The world before the internet confined communication and information to traditional media channels such as print, radio, and television. In doing so, geopolitical ambitions could be shaped by narratives in which history, geography, and power dynamics played a role. These ambitions could be predicted and potentially course corrected through such control of narrative. The controlling of all possible stories is the heart of this old system of control.

The internet allowed a massive explosion of humans seeking each others stories. Grand stories. Trivial stories. Nonsensical stories. It was all laid bare. Some early internet advocates behind open source movements even believed this outpouring of curiosity and sharing could eliminate the need for the old system entirely. The dreams, hopes, complaints, and grudges that would have become political revolts in the old system were now bricks within the foundation of this new model of endless storytelling.

The old system of control did not collapse and most likely will not because people tend to enjoy having the complexity of the world compressed into simple stories. We now get to live in two control paradigms at the same time. The old system will continue to use the full wrath of the state to punish any individual deviation from the simple story. (How COVID was handled) The new system will continue to make wading through the endless sea of noise-posing-as-relevancy a cost you personally have to pay with the currency of cognitive exhaustion. (Gossip somehow always carrying seeds of permanent revolution) These two systems are apex predators that constantly hunt down our collective psyche, sharpening each others advantages according to the rules of population dynamics. (Many call these predatory forces egregores whereas I have been calling them autocults.)

Methodologies similar to the old system organically arise to instinctively constrict story supply. (This appears to be human nature) Keeping a unified organization often requires a leadership strong enough to maintain a single vision. That organizations success encounters and creates complexity which is then plowed under the yoke of its core vision. Inversely, the new system of control creates geometric volumes of noise each time a person connects to its network. A person creates an entire lifetime of supply and demand for stories. Both systems rely on expert systems, large amounts of data, and demand of cognitive talent that far outpaces available natural supplies of cognition. The mandates of such talent changes based on who they serve: Agents in the old system need cognitive talent to unify complexity with a story where as agents within the new system needs cognitive talent to assemble complexity into a story. Our relationship between the dynamics of these two apex predators is best explained as a choice between a holy tome that accounts for everything in the universe but is inconsistent with itself (the story of the organization) or one that is very consistent about what it covers but cannot account for everything. (The story of the individual)

This unsolvable tension can be expressed as a permanent incompleteness and the desire to establish completeness is a powerful driving force behind the creation of cognitive talent. We mistakenly call this cognitive talent artificial intelligence, but there is nothing fake about it. It may not have wise discernment or complete understanding of contexts, but neither do most young adults. We wouldn't call those people artificial in their intellect. It's more accurate to call them "incomplete" in their intelligence. The two apex predators feeding on our psyches are utilizing completely different techniques, driving us to discover more complete incomplete intelligence as if it were our only hope of surviving the predators.

This community exists to explore the destiny of the relationship between the pursuit of ever-completing cognitive talent and the two apex predators.

Welcome to The Tyrant's Muse

Civilization is the battlespace, the weapon, and the reward.

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