Why you are probably a Supervillain

Much of the problems regarding human civilized impact upon the ecosystem is due our conditioned response to a now changed environment. We are Neolithic hunter gathers, used to living in group of less than two hundred people, now scrambling to manage in million strong cities supplied by massive mechanized farms. Our responses, honed by thousands of generations of natural selection, are unrelated and unhelpful to the world we have built.

Is the devil our instinct towards the life our ancestors lived for 3 million years? Why is the ability to act independently typically the hallmark of the dark side? Why does the supervillain seek change while the hero seeks status quo?

Why are stories where the hero is a rebel Typically science fiction or history? Why are we still afraid to depict a current revolution?

The answer is scale. A village of one hundred fifty people can be all heroes. All warriors. A city of one million needs workers, peasants, consumers. A village survives on initiative. A city survives o obedience.

Humans as hunters are like wolves. Humans as city dwellers are like sheep. Wolves get hunted. Sheep get sheared. Make your choice.

The hero of one system becomes a supervillain in another.

But we are not all sheep. Some of us are now shepherds. And they do not value the rebel. They do not value the reformer or the activist. That us the path of the dark side. And those who pursue the insights necessary to understand this are aimed towards ascetic pursuits, loke the Jedi.

Be passive or defensive if the status quo. Otherwise risk becoming the villain.

But I think, shifting gears here, that even rebellion is in service of the King. The scale differences mean that the best a rebel can hope for is to create a war nobody can win. Think of the history Afghanistan. The two sequels to the Matrix and the book The Rebel Sell do a good job pointing out how the rebellion serves the Hungry Empire and the Locust King.

So don't rebel. Look at what else is part if the dark side, part of the path of the supervillain.

Independence.

The villain can walk away. The villain can stand alone. If the King needs workers, then abandoning the loom and the assembly line is a more dangerous rebellion. Karl Marx imagined that the workers would seize the means of production. But that has been shown to create new Kings. Look at how many legends depicting the rise of new Kings and gods begins with a humble birth, from King David to King Arthur.

The solution is not rebellion or revolution. The solution is neglect.

Life is short.
Work is crap.
Join my cult.