over these individuals, means the incorporation into discrete reality bubbles - who gets in, who stays out, and how information flows between them. It's less about mass control and more about creating and maintaining privileged spaces of existence. If this sounds insane, consider what all societal systems were before this. Consider what upper classes truly represent. Why did the Aristocrats of Versaille have such strange traditions? Why was the Forbidden Palace Forbidden? ###### The New Aristocracy From Plato's Cave to modernity, power has always been about reality control - we're just becoming more sophisticated in how we manage it. The technology might change, but the fundamental pattern remains: those with power create and maintain their own reality, carefully managing who gets access and how information flows. From Eden's Flowers, Footprints in Dunes of Desires, Νὴ τὸν Ἄγνωστος Θεός γενέσθω