Beat the Empire Next Door

Once upon a time, far, far away and thousands of years ago there was a dusty Empire struggling to survive.  All of their neighbors wanted their resources. Communication was slow and distances were long. Every village, farm and family needed to know what to do. They needed a few simple instructions. Actually, they figured out that they only really needed two basic instructions: 1) Consume more resources every year, and 2) Protect rule one and maintain the stability of the Empire.

Whatever issue came up, whenever they needed to make a difficult decision, they would always turn to these two basic instructions. By following the first one they insured their empire had more food, tools, weapons, walls, roads and people than the competing neighbors. Nothing improved consumption like having more people. In this way they stayed strong and powerful. If they didn’t follow the second instruction they knew that their empire would splinter into smaller pieces that couldn’t defend themselves from their neighbors.

These two basic instructions proved so effective that over time they spread to all empires everywhere. Then competition between empires boiled down to who did the best job at following these instructions.

It was very difficult to increase consumption year after year for thousands of years. It was necessary for empires to evolve rules governing social behavior that grew from the two basic instructions. Just like a few lines of computer code can generate a complex fractal image, these two rules generated a rich set of accepted behaviors and norms.

Those who like to go out into the world and do things were encouraged to come up with creative new ways to consume more resources every year, and to efficiently process resources. This was fairly simple. New things were excitedly encouraged and adopted as they increased consumption.

Preserving the stability of the Empire was a bit trickier. You needed to hold the empire together, but you also needed to be able to adapt to ever-changing conditions in the world. At first this was solved by ensuring that most people had enough energy to do their work, but not enough spare energy to think about ways to change things. In the early days rulers and elders were authorized to make changes to the rules on stability.

All of these rules and social patterns were harshly enforced. So people built up habits to protect themselves from getting into trouble. Neighbors and family members wanted to make sure those around them stayed safe by not trying new things or standing out. Communities worked hard to isolate anyone who had unauthorized thoughts so they could keep themselves safe from new ideas.

Sometimes those authorized to make changes started to question the wisdom of increasing consumption forever. They proposed changes. But, just like a good science fiction story, the social stability program had now evolved enough to have a life of its own. It decided that stability could be better maintained if no one was allowed to update the basic instructions. So it gradually absorbed the authority of those who were authorized to change the rules.

After this important change happened there was a switch in roles. Earlier the social programs had been serving the needs of the Empire and the people. After the social program decided no one was to update the rules, the empire and the people were shaped to meet the needs of the program. The people were no longer shaping their rules to improve their lives, the rules were now shaping the people to better follow their instructions.

One way the program reshaped people was to start shutting down their right brain, the part that is the most curious and creative. It had been causing trouble by constantly coming up with new ideas about how to make things better.  The program had no need to make things better. Its only needs were to consume more resources every year and maintain the stability of the Empire.

At the same time the program was shutting down their right brains it was increasing their reliance on their left brain. The program likes left brains very much, since they like to follow instructions, do things repetitively, and keep doing more of whatever they were doing before.

Then an industrial revolution took place, and created a huge jump in consumption. The program was overjoyed.  One downside, however, was that some people had spare time and energy. That meant that they might come up with changes. Fortunately the program found a solution. People who had spare time could be programmed to use up their energy by monitoring and controling those around them. In a stroke of brilliance the program made these people feel they were taking care of everyone and being exciting.

Eventually the program evolved social media, which allowed it and its helpers to monitor and control almost every action and desire of the people. Consumption and stability took another huge stride forward. The programming became so comprehensive that things just seemed “right” and “comfortable,” to people when they were following the two basic instructions and seemed “wrong” and “uncomfortable” when they were not.

Everyone was comfortable as progress continued its march forward. Brute force consumption of the natural world had outcompeted other survival strategies. Occasionally some had ideas about regenerating their life support systems in the natural world, but they were ignored. Regenerate the life-support systems that provided food and oxygen would not have increased consumption. So the empires continued their relentless march until the world could no longer support them, at which point they collapsed and were never seen again.