Slaves Enforce Their Own Slavery

Short Version of the Post

For me, modern societies resemble slave systems more than an actual society. Because "society" is something like a family, or tribe, or coalition of tribes.

Modern societies are conglomerates of individuals looking out for themselves. Dog-eat-dog situation all around.

There are only two distinct groups in every so-called "society":

• Slave masters (<10% of people at the top)
• Slaves (everybody else)

The most ironic thing is that the slave masters do nothing but look down on everyone they "own". It is the slaves themselves that police each other and internalize slave-master interests as their own.

Slaves enforce their own slavery by believing in and promoting ideologies, and punishing any deviation from the dominant, elite-led narrative.

And history shows that this is just a natural human tendency (status seeking, desire to ascend in a hierarchy vs dismantling the hierarchy) that produces these outcomes.

And things are never going to change. Because you cannot change human nature.

Egalitarianism — Before Hierarchies

In nature, resources are ephemeral and require strong cooperation to acquire.

A single human, no matter how superior he thinks he is, cannot survive indefinitely on his own in the wild — barring modern technologies, that is. We are talking about prehistoric humans with primitive, local technology.

Best-case scenario? You live into old age if you happen to live in a very "easy" environment. Think of Robinson Crusoe who survived on an island alone; the story may be fictional, but is a faithful representation of the unlikely conditions required for a single human to survive in the wilderness on his own.

However, a human living on his own, even if he manages not to get eaten, is far less likely to have children. His biological superiority will die with him.

The "biologically inferior" humans that choose to cooperate are far more likely to outlive him and produce descendants. Even in hostile environments that a lone human would have no chance of survival, like modern-day African savannas.

(For context, a single human cannot thrive in modern-day savannas even with modern technology. The environment is just too hostile. Local tribes, on the other hand, not only survive in these conditions, but thrive)

The why is not hard to understand:

• Warehouses don't exist;
• Agriculture doesn't exist;
• Husbandry doesn't exist;
• Predators are everywhere;
• Prey is large and fast;

There are other reasons, too, but these five are the major ones.

Warehouses allow modern humans to store surplus and accumulate it. You cannot do that as a prehistoric human. The food that doesn't get eaten right away rots. Burying food underground, drying meat, etc all exist, but they do not solve the problem of "no warehouse".

Agriculture at scale doesn't exist. Humans have taken advantage of naturally-grown fruits and grains for hundreds of thousands of years. Sometimes they even cultivated certain plants. But this wasn't the same as growing wheat which (even to this day) is the staple of most people's diets; wheat can be turned into high-calorie foods, and wheat is relatively easy to grow (in the right environment). There were other crops that humans domesticated independently in all parts of the world, but wheat was the major one. Whatever humans had grown pre-agriculture, it was not enough to justify permanent settlements.

Husbandry as we understand it doesn't exist. Animal foods — meat, eggs, etc — have to be killed and/or found. And you need to do it daily — you cannot survive without animal foods. And domestication did not begin until very recently in human history. Besides, most animals humans hunted were impossible to domesticate. Also, in order to domesticate an animal you need a food surplus to feed it and a permanent settlement to control and protect it.

Predators are carnivorous animals capable of killing humans. A lone human might be able to fend off a large predator once or twice. But he cannot do that indefinitely. On the other hand, large groups of humans can intimidate predators, or at least fight back together. This is a very real danger for prehistoric humans, and the only solution is cooperation.

Prey animals are usually not dangerous to humans, but successfully hunting one is hard. Humans are slow and not very strong — or at least not fast and strong enough to catch one and kill it with their bare hands. Hunting success is not guaranteed.

These five problems have solutions, but they require cooperation with other humans to work. Additionally, these problems all interact with and reinforce one another. In practice, it took humans hundreds of thousands of years to eventually overcome them. Until then, they were forced to rely on each other or perish.

A few possible scenarios

A lack of animal food (hunting failure) can be rescued by a successful forage. However, a successful hunt not supplemented by forage may still not be enough. But for one person to forage, there needs to be someone else to go on a hunt instead. You cannot be in two places at once.

A single hunter might fail. A few hunters that spread out and share their food upon return means that even unsuccessful hunters get to eat and live to hunt another day.

A large number of hunters works in everyone's favour; a single hunter cannot afford to be unsuccessful or he will starve. Two hunters have a greater total chance of success. Ten hunters all but guarantee a successful hunt that gives everyone something to eat.

You don't need everyone to be successful 100% of the time. Some hunters will inevitably be successful and that buys survival for everyone. The chances that all hunters return empty-handed are negligible.

There is also the possibility of hunting large prey that can keep everyone fed for weeks — mammoths, bison, etc. But this can only be achieved by coordination and planning; a single human will never be able to kill such a large animal successfully.

Let's also discuss the possibility of injury.

There is archaeological evidence showing that injured humans lived for years after getting injured. There is also evidence of healed wounds — wounds that would take months to heal, such as broken bones.

This would never be possible without other humans deciding to protect their member and giving them their food for nothing in return. A lone human that gets unlucky and winds up getting injured is doomed.

Whichever way you look at it, you need other humans to survive as a human living in the Palaeolithic.

Unlike in modern times, you cannot just accumulate resources and sustain yourself on your own indefinitely, no matter how fantastic you think you are.

The number of unlikely coincidences that have to align in your favour to allow for lone survival in the wilderness? Astronomically unlikely.

By contrast, survival within a group, even if imperfect, is not only possible but actually sustainable; people die for various reasons, diseases exist, etc, but humanity and its predecessors have managed to survive and thrive for millions of years.

And the key reason for this was cooperation. Reality punished defection, the group punished bullies and thieves, and cooperation was simply the most rational and sensible thing to do given the material conditions of prehistoric Earth.

Human Hierarchies Emerge

Hierarchies among humans emerge only when resources can be accumulated. They cannot emerge without surplus.

In hunter-gatherer societies, hierarchies are flat, flexible, and in any case nowhere near as gargantuan as the gap between peasants and lords, or modern workers and billionaires.

The first hierarchies — a situation where one individual or a tiny elite monopolizes power and resources, while everyone else is left with almost nothing — emerged only once very specific material conditions became a new reality.

Pre-agriculture, you can only dominate humans that are physically weaker than you. Even then, the remaining humans are very likely to form a coalition against you if you bully others just for the fun of it. Conflicts, brawls, etc happened in basically every human group in history, but there is a big difference between two individuals fighting over a disagreement, and a single individual picking fights with everyone for no apparent reason. The former is tolerated; the latter not so much.

But when surplus emerged?

Post-agriculture, post-wolf, post-cat, etc food could be not only hunted, but grown en masse; surplus would get stored, cats would protect it from rodents, wolves would help defend the territory, and thus a group could settle and live off the land they declared "theirs".

And this is when the calculus changed.

Whoever physically controls the surplus also gets to decide who gets what and how much. The individual who controls the surplus technically loses his power every time he gives up some of his "wealth" and gains nothing material in return. The calculus shifts from sharing it among the group to hoarding it and consuming it himself.

And this is where human nature shows its imperfections.

Every human is fundamentally designed to crave and protect their own individual power. There are different types of power — physical, social, economic, competence, etc — but the mechanism doesn't change across these types:

• More power — good (survival)
• Less power — bad (less likely to survive)

In the Palaeolithic period, this power-craving was tempered by the much greater need for cooperation. In any event, the power-craving instinct was channelled into gathering ephemeral resources in an ever-changing, hostile environment. This so-called "power-craving" instinct did its job in ensuring human survival.

Post-agriculture etc, that instinct didn't disappear, but the pressure eased. Individual needs started to override the needs of the group.

On the flip side, a hoarder that doesn't share his surplus with anybody will just be overthrown by the disgruntled majority. So that isn't an option either.

The solution is a caste system that rewards people who help the hoarder protect his wealth (e.g. minions, henchmen, etc) and gives everyone else just enough to shift the calculus from rebellion toward a reluctant submission.

Thus the first kings and queens became kings or queens.

And the rest, as they say, is written history. History of exploitation, wars over resources, disgruntled peasantry, conspiracies, etc that all stem from this resource imbalance and power-hunger.

Humans Resent Hierarchies

The paradox of humanity is that everyone fundamentally hates being a subordinate. When given a chance, humans will gladly overthrow those that dominate them. And they will not only enjoy it, but even justify it with a moral story about "justice" or "freedom".

On the flip side, humans love being the ones who dominate and tell others what to do. And when they do, they invent their own stories that justify the hierarchy: the "slavery is natural and just" ideology, a God-given right to rule, the "meritocracy" ideology, and many many others.

This tension defines everything we know about humanity — from history books to the world I currently inhabit.

Nobody wants to be ruled, but everybody wants to rule others. Conflict is inevitable.

Prehistoric environments made hierarchies flat and less oppressive. And even if an oppressive hierarchy emerged, the solution was quick and simple. Post-surplus environments made hierarchies viable in the long term and inevitable.

A domineering attitude could get you killed in prehistory. Post-agriculture, being domineering is the only rational way to secure your own survival and well-being. The latter might get you killed, but the former will almost certainly kill you. The latter will have you rewarded, but the former won't.

When environmental pressures disappeared, human imperfections reared their ugly head, resulting in oppressive societies becoming the norm. Those who controlled the most resources automatically controlled everyone around them — because challenging someone better armed than you is suicide, especially when you are the only one challenging said armed baron or knight.

As time went on, states (ruled by tiny elites that controlled most, if not all, the resources within their domains) developed more efficient ways of protecting their wealth and power; better coercion mechanisms, more sophisticated hierarchies, administration, ideologies (religions, morality) and others.

Dissent was contained, laws were written, coercion made obedience non-negotiable...

...and crucially, ideologies were invented.

Modern States — Slave Societies

Ancient slaves knew they were slaves. And they openly talked about eating their masters alive. And on some notable occasions, they did exactly that.

Modern humans? They believe they are free while living in a slave system.

I've written an entire post about ideologies. I can't possibly fit all of it here.

The short version is:

Ideologies are convenient stories people tell themselves about their material interests.

Rich people tell everyone their story about why they deserve to be rich. Poor people tell everyone their story about why they deserve not to be poor.

Warriors tell everyone their story about why war is glorious and necessary. Farmers and merchants tell everyone their story about why trade and commerce are better than war.

Democratic states tell everyone their story about why they deserve to exist (more just). Autocratic states tell everyone their story about why they deserve to exist (more effective).

Men tell everyone their story about why they deserve more rights and privileges. Women tell everyone their story about why they deserve more rights and privileges.

So on and so on.

Ideologies are not objective truths or descriptions of reality. They serve an interest group and their own self-interest.

Going back to modern states

Ideologies can be manufactured and used to deceive the very people they don't serve. And this is exactly how states sustain themselves despite being fundamentally hierarchical, unjust, and oppressive.

The first ideologies were likely metaphysical, i.e. "God gave me the right to rule over you" and "Those who fail to obey His word will suffer eternal damnation". Thus slaves were led to believe that they can benefit more from blind obedience and passive acceptance of bad conditions because the alternative was eternal damnation.

Suffering on Earth for a few decades to avoid the eternal fires of hell sounds like a good deal. If it were true.

Then states came up with better ideologies that convinced an even greater share of their people to obey them.

"Lords and Kings protect you" — an ideology that frames the unnecessary oppression as a good deal in which you get something valuable in return for your labour.

"We are the Master Race" — an ideology that claims that aristocrats are biologically superior, thus deserve more resources and power because they can use it better than the great unwashed who are just "stupid peasants".

"States exist to solve the coordination problems" — an ideology that pretends that states emerged as a well-meaning response to a very real problem in human societies.

"Law enforcement and courts exist to punish criminals and keep you safe" — an ideology that reframes dissent and refusal to accept bad conditions as pathology.

"Billionaires innovate and help humanity progress" — an ideology that reframes elite power-hunger as a misunderstood desire to help the very people they oppress.

"Corporations serve you by creating a better life for many people" — an ideology that pretends that corporations are not profit-seeking entities willing to deceive people and sell bad products.

I could go on like that because every society has its own ideologies depending on the time period and the needs of the then-present elite.

The more interesting question is how exactly these ideologies help elites and oppress peasants.

Brainwashing — Why Slaves Police Other Slaves

I don't believe in ideologies. I see them exactly for what they are.

But I am in a minority.

Most humans — from ancient history through medieval times to the 21st century — have believed in some kind of ideology that guided their behaviour.

Ideologies sound great (they promise rewards in the future), give you permission not to think (making life feel easier), and let you pretend that your horrible life is actually great (justifies inaction).

Reality is very complicated and the world is not just. Ideologies — especially when performed by the elites, and especially by everyone around you — permit you to pretend that life is actually very easy, and that your life could not possibly get any better.

Alternatively, ideologies acknowledge that life is unjust, BUT they are quick to point out the cause of all your misfortunes — e.g., the Jew, communists, Marxists, Satan, patriarchy, etc — and promise that defeating this invisible enemy (scapegoat) will solve all your life problems, bring about a new era of utopia and abundance, and you will live happily ever after.

You are then mobilized for the pursuit of your ideologue's private agenda that may or may not align with your own well-being and interests. Most of the time, you just end up used and discarded once your usefulness runs out.

If it looks self-defeating, then you would be correct. Reality always punishes self-deception.

But humans are not truth-seeking machines. At their core, humans are emotion-driven apes with logic that is sometimes activated after the fact.

Pretending that your oppressors are actually your saviours, and that the unjust world you live in is actually just?

It's emotionally satisfying.

Everything humans ever do is motivated primarily by their emotional states. The thing that gives them the most emotional satisfaction, for the least possible effort, is the thing that most people usually do.

Even the belief that humans are somehow above animals and have a so-called "free will" is motivated by the desire to feel superior. Not a desire to understand how the world actually works.

Another important thing: prioritizing tangible short-term gains over abstract long-term ones.

Self-deception will harm you in the long run. There is no world where it won't happen.

But the alternative is to give yourself a hard time now (thinking costs energy) in exchange for something uncertain far into the future.

Most humans will pick a certain payoff now (emotional satisfaction) over an uncertain payoff later (better material conditions, clarity).

And those who understand it can exploit it

A medieval king who wants to justify his oppression can tell everyone a story about his great deeds that prove his wizard-like abilities and justify why obeying him is the rational choice.

It's a very stupid (even if real) example of ideology that gets accepted easily and then self-replicates:

1. King defeats the Big Bad Dragon (chosen by God of Light);
2. Peasants know they can't overthrow King anyway (surrounded by armoured knights);
3. Children hear those stories and internalize them at a young age (growing up with myth);
4. Adults dismiss the story as horseshit, but don't challenge King openly (children don't get told that King is telling them fibs);
5. Future generations of peasants pray to God of Light and willingly submit to King's heir;
6. Peasants now ostracize and mock anyone who dares question the plausibility of the Origin Story;
7. Their children hear the story, internalize it, and nobody challenges the King openly (dissenters suppressed, children think the story is true);
8. The cycle of slavery continues.

Every large human society that survived for any significant length of time had some "Origin Story" that justified existing power structures and coordinated the behaviour of its people. Unjust societies without ideologies to reframe the injustice as justice fell apart.

Because there were hundreds of societies across the globe, and explaining them all would take too long, I am going to bring you back to my present reality (21st century) and show you the same pattern.

Modern societies are very complex — much more complex than anything that came before them — and are controlled by numerous powerful entities. For the sake of brevity, let's examine just three of them and how they legitimize their oppression to the very people they oppress.

The entities to examine are:

1. Governments (Executive power holders)
2. Law enforcement (Police)
3. Schools (State education)

I am going to describe the average Western state (because that's where I live), although the pattern is universal for most states as of 2026. Justifications are fundamentally the same everywhere you go, even if details aren't. After that, we are going to examine how all this comes together and the final result:

How slaves learn to enforce their own slavery onto other slaves and believe themselves not to be slaves.

Entity #1: Governments

Western states are "democracies". Although sometimes even non-democratic states pretend to be democracies (e.g. North Korea) because the "democracy" ideology provides an appealing justification for the existing power structures that are hard to argue with.

The "democracy" ideology pretends that its government is an egalitarian and temporary (!) entity that was chosen directly by its non-elite, worker citizens. The process of choosing the government is called "elections".

There are different types of democracies depending on the country, but every one of them has some kind of referendum — the process by which individual citizens name their desired candidate and cast their ballot — after which all cast votes are counted by a central authority and the winner is declared. Thus the elected candidate receives some form of executive power in the state — whether it's a mere member of parliament or someone more powerful, like Prime Minister or President.

At least, this is how democracies are supposed to work in theory.

Because when you examine how this "democracy" ideology works in practice, you start to notice patterns of oppressive and elite rule that are anything but "democratic".

Most people are content to just accept the ideology and live their entire lives in the mistaken belief that they are actually "free" and have more control over their destiny than they actually do.

Western states are quick to declare any critics as "troublemakers" and hurl all sorts of epithets at them. Most people who are faced with the choice of listening to the critique and potentially acknowledging it ("turns out we are not actually free") are handed a pre-made response that justifies instant dismissal ("he is a troublemaker and complete idiot"). The former is hard and distressing; the latter is easy and emotionally satisfying.

Most people opt for the latter.

So how do modern democracies actually work?

Technically, individual votes do indeed matter. Every peasant who votes has a real (even if minimal) impact on how his state is run.

But think of this logically: every peasant only gets 1 vote. In a state consisting of millions, sometimes tens or hundreds of millions of peasants, your individual vote is irrelevant.

You are not exactly "free". The things you need or want depend on the consent of millions of other peasants who are not concerned with what you want and are happy to promote their own interests even at the expense of yours. If the electorate chooses a government that ignores you, or decides to sacrifice you, then you are faced with the choice to either submit to your doom OR resist everyone around you.

Conflict is inevitable. Because disenfranchized citizens rarely just accept this type of "injustice". And you can see it across democratic societies across history.

The "democracy" ideology often pretends that when peasants are given the power to vote for their leaders, they will choose leaders who will govern everyone fairly and justly. That all peasants will benefit from the arrangement as it will ensure a fair and just society.

This belief is fundamentally incompatible with human nature; every human desires personal advantages over other humans, especially in a society of strangers. Thus the majority of peasants NEVER vote for "the greater good" that can benefit everyone or provide long-term benefits. The calculation always is, "Who can give ME the most stuff NOW?"

Hundreds of interest groups across a society pull in different directions, all wanting the biggest slice of the cake for themselves.

The idea that this arrangement can ever produce "a fair and just society" is misconceived. And this isn't just my opinion because it has been proven wrong by reality numerous times.

The only way you can retain faith in this ideology is if you deliberately choose to ignore reality and pretend it doesn't exist.

There is also the claim that peasants in democracies will settle their differences peacefully and choose what is best for most. I've already explained how people never choose to vote for "the greater good", but the peacefulness claim deserves dismantling.

Violence among individuals with conflicting material interests is the norm rather than the exception. Unpopular interest groups face socio-economic and sometimes legal consequences for not adhering to the will of the majority and dissenting. Additionally, state crackdowns on unpopular interest groups occur frequently, despite what the "democracy" ideology claims about its freedoms of expression, speech, etc; sympathetic and popular voices are respected and protected, while unsympathetic or unpopular ones are dismissed, punished, and then ignored.

This obvious contradiction — not only violence and socio-economic exclusion, but even state-sponsored crackdown of unpopular interest groups — should be noticed and corrected in a society that claims to be "free and just". But 99% of the time, the exact opposite happens and dissent is simply punished rather than respected. And the majority of regular people pretend that this isn't real.

I am not joking or exaggerating. The majority of people in democracies will turn a blind eye to the state's patent persecution of unpopular interest groups. They would rather convince themselves that democratic states only punish "troublemakers" (even when evidence exists), and then go on and preach the ideology as if nothing undemocratic had happened.

The core reason behind this behaviour: tribalism.

"My side" — as in, the people who want exactly what I want — are the good guys. And when they get violent, it is either a complete lie (they are not violent) or somebody has provoked them into lashing out (they are justified). And when they get accused of corruption or oppression, it is proof that these other guys are "evil" because they're spreading lies.

"These other guys" — as in, everyone who wants something different than what I want — are the bad guys. All of them are violent, stupid, and do nothing but cause trouble. The corruption and oppression allegations against them are "obviously true" because everyone on my side agrees with me. So it must be true.

Now imagine this exact dynamic playing out in the same society between dozens or even hundreds of different interest groups.

There is nothing peaceful or fair about this arrangement. It is simply a power struggle where the strongest dominate the weak and claim moral superiority and legitimacy. After all, the government was elected peacefully and justly (not quite). The laws in the state technically forbid violence or state crackdown on dissenting opinions. Technically, you cannot be deprived of your life, shelter, property, or economic status on the basis of your political alignment. Technically...

And there is no sense pointing out this contradiction to the dominant interest group and demanding redress because they don't care. Think back to what I said in the earlier chapters about power-craving and human hierarchies. "Democracies" are not immune because they are just a semi-peaceful power struggle over who gets to control the resources and power within the state. And when imperfect humans get a taste of power, they are very unwilling to part with it. And then they crave more.

At any rate, the elected government gets to claim legitimacy and enforce its will at the expense of unsympathetic interest groups. Thus the tyranny of the majority is even more real and oppressive than those who foretold it thought it would be.

The rule of the majority can never be just or fair because the cost-benefit analysis favours oppression:

• Just society for all (small benefit, everyone benefits);
• Long-term growth over short-termism (uncertain benefit, present voters may not live long enough to benefit personally);
• Punish all troublemakers equally (just society for all, BUT it might weaken your own interest group as a result AND might invite state retaliation if you attempt to punish the dominant group AND you might get abandoned by "your side");
• You are on your own (unlikely to find allies, everyone looks out for themselves)

Most people decide that this is a bad deal with a hopeless chance of success and an uncertain payoff.

This is what they do instead:

• Just society for ME (huge benefit, even if only MY side gets it);
• Short-term tangible gains over abstract long-term ones (mediocre but certain benefit, even if only MY side gets to benefit NOW; long-term consequences are not my problem);
• Punish those other troublemakers (make EXCUSES for my side, MY side gets strengthened, my side stays by MY side if the state or those other guys retaliate, I don't get abandoned);
• You are in a group (safety in numbers, reliable allies who share your interests)

What do you know, most people choose the latter.

And this cost-benefit calculation shows exactly why; you can choose to be "the one who cares" about everyone equally, but you will be completely on your own because there is no guarantee others will risk tangible short-term benefits they personally get over abstract long-term ones that are distributed among everyone.

Everyone else gets something — even if it's just being part of a losing group — and you get nothing.

And the history of democracies proves that clear as day. Reformers and idealists are shunned and discredited. Performers and charlatans are celebrated and enthusiastically embraced.

The leanest and meanest groups usually win. And when they become powerful, they don't just stop being "lean and mean". Hah. They actually double down on the "lean and mean" side of their character, and then everyone who elected them acts surprised when they turn on their own citizens — even those that had originally elected them.

And this phenomenon of elected governments turning on the very groups that had elected them? For me, that seems to be the natural end point of this tribalistic and selfish power struggle.

The masses act in a despicable way — tyranny of the majority, populism, tribalism, violence — and then they act surprised when they get leaders that reflect all of those things and oppress them in turn.

Peasants elect corrupt and vile leaders because they want stuff from them. Then when the corrupt and vile leaders don't give them anything, everyone acts shocked at this revelation. And then they go on to elect another corrupt and vile leader that promised them stuff. And they get tricked again.

The cycle continues indefinitely, and it is history in the making. I don't know what might happen next, but the way things are going, this doesn't look sustainable at all. Even if the "democracy" ideology pretends to be "the end of history" and an objective truth.

But I left the best one for last

Because everything I just described? That's just theory.

A theory that, when taken at face value, would have you believe that it is the peasants who control their state and their own fate.

This isn't how the world works.

Reality proves that power is indifferent to ideologies and political theories. In reality, it doesn't even matter what the peasants choose in the popularity contest and state-sponsored theatre the democratic system because wealth and power concentrate.

And the greatest example of what I am talking about is modern aristocracy and wealthy merchants.

The "democracy" ideology pretends that everyone has the same stake in society and thus the same power to change things. It sounds both empowering ("peasants have a say!") and more just than the past ("no kings and lords oppressing us!")

The reality is so disappointing that most people resort to self-deception just to avoid an existential dread caused by the realization that the fundamental fabric of civilized society hasn't changed in thousands of years.

Firstly, you don't get to just "run for election" as a dispossessed peasant. The ideology claims that everyone can run for office, but reality contradicts it at every step of the way.

You still need to survive; society doesn't just give you the means to sustain yourself. Even the most basic necessities, such as clothing, food, and shelter, are not given to almost anyone. You must find a way to get them yourself, and most people spend a third of their existence figuring out just that.

But forget about sustenance, because that's not the difficult part. To have any hope of winning any election, you must find a way of interacting with the general population. That, as noted previously, often invites violence and state crackdowns if you threaten the interests of the dominant interest groups or the existing elites — and the legal consequences will be blamed on you.

You need free time (not distracted by serfdom) and resources (millions of "coin", most people can't afford it) to travel far and wide, rent spaces, send out invitations, and much much more that we can collectively understand as "logistics".

You need to afford all that just for the opportunity to make your case to the people. And even if your intention is to start a "political party" — and you intend to travel around with a group of future parliamentarians — you still can't afford the costs of campaigning, even if everyone donates to the party, because the average worker owns almost nothing.

To illustrate the point: in the UK, successful campaigns require millions of £, meanwhile the average UK net worth is well below £500,000 per person. You can technically put yourself forward as a political candidate, but you are practically doomed before you even start.

Different states use different currencies, but the pattern is fundamentally the same: the bottom 90% work for survival and own little, while the costs of campaigning run into sums hundreds of times greater than what the average citizen can afford.

Simply put: You need economic power if you want legislative power. You will NEVER win an election as a serf who owns nothing and has to work for survival.

Secondly, state crimes against their citizens.

Reformers and idealists typically see problems in society and want to address them. And in hierarchical societies, the root of many problems stems from corruption and wealth concentration.

State actors have a strong incentive to eliminate anyone who challenges their power base or threatens to discredit them — assuming the state actor or institution is determined to keep their short-term gains. And history shows quite clearly that this is the norm rather than the exception.

An unpopular reformer is therefore more likely to be slandered, mocked, discredited, or unlawfully arrested than actually "make a difference" in his democratic society and effect real change.

Entrenched elites already control the narrative, law enforcement, information sharing, and most importantly, they sit on mountains of gold.

A poor serf running for election will never win the legal battles and social costs that entrenched elites can throw at them.

It is theoretically possible, so the ideology lives on in the minds of the masses. But if we're being honest, it's probably more likely for a medieval peasant to claim to be a king's bastard and become king, than for a modern serf to win legislative power through "democratic" means.

Thirdly, ambitious commoners outnumber the "the greater good" ones.

Commoners can and do gain political power. But they don't gain it via good ideas or integrity.

Modern elites can't afford to be openly oppressive lest they get eaten by those they oppress. It is a lot more sensible to allow a pre-selected batch of commoners to win power and work with them.

Commoners who dream about joining the elites? Commoners who have no regard for anyone? Maybe a commoner from a moderately-wealthy family who has nothing in common with the majority of peasants in his country?

Most people are not philosophers or idealists. They are selfish individuals looking to "make a career" in politics, and their own language is diagnostic.

The fact is that most commoners who want political power want it for selfish reasons. Status-seeking? Material greed? Whatever it is, they always think strategically about how to navigate the complex world of politics in a way that benefits them personally. And they never do what they promised to do once in power.

And these are exactly the people elites even consider potential allies, and not threats to their own power base.

There is also the phenomenon of the masses actively resenting and persecuting reformers and idealists. Young and energetic reformers, even if they somehow gain political power, very quickly learn that humans don't actually want the things they claim they want. Rather than universally beneficial reforms, the masses turn out to be angry mobs divided into hundreds of separate interest groups who are hungry for some short-term benefits NOW. And so the reformer is faced with the choice to leave politics, or join some corrupt political entity to save his own career, salary, and behind-closed-doors opportunities. Because he realized that no one wants his beneficial ideas.

But that last paragraph deserves its own post, so I will leave it at that.

Fourthly, entities with deep pockets curry favours with those wanting to ascend in this hierarchy.

A poor serf simply has no resources to win. And God forbid he talks about reforming his society. Because in democracies, death threats, vandalism, harassment, state crackdowns, etc are common responses to these political intentions.

However, a poor serf who is willing to get his hands dirty and get in bed with corrupt elites is not as hopeless in his struggle.

This is actually the solution to the "firstly" problem I described above. No money? No problem. Just don't forget who helped you on your way up there and you will live a long life.

The only but is the sheer number of poor commoners who are prepared to do the same thing and be even more ruthless and disgusting than you are. Not everyone is brainwashed by ideologies, and many cynics are ready to take advantage of the system for their own gain.

Once in power, promises to the peasants are forgotten and new (hidden) alliances are formed. Every single time.

Evidence and allegations of corruption and serious crimes among politicians are not difficult to find. But I won't mention them here for brevity.

Fifthly, media control.

The 20th and 21st centuries are characterized by instant access to information worldwide. And he who controls the narrative will also control the hearts and minds of the people.

Unsurprisingly, those who control the most wealth and political power... often turn out to be the ones who control the media also.

The implications are enormous, and out of scope of this post.

Long story short: people trust the media, they don't see the information that is kept from them, and are trained from a young age to get their knowledge and opinions from these very sources (e.g. state schools teach "political awareness", which means trusting the media)

Even evidence means nothing when state-controlled media simply refuse to talk about uncomfortable topics. It doesn't matter what information you control unless the media (i.e. elites in charge of the state) deem it suitable for public release.

Thus information is tightly controlled and you can only see what you are allowed to see. And the masses are very unwilling to acknowledge any other information sources than the state-approved ones.

Sixthly, corruption is inevitable. A logical consequence of EVERYTHING I have described in this post so far. EVERYTHING has culminated in a government full of corrupt and self-interested individuals who were willing to go to great lengths just to become powerful.

Individuals who have not left politics yet are precisely the individuals you probably don't want to be in charge of your country.

You gave them what they wanted. You can't give them more. So why should they give you anything now? They're in power now. They've already got everything they ever wanted.

But you know who they still have to serve? Modern aristocrats and wealthy merchants. Because they owe these rich groups their entire careers, and if they have a falling-out, their careers would be in ruins.

Unelected aristocrats need not worry about the next round of elections. But career politicians do. So career politicians are incentivized to sacrifice the greater majority in favour of the power-controlling minority. Thus unfair laws and social problems emerge until the country breaks itself apart.

The "break itself apart" is yet to happen at scale. Historically, dysfunctional societies could limp along for centuries (!) before they imploded from internal contradictions and foreign invasions. And while modern humans love the illusion that democracy is "the end of history", I am convinced that this pattern is going to repeat itself. Maybe not within my lifetime, but it will happen sooner rather than later.

And finally, because the masses are led to believe that their state is "theirs", they begin to internalize state interests as their own. Although "state interests" is usually just horseshit for elite interests (!) — and the evidence of that fact is everywhere, if you are just willing to look at it.

Thus slaves begin to enforce their own slavery; they promote the interests of the elites, which are incompatible with their individual interests, and continue to do so in the mistaken belief that they are actually helping themselves, and not someone else.

And because of all kinds of shenanigans going on in the mainstream media — too long to go into detail here, but namely: scapegoating, outrage, fabrications, propaganda, ideologies, silencing of opposition, etc — slaves continue to believe that they are still "free" and the government is actively working to promote their interests. They can't see — or refuse to see, which is more common — that their relationship with the state is fundamentally adversarial and they are nothing more than instruments of war and production.

Which is the same kind of relationship ancient slaves had with their ancient polities. Or medieval peasants with their feudal kingdoms. Or modern authoritarian states with their oppressed citizens.

They don't want to acknowledge the striking similarities because their entire identity up until that point was built on the premise of being a "free citizen":

1. Sunk Cost — "I've already spent 30+ years in this system. If it's bad, my life was wasted. Therefore it must be good."
2. Status — "I'm a good citizen. I work hard. I obey the law. I vote. If the system is exploitation, my status is meaningless. Therefore the system is legitimate."
3. Coalition Loyalty — "My in-group (family, community, nation, religion, political allies) endorses this system. Questioning it means betraying my people and losing friends. Therefore the system is correct."
4. Lack of Alternatives — "If hard work isn't meaningful, if marriage doesn't bring happiness, if voting doesn't matter, if laws are applied selectively, if justice is fiction, if my nation is a fake tribe... then what's the point of life? I can't handle that question. Therefore hard work IS meaningful, marriage DOES bring happiness, voting DOES matter, laws ARE applied equally, justice IS real, and my nation IS my tribe."
5. Learned Helplessness — "I can't escape, so I'll reframe my cage as a choice. My suffering is actually sacrifice. My oppression is actually a utopia in-progress. My oppressive lords are actually my representatives. And anyone who says otherwise is a state enemy or a traitor that needs to be corrected or destroyed."

I haven't even gotten to the law enforcement and state education sections, but the pattern will be basically the same: sunk costs + status preservation + coalition loyalty + lack of alternatives + learned helplessness = slaves that defend their own slavery for psychological reasons.

I started off this explanation with "governments" because law enforcement and state education are downstream of what government gets into power and which elite interests they are anxious to promote and protect.

Societal response to these two big institutions, however, makes for an interesting story that I'd like to tell next. Because "people support corrupt police officers" or "schools brainwash young children" don't really do justice to what is actually happening on the ground, and in any case don't explain how and why this self-defeating loyalty and obedience not only persist across societies, but actually self-replicate.

Entity #2: Law Enforcement

I intend to write a very long post dedicated to a global analysis of law enforcement from its inception (~1800CE) until now (2026CE).

Here, I will provide just a brief overview of what law enforcement is really about and why the people it oppresses are usually its staunchest defenders.

Definition

Law enforcement exists to maintain public order and suppress dissent.

This is an important point because everything in this post rests on this premise.

Modern ideologies pretend that police officers are these brave heroes who risk their lives every day to protect the weak and oppressed. That they save damsels in distress from violent drunkards, investigate serious crimes and dismantle crime syndicates. That they feel "called upon" to protect society in the name of order and justice.

That if law enforcement did not exist, society would descend into anarchy and burn to the ground.

Honestly? It is a load of shit.

There is something to be said about anarchy emerging in the absence of law enforcement — that is true, actually, and I will concede that point right away. But I still believe that the masses behave primarily because of the ideology, not because 2,000 or less full-time officers are policing a town of 1 million people.

Although the real number of police officers patrolling the town at any given time is usually lower. Some of these officers are sleeping right now — they work during the night while others work during the day. Actually, the real-real numbers are probably <1,000, what with police officers spending much of their time on paperwork or civilian-officer duties because the state can't get enough civilian staff into support roles in law enforcement.

Yeah... I am fairly sure the masses behave because the ideology is doing most of the heavy lifting. Not because <1,000 officers are physically policing one million citizens at any given time.

The ideology that pretends that the job of a police officer is dangerous (horseshit), and that they deserve respect and support because they fight crime on our behalf and keep us safe (also horseshit).

The ideology that claims every officer is honest, caring, and dedicated to keeping his community safe (horseshit). Or the claim that police only ever arrest "evil" people who commit real crimes and are a danger to society (horseshit).

The ideology that pretends that "the perfect crime" does not exist because police officers are just so fantastic and omnipotent that nothing and no one can hide from them (demonstrable horseshit).

Most people believe these narratives.

And I am not referring to young children or teenagers who have no life experience. I am referring to all people collectively, including fully grown-up adults.

This image of law enforcement is the norm. Across virtually every society in the world.

And I will say it again, because it cannot be overstated:

I am not exaggerating. This is the image most people have in their heads. This is what people think of when they hear the word "police officer".

An invincible hero who eats cartoon villains for breakfast, sacrifices sleep to save innocent human life... A highly intelligent and morally superior angel sent down on Earth by God himself, working tirelessly to dismantle evil organizations and lock up all the Big Bad villains...

If this were a story for children, I wouldn't be hammering the point home so much. Or even writing about it.

Real people — flesh and blood, bones and brains — believe this myth. And yes, the people I am referring to are adults. Fully grown-up adults who are not mentally deficient. They could string sentences together and hold a conversation when I last spoke with them, so they must not be completely stupid.

These are the people who believe the myth the most.

But why?

"Law enforcement" in various forms has always existed in human societies. They were usually soldiers and town militias acting as "the law" on an ad hoc basis. They were very different from modern police, but performed basically the same functions without modern ideologies.

Just like modern police, they solved some crime (if they felt like it or if you paid them directly). But mainly, they just kept most peasants in line with their sheer presence, and used clubs to bash dissenting peasants over the head.

And, unsurprisingly, modern police act the same way. They just have ideologies that justify their oppression.

Ideologies that I've just described — the stories about police officers being "the good guys", heroes that risk their lives for the common man, etc, etc.

Although another aspect to consider is the distorted history everybody learns these days at state schools, which typically portrays the past as this chaos and constant oppression, while pretending that modern states are somehow better than their historical predecessors. But that is a topic for another post.

Here's how police actually work:

Individual police officers are recruited from the general population. They are offered a decent salary (from a peasant's POV) and a decent pension upon retirement. The state has deep pockets and offers real rewards to those that enforce its laws and obey.

But what if the state is corrupt and oppressive? What if the state uses its police forces to commit crimes against its own citizens?

Police officers have to decide:

• Disobey unlawful orders — I don't get paid, back to poverty, no safety net in old age;
• Obey the state — decent salary + decent pension + immunity from prosecution.

Most police officers obey the state.

But there is a second layer to that I want to briefly explore: What do individual citizens think of police officers who "uphold the law" versus those that disobey the state?

Citizens interpret it:

• Police officer gets dismissed — crooked cop, evil man, troublemaker, danger to the public;
• Police officer keeps serving — acted within the law — because if he didn't, he wouldn't be a police officer. He would get sacked and put behind bars;
• Police officer gets promoted  — saved lives, acted heroically, risked life for us, deserves a reward.

If you assume that the world is just, that states exist to protect and care for their citizens, and police officers are exactly as portrayed on cop TV shows? Then the above interpretation is actually very sensible and liable to be correct most of the time.

Naturally, it is patently false. But most people do not know that. Or choose not to know that.

No citizen actually asks, nor cares about what has actually happened. They demand no proof. They just go with the dominant narrative and assume the system works exactly as stated.

Honestly? In an environment like that, I would be surprised if corruption didn't emerge. Because conditions like these actively select for corrupt officers and punish honest ones.

Blind faith in this institution is exactly what corrupt states need to stay in power while shielding themselves from accountability with the "democracy" ideology — because we were chosen by the majority. They entrusted us with this power, and so we are doing everything we can to promote their interests.

Police forces, on the other hand, pretend they act independently of their government — even though their salaries and pensions are paid directly BY the government — and their ultimate goal is to serve their citizens and protect them from all the world's evils.

Most people, it seems to me, choose to believe this comforting myth for psychological reasons, and refuse to acknowledge that reality is complicated because the illusion feels more useful.

But I don't want to stop here. I don't like explanations that conclude with "stupid people believe stupid myths" because that doesn't explain anything.

So perhaps another reason why the myth is so prevalent is the information asymmetry?

Elite interests hinge on slave obedience. A slave that knows too much gets uppity and begins asking uncomfortable questions. Questions that the elites can't answer honestly because the system built on lies and deceit would collapse like a house of cards.

Then again. The information I share with you is not hidden or inaccessible. You don't need to be part of the institution to know about police performance quotas, such as traffic ticket quotas, arrest quotas, or even conviction quotas. The information is out there if you want to see it.

So we are coming back full circle: you need to want to see it. And if you don't, like most people? Then you can just close your eyes and pretend you can't see what's right in front of you.

It all boils down to the simple choice between short-term emotional satisfaction and long-term clarity.

Law enforcement agencies know that most people will choose the former, and they adapt their narratives to give people exactly what they want: comforting messages, heroic language, larger-than-life mission statements, and promises of a utopia that is just around the corner.

The myth self-replicates because people want it to be true. And to be honest, I would like it to be true myself. But it isn't. And I will not pretend otherwise.

Even when people are personally harmed by law enforcement — unfair traffic tickets, unlawful arrests, malicious prosecutions, fabricated/destroyed evidence — they are quick to make excuses for their heroes:

• Police made an honest mistake;
• Police were overworked;
• Police honestly believed in my guilt;
• Police need more money for training;
• Police need to be heavy-handed;
• Police this and that...

Even when faced with undeniable proof that police destroy evidence, the general public are quick to make excuses such as: "Maybe the police officer honestly believed in my guilt... He was frustrated that the process can be slow sometimes... So he hoped to speed it up to deliver justice quicker?"

Hence the narrative self-replicates, evolves, and hands convenient excuses to police officers who may need to justify their own unlawful behaviour at some point in their career.

Because when the people who are oppressed the most are the institution's staunchest defenders... What can you even say to that?

Entity #3: State Education

This too deserves its own post and a global analysis. State education's emergence is a historical turning point and has had broad implications on the world I live in.

For the time being, let's examine it briefly and see how state education teaches people to become obedient slaves.

History

To understand the modern state school system, you need to understand how and why it began.

The first historical schools are ancient, but they were basically social clubs for rich merchants and aristocrats. They were not open to the peasants and other "undesirables", so we are not interested in these.

No. The history of the modern state school system begins in the Kingdom of Prussia in the 18th century CE. This is where the first state-sponsored, compulsory schooling system was designed and legislated.

Basically everything from that old model has been adopted and used by other states as of 2026. The "Prussian Model" is THE schooling model in our world.

Technology has improved, yes. Interactive "flat panels" have largely replaced white chalk and real blackboards. Students write on paper with a pen or pencil — although nowadays they typically use their own electronic devices or school PC computers on site. School buildings are also better equipped, secure, modernized, and reasonably safe. They even employ nurses and kitchen staff, and are full of first aid kits and fire extinguishers! So materially speaking, modern school buildings are a huge leap forward since the first state schools in 18th-century Prussia.

So just by looking at the average 18th or 19th-century school building and classroom, and comparing it with the average 2026 school and classroom, you would be inclined to believe they were very different schooling systems. But I am here to tell you that that is not the case.

The fundamental premise of the schooling system has been the same since Frederick the Great:

• Compulsory Attendance — parents get fined or imprisoned for failing to surrender their own children to the state;
• Centralized Curriculum — state-mandated, state-funded, pro-state curriculum that is nearly identical across all schools within the state's jurisdiction;
• State Teachers — school teachers are selected against state-desired characteristics and qualifications. No one can teach at a school without state training and licensing;
• Mass Literacy — the fundamental goal of schools is to equip their citizens with basic literacy and numeracy skills to make them productive later in life;
• Obedience to the State — sit down, be seen but not heard, raise your hand before saying anything, respect authority, do as you are told. Obey, and the state agent (teacher) will reward you. Disobey, and the state agent will punish you.

Arguably, Frederick the Great legislated his Prussian Model in 1763 primarily to teach Prussian citizens to be Prussians.

But as time went on, technology became too sophisticated for illiterate peasants, and levée en masse required large numbers of peasants to be ready and willing to fight for the state. Thus, 19th-century schooling models expanded their curricula to include not only nationalist education, but also basic skills and structured skill transfer for different professions. Professions deemed necessary by the state.

Elites would be spared nationalist education and given access to more lucrative professions than those taught at state schools. Only poor peasants had to go to state school.

You see, state-sponsored training was never about lifting poor peasants. The goal was to give them just enough to make them productive, then keep them at low wages so they would work for the rest of their lives and generate value for the state.

But let us stop here.

This short description of how historical as well as modern schools work and what they are designed to do, doesn't really tell us how modern people became unreluctant slaves that learned to enforce their own slavery.

How do you go from being FORCED into a system for ten-ish years against your will, FORCED to spend the majority of your time in an unnatural position that hinders your physical development, FORCED to become a living dictionary who nevertheless is forbidden the opportunities to make use of all the knowledge that was crammed into you, and then either;

(a) MATERIALLY PUNISHED for disobeying the state, OR;

(b) IDEOLOGICALLY REWARDED for obeying the state;

...to becoming its most obedient and vocal supporter?

I swear to God that the people who believe in state education and public schooling systems the most, are usually the people who never benefited from them.

The idea that schools are slave factories — the idea I am describing here — is fringe. Almost nobody believes it.

The cause is INDOCTRINATION.

I'll save the details for another post. I have a lifetime of personal experiences, and there are schools from around the world to examine and analyze. To examine all that in this post would distract from the topic at hand.

In broad strokes, here's how this indoctrination takes hold:

1. At a very young age — sometimes as young as 3, if and when parents decide to enrol their children into preschool — children are FORCED to go to a state-funded institution. There is almost no way you can avoid that fate;
2. The human brain is far from finished developing at age 4. Even at age 10 it is not yet developed. This period is when the human brain cannot analyze information to distinguish useful versus useless. Moreover, young children don't have access to much information at all — they are too young to understand the world and compare new information against the nonexistent "old" facts they had never learned;
3. Therefore, young age is exactly the time you want to start teaching reflexive obedience, respect for authority, and pro-state "facts" that children will never question because:
   1. They lack the cognitive infrastructure required to question narratives and analyze new information;
   2. They feel physically dependent on state agents (i.e. teachers) while in the classroom. Disobeying adult state agents feels dangerous, so they obey;
4. Blind faith and obedience in state agents become reflexive. And because its installation begins at such young ages, it usually calcifies by the time children become cognitively capable of post-hoc rationalizations;
5. State agents (teachers) become synonymous with the state. Thus post-hoc rationalizations not only explain why teachers are good people (e.g. "We owe them everything!"), they also explain why the state you live in is the best place in the world (e.g. "Well, we live in a democracy and have schools and roads. That means our country is the best!") Teenagers sometimes create their own post-hoc rationalizations, although most of the time, they just absorb whatever they are told by school teachers or television and filter it through their school-imposed biases;
6. Everything their new authority figures tell them is assumed to be true and correct 100% of the time. From ages 4-16 (sometimes way longer) they keep learning "facts" about the world they live in, instinctively reject alternative narratives and evidence, and develop nationalist identities;
7. All this and more are presumed to be "normal". As though everyone in society knows it's "normal" because it's self-evident. School children may not see things that way, but they usually feel too isolated or psychologically insecure (i.e. they believe they are dependent on authority figures for survival) to challenge the narrative or ask questions. When they do, state agents are trained to deal with cases like that through ostracization, humiliation, or poor grades. Thus dissent is punished early in life, so by the time the child develops more cognitive abilities, they have already learned not to use them against what they now perceive as "the people we owe everything to";

Thus most people enter adulthood as psychologically obedient slaves. They may grumble about this and that, but nobody will grumble about the fundamental institutions of their unjust societies, such as the schooling system or law enforcement.

You don't grumble about law enforcement being corrupt because you've been told at school that police officers are angels who only mean well. Likewise, you don't grumble about schools because without them everyone would be a complete idiot. These truths are taught as self-evident, which is why almost nobody can articulate why they think schools and law enforcement are good and useful. Instead, almost everyone gets angry at the source of the disagreement — anyone who brought up this topic — and resorts to ad hominem to "win" the argument.

The same way they were defeated at school for dissenting or disobeying the state.

Historically, the punishment for dissent or disobedience was physical — sometimes as late as the early 2000s. Although many states worldwide still practice corporal punishment as of 2026.

Nowadays, state agents are taught to resort to psychological punishment instead: isolation rooms, public humiliation, ostracization, "re-education classes", etc. The goal is to isolate a disobedient slave misguided child and intimidate them into compliance firmly explain to them why they were in the wrong.

On the bright side, the obedient ones tend to be praised and receive good marks — which they are trained to believe directly translates into a better quality of life in adulthood (hint: bullshit). There is no use arguing otherwise because this fact is self-evident and obvious to everyone, so it must be true. Although social reinforcement and public praise from their favourite authority figures is more motivating than abstract long-term promises, so I would say this is what motivates slaves well-behaved children to continue behaving that way: the carrot and stick method.

No two institutions are the same. Different states need their slaves citizens to know different facts and have different attitudes. For example, some countries lean heavily into nationalist education, while others focus on more "modern" ideologies. Some states want factory workers, some want soldiers. Some countries want farmers, some want office workers to drive a desk.

But lest we lose ourselves in the details, the bottom line is that state schools are not these "gifts" to the unwashed masses that exist to benefit them especially. No state has ever worked like that.

States are just oppressive and extractive entities that benefit the few people on top at the expense of everybody else. And the modern schooling system exists to trick you into thinking the opposite. Thus people learn to internalize state interests as their own, and become its staunchest defenders as nominally "independent" adults.

Historical coercion didn't work. Ancient and medieval states were not the same "states" as those that exist today. People obeyed kings and lords for as long as their suffering was not completely unbearable. In the 21st century, people are forced into slave factories at a young age to develop a nationalist identity and internalize the dominant values and ideologies of the elites that oppress them as their own.

The most ironic thing, however, is that the people responsible for this brainwashing — peasants recruited and trained into the role of a "teacher" — are the biggest slaves in society.

They teach obedience to the same people that oppress them (!)

99% of teachers are underpaid, overworked, sleep-deprived, they hate their jobs... And they continue to pretend that the world is fair and that their state is anything but oppressive or unjust.

You cannot be a bigger slave than that.

The short explanation? They enjoy the fake authority granted to them by the state. It is a well-documented fact that, historically, many school teachers were sadists who got off on violating and hurting those weaker than them.

Another possible explanation is that they have internalized state interests the most, or have an unrealistic idea of what it means to be a school teacher. For example, idealist teachers who think that becoming one means they get to actually teach and raise future generations, often wind up disappointed when they realize their job is just making their supervisors happy and creating a trail of paperwork.

I will explore other teacher motivations in another post. These two are the most visible ones.

When teachers complain, they only ever complain about being constrained by their school administration. Some teachers also complain about poor pay, but it is never spoken of as injustice or a systemic issue. The issue is always described as "local", and they honestly delude themselves into thinking that it can be "fixed". As though these things were a bug, and not a feature...

At any rate, enough state agents continue to obediently serve the state and assemble more slaves for bad pay.

The end result is that you have a highly-motivated legion of state agents who indoctrinate entire societies in return for sustenance wages and call it "freedom". And those that get indoctrinated don't even recognize their own indoctrination and consider it salvation.

Slaves Enforce Their Own Slavery — The End Result

Let's recap what happens after decades of state-sponsored indoctrination and why people learn to trust the state that oppresses them:

1. Sunk Cost — "I've already spent 30+ years in this system. If it's bad, my life was wasted. Therefore it must be good."
2. Status — "I'm a good citizen. I work hard. I obey the law. I vote. If the system is exploitation, my status is meaningless. Therefore the system is legitimate."
3. Coalition Loyalty — "My in-group (family, community, nation, religion, political allies) endorses this system. Questioning it means betraying my people and losing friends. Therefore the system is correct."
4. Lack of Alternatives — "If hard work isn't meaningful, if marriage doesn't bring happiness, if voting doesn't matter, if laws are applied selectively, if justice is fiction, if my nation is a fake tribe... then what's the point of life? I can't handle that question. Therefore hard work IS meaningful, marriage DOES bring happiness, voting DOES matter, laws ARE applied equally, justice IS real, and my nation IS my tribe."
5. Learned Helplessness — "I can't escape, so I'll reframe my cage as a choice. My suffering is actually sacrifice. My oppression is actually a utopia in-progress. My oppressive lords are actually my representatives. And anyone who says otherwise is a state enemy or a traitor that needs to be corrected or destroyed."

This five-point list can be applied to any oppressive institution that modern people endorse — be it law enforcement, state education, or the government.

People who have spent decades in a bad system are more likely to cling to post-hoc rationalizations as to why the system is actually good. The fact that societies attach positive labels to those endorsing them doesn't help either.

Coalition loyalty is another very important point. Even I had to face that dilemma: call out an institution for being corrupt and lose social respect and friends, or stay silent and maintain my uneasy relationships which have now started to feel fake to me. Personally, I don't go around calling out every institution for what they are because it doesn't make sense in this slave society. But I refuse to pretend that they are better than they really are, and this has real opportunity and social costs because I am an outlier. Nobody wants to give opportunities to someone who criticizes the police because they automatically assume I am up to no good, for instance.

Also, acknowledging that the system is broken when no alternatives exist isn't exactly liberating. I mean, the society is oppressive, yes, but what can you do with that information? Every patch of land is owned by somebody, hunting wild animals is a crime now (poaching), and to survive alone in the wilderness you need tools, weapons, and skills that you don't get taught at any point in your life. So you can't just cut yourself off from society and live in the wild like your ancestors.

Likewise, you can't just travel to a different country because, one, they don't just let any foreigner into their territory, and two, the costs of moving to another place are enormous. And even if you did all that, you would quickly find out that the new state is basically just as oppressive as the previous one.

There are no alternatives.

The psychologically comforting thing to do is to pretend that the current system is good and works as stated.

And the last one: learned helplessness. This one is a psychological phenomenon by which an organism learns that effort doesn't lead anywhere good, so it refuses to do anything at all and conserves its energy instead.

This last point is better explained by psychologists, but suffice to say that it's a perfectly rational psychological response to the environment we live in. Because if we're being perfectly honest, there is nothing that a single individual can do to change the hostile environment we are all forced to live in. You can hardly even change your own environment and scrape by a half-decent existence.

These five points converge and force you into a very difficult decision:

(a) Accept the reality of your situation — long-term clarity + hopelessness;

(b) Pretend the world is perfect — comfort + meaning + purpose + social status + long-term decay.

It's hard to blame somebody stuck in a bad situation for coping. Long-term decay matters little if your cage is permanent and structurally impossible to escape. Consider it a non-factor, and option "b" doesn't seem to come with any negatives.

But the way I see it, refusing to maintain clarity means that you forfeit any opportunities that might come your way at some point in your life. They aren't very likely, but luck is a strong factor in life. Rose-tinted glasses make it very hard to spot these opportunities; why would you take an opportunity to escape your cage, when you have already reframed it as your choice?

The end result of everything I described is depressing. But it is exactly how my reality works, so I have to say it:

Most people are slaves. They own little, they work in bad conditions, they suffer, and when they are not needed or too old to work, they are disposed of like garbage.

They delude themselves that they are actually free because acknowledging reality feels too costly. The last thing you need on the job is an existential crisis.

When people own nothing, they comfort themselves with political ideologies, such as democracy, for instance.

When people own little, they use it as proof that they live in the best place in the world.

When people earn sustenance wages, they comfort themselves with the "education" ideology.

And so on it goes.

But what happens when a person actually complains?

Most slaves are hostile to other slaves who complain

It seems counterintuitive because it is. And that is exactly what happens to anyone who complains about structural issues. The state had taught its slaves convenient narratives to deploy against any dissenting slave in their local environment.

It's pointless to list every possible complaint in modern society because there are hundreds. So I'll pick a few common ones that most peasants can relate to.

1) "I can't find work" is your fault because:

• You didn't look hard enough;
• You didn't study well enough at school;
• You didn't create a good CV;
• You didn't sound confident enough at interview;
• You are just lazy;
• More reasons.

Nobody will ever acknowledge the possibility that, maybe, more people are looking for work than places looking to hire?

But let's not get bogged down in the details. Your inability to find work is your fault. Nobody will acknowledge otherwise because pretending that the world is fair, that employers reward effort, and businesses exist specifically to provide jobs in society rather than exploit their workers for profit, feels emotionally satisfying.

Note how none of these responses even touch upon systemic issues. All they do is assign blame to the individual who struggles and dares to complain.

2) "I have a bad job" is your fault because:

• Maybe you are a bad worker;
• Nothing is stopping you from finding another job;
• If you don't like it, leave;
• You are just ungrateful;
• You should have gone to college;
• More reasons.

Nobody will acknowledge the structural issues or exploitative business practices. Everyone in society will pretend that you must be failing somehow, and not your job failing you.

Look at what these responses do: they pretend that you can just quit your job with no consequences, that finding a better job is a piece of cake, or that you didn't study hard enough at school and being stuck in a bad job is karmic justice. Alternatively, people will say nonsense about your job actually being very good and blame you for complaining about nothing.

But these responses are nonsense.

You can't just quit your job unless you are okay with homelessness. If finding a better job was easy, nobody would complain about bad jobs. Going to college and getting a degree doesn't guarantee employment in the environment where everyone has some kind of degree under their belts. And the chances of >50% of people being ungrateful and calling their dream jobs "horrible" are slim.

Furthermore, statistics and personal stories frequently tell us that higher education correlates only with a slightly higher income. Not a bank-breaking income; just a mildly better one. The elites who oppress us and own EVERYTHING never had to work hard OR study hard for their station in life.

Get higher education, don't get it. The end result is the same: You get scammed by the elites who earn 100x more than you ever will.

Still, the statistics never really show how much the better-paying job costs its workers, or how happy they are with their jobs. Nobody really cares about these little details. So the idea that education = better job? Absolutely unfounded. Nothing suggests that that is actually the case.

And personal stories CONTRADICT THAT IDEA ALL THE TIME.

Once again, you can probably see how all these responses avoid acknowledging even a small degree of systemic dysfunction, and place all the blame on the individual that is being used by an exploitative business.

3) "I am poor" is your fault because:

• You should have gone to college;
• You should find a better job;
• Learn a new skill;
• Change your career;
• Move to a different place;
• Stop moaning, you have it better than most people;
• More reasons.

Another batch of responses that all avoid acknowledging that the state might be to blame for your socio-economic situation. No, it has to be your fault somehow.

But again, going to college means nothing when everybody goes to college. And I've already explained that "just find a new job" is not good life advice. Same goes for "change your career", because if you do that, you always start over from scratch and are now having to play the catch-up game for the rest of your life — assuming you even get a chance to switch your career, that is.

The "learn a new skill" advice is sometimes handed out like candy as though it is this proof that every poor person is just too lazy to learn a new skill and find a better job. Again, anything to avoid acknowledging the systemic oppression.

But let me debunk the "just learn a new skill" advice real quick:

Nobody tells you exactly what skills you ought to learn to find a better job. Like ever. It's like telling a drowning person who can't swim to "just swim harder" and blaming them for drowning. It's ludicrous, and people unironically think it's good life advice.

But it gets even more ridiculous when you realize that people consistently waste tens of thousands of dollars they don't have on education — sometimes many years' salary worth of education — and they still struggle to find jobs.

So "just learn a new skill and shut up" is really just a dismissal thrown at anyone who complains to avoid acknowledging systemic issues. Because it can't be anything else.

As for the "just move to a different place" advice: moving to a different place assumes affordable housing that you can just buy or rent at will. But that is not the world we currently live in. If you are somebody who can easily afford to move house at a moment's notice, you are already privileged and can't call yourself "poor".

It's like telling a homeless person to "just buy a new house".

The last response to the "I am poor" complaint is some kind of hostile dismissal that tells you about all the gadgets and modern sedatives we have at our disposal nowadays, and blaming you for not appreciating them better. For better or worse, most people are happy to live their entire lives dependent on sedatives and pretend they are fine and dandy. Hence the "we have it better than most people in history" dismissal.

We indeed have more ways to distract ourselves from our suffering these days. I've written an entire post about modern addictions where I briefly explain the biggest ones.

But being able to drink coffee or eat chocolate to make the pain go away? That doesn't cure the source of the pain — being stuck in a slave system that is deliberately designed to keep you poor and struggling.

Conclusion

The slave system I live in is self-sustaining. The people who benefit the least defend it hardest. Slave masters themselves sit back and watch grinning sardonically.

I will now propose a framework for understanding the relationship between modern slaves and masters.

My slave-master/slave framework predicts:

Slave Masters:

• Own capital, resources, and means of production;
• Extract value from others' labour;
• Set rules that benefit themselves;
• Have escape options (wealth buys them exit from bad situations);
• Actually benefit from the system.

Overall, it's not so bad being a slave master in modern society. Especially with all the modern conveniences that wealth buys you nowadays.

Slaves:

• Sell labour to survive;
• Trapped by economic necessity;
• Follow rules that disadvantage them and benefit others;
• No exit options (leaving job = starvation, leaving country = impractical);
• Suffer under the system, but defend it vigorously.

The last point is how this fundamentally unfair "social contract" is possible in the first place. Modern states don't need violence to enforce their will (though they have it as backup) because their slaves reliably enforce their own slavery.

I have already gone over how that happens, but we can sum it up cleanly in a couple of final points.

Slaves:

1. Internalize ideologies — "Hard work pays off", "Find your purpose", "Marriage = happiness", "Society is just and fair", "Police keep us safe", "Schools help us grow", etc;
2. Police each other — Shame people who won't work dead-end jobs, call unsuccessful people lazy, mock people who won't marry, attack anyone questioning dominant narratives;
3. Punish defectors — Ostracize anyone opting out, correct anyone complaining, deny them legitimacy ("bitter", "lazy", "selfish", "immature");
4. Compete for master's approval — "Employee of the month", "Best hand raiser", "Homework hero", "Good citizen award", Military medals.

The last point is hilarious; masters don't even like their slaves. They usually despise them.

Corporate executives mock their employees and underpay them. Politicians despise their voters. Wealthy people are disgusted by the poor. Sect leaders feel superior to congregants. Police officers feel contempt for the general public. School teachers think their pupils are idiots.

The masters extract value from the people while feeling contempt for them. And the slaves defend the very people who openly disdain them.

This is arguably worse than blatant slavery.

"Real slaves" know they are slaves and will jump at any opportunity to give their masters their comeuppance.

Autonomous slaves feel like they have something to lose by rebelling. They fall for this cognitive trap and reframe their cage as "just the way things are".

"Real slavery" is unsustainable. History is pretty clear on that.

Modern slavery? That one might be a lot more sustainable than anything that came before it.

Historical slave masters had to worry about disgruntled slaves constantly. Disobedience, poisonings, escapes, rebellions, were a constant threat looming over them like the Sword of Damocles.

Modern masters have a majority of obedient slaves that compete for their approval. They have literally nothing to fear from them.

And honestly?

If I were a slave master myself, I would have more respect for disobedient slaves than modern people. The former forces me to respect him and appreciate his dangerous nature. The latter is just a pathetic toady.

I am not saying that slavery is good or bad. Slavery is just a fact about life and humanity. But I can't pretend I don't feel contempt for those who enthusiastically cower before those that oppress them and laugh in their faces.

When you are faced with this reality, can you even feel a different emotion than contempt? Maybe you can. I cannot.