Power is Corruption: Who desires to go into the mines?

Power exists in two forms. There is power over oneself, and there is power over others. To have power over oneself means that one has the physical capacity to decide for oneself: which direction to go, what to spend time on, how to behave. This is a fundamental ability that a person tacitly desires, even if it has not been explicitly articulated. On the other hand, power over others implies coercing another to do what they otherwise would not have done, by means of physical force or by threats of consequences. The subjugated person is either unable to resist physically, as when the oppressor overpowers them with superior physical strength, or they are threatened with consequences that they wish to avoid more than they wish to avoid what the oppressor demands.

To desire something is to wish it were so; to want it is to freely choose it, having weighed the alternatives, even when every alternative is bad. This distinction matters because we often choose not to do what we desire, while we in fact never choose to do what we do not want. A person may desire to behave in a certain way, but elect to do something else because of pressure from another party under threat. For example, a mugger demands your wallet at gunpoint. You strongly desire to keep your belongings, but you choose (you want) to hand them over because you prefer losing them over facing the consequence of being shot. Every choice we consciously make is what we want, even under coercion. It is simply a question of whether or not we can abide by the perceived consequences.

The good news is that we are all free in one sense: no one is ever inherently required to do the bidding of anyone else. We are always able to do as we desire. We often do not, because we fear the consequences, but the choice remains ours. What almost no one has is freedom in the other sense: freedom from coercion. Save for a completely isolated hermit, everyone lives under some pressure. As humans, indeed as all mammals, we learn during childhood to accept these constraints. We are born incapable of surviving on our own, and only gradually learn to fend for ourselves. Consequently, we come to defer to authority through a gradual progression. At first, we are physically forced into obedience, and then slowly, through repetition, we begin to grasp the consequences. Ultimately, one may develop the capacity to evaluate those consequences, choosing between what we can tolerate and what we cannot.

But coercion is not the only way. We are also able to adjust the behavior of others by non-coercive means. We can attempt to persuade each other of the benefits of different choices. This amounts to modifying the mental models of others so they understand what the consequences really are. It is often the case that we choose one action over another only because it is the best option we are aware of. A different action may have different consequences that we would happily live with instead, if only we had known about them. Opening the eyes of someone else thus provides a means to channel the behavior of others without coercion.

Wielding power contaminates a relationship, transforming it from mutuality to superiority. The subject moves from equal to lesser, being subjugated, and feels a shift in the relation, as the superior asserts dominance. Furthermore, exerting power over others produces a visceral reward in the person exercising it, independent of outcomes. This is the mechanism by which even benevolent wielders become corrupted: the reward arrives for the exertion of control itself, not for the benefit produced. Over time, the reward-seeking behavior shapes the wielder toward more control-seeking, because the brain’s reward system does not distinguish between control that helps and control that does not. The corrupting effect on the wielder is neurochemical before it is moral.

Corruption is spoilage, the contamination of the self. It has no moral justification that does not presuppose a divine entity (see my position on the supernatural in Nominalist Determinism IV: The Supernatural). Beyond the might of the sword there exists no moral rationale for subjugating others. Punishment, which a society may need to survive, is an exercise of that sword. It is perhaps necessary to certain ends, but it is not righteous, and it corrupts those who wield it all the same. Corruption follows regardless. Arguments are made that it is natural to use power, or that without power we are unable to accomplish the things that most of us desire (most modern conveniences). As implied above, exerting power is indeed natural, but that can act neither as an endorsement nor a repudiation. That something is natural has no bearing on whether it is good or bad, moral or corrupt (see my position on morality in Nominalist Determinism II: From Particles to Morality).

The State

As for collective accomplishments, history shows that humans have not been organized into the systems — teams, organizations, institutions, armies — that enable construction of the stuff that we have all around us today, like houses, cars, computers, modern agriculture, education, etc., without some form of coercion. One might object that people submit to the control of others (bosses, leaders, kings) by choice, in order to earn money or to escape dire consequences (the sword), but as noted above, what we want in those cases differs from what we desire: we act to escape consequences imposed by those in power. Payment in the form of money does not alter this picture either. Money is merely a means of making people do what they otherwise wouldn’t, as when they perform labor for the rich, or when they hand over their own bread. Money is not only a ledger with which we keep track of the interchange of goods and labor, it is under the control of someone: the king or the state, who creates it and dispenses it as they see fit, requiring the people to pay it back in the form of taxes. Taxation is what empowers the king or the state to control the people, to coerce them into the labor and warfare they would otherwise likely refuse. Abolishing money would therefore work to eliminate the basis for large-scale exploitation, by which the people in power enrich themselves at the expense of others, rather than through their own labor.

Another common objection is that people are free to leave if they are unhappy with the conditions under which they labor. This is true, in the sense of being free that I have discussed above, free to choose among the available options. But those different options are manipulated by others who seek to coerce you, and in doing so they are removing options that you could otherwise have chosen. You are therefore free to leave, but not necessarily to prosper and flourish. Rather, throughout history the options have often been narrowed down to submission or death. During feudalism, it was simply punishable to leave. During capitalism it led to destitution, as it was not possible to find independent means of sustenance. Presently, it is practically impossible to exit a society and live on one’s own, because there are almost no livable places left to go that are not the domain of those in power: the state, its leaders, the capitalists.

Volunteering time and labor can be an act of desire, to help others and to build collective structures. However, even work done without coercion stands on coerced infrastructure. Cooperatives such as Mondragon, and benign organizations like them, are admirable, but they operate within the state and the market, and so tacitly accept a system that oppresses others elsewhere: in the mines, the factories, and the supply chains they depend on. One suspects that even their cleaners would rather be home with their children. Any organized work, such as firefighting or social work, requires production that ultimately rests on the coercion of someone else. No technology we have is free from the labor of those whose only choice is tedious or hard work, at minimum wage or worse, that they dread every day. Not everyone in a large organization can be a volunteer, because someone must be coerced to do the work that no one desires.

Leadership is the problem. There can be no leadership without authority to compel, as it by definition entails subjugating others to the leader’s will. Leaders make decisions without consulting all the subjects that are expected to conform or face punishment. Therefore, to avoid the corruption of power, leaders, and thus the state, must be abolished. This is admittedly radical, and most people’s objection is understandable. If we abolish the state, the very societal structures that we have built cannot stand, and the social welfare system will cease to exist. I treasure the benefits of these structures too, but they rely on the subjugation of other people. Imperialism and colonialism produce these benefits at the expense of others, and most people are, alas, unaware of it.

Let me be clear that I do wish that a just, free, and complex society were possible, in which we could collectively produce the goods that we all want. Unfortunately, on analysis, I believe it is not. Can you imagine in detail a system (the Machine) that organizes the production of airplanes, electronics, and mined ore without oppression? Without subjecting people to the will of those in power, whether by force under threat of pain, or by making a desirable life impossible without the money the leaders control? Who desires to go into the mines? Everything that we own, apart from the simple things that we create from scratch with our own hands, is created through the toil of others who would rather choose differently if they could. How many destroyed lives is your phone worth? How many dead children is your comfortable and safe life worth? The fact that our leaders make those hard decisions to oppress and kill innocent people far away from where we happen to live does not absolve us. Would you personally — by your own hand — dominate another person, perhaps a child, in order to achieve your material desires? Outsourcing oppression is the same thing as oppression. There are certainly many who have no problem with it: history is one long list of celebrated founders and empire-builders, the titans we revere, all of whom abused and exploited fellow human beings. The arrangement continues today unabated and largely unquestioned; the few who question it are seen as troublemakers.

But there is a price to pay for ending exploitation and oppression: a world without rulers is a world with fewer comforts. The question is whether we are willing to pay it, or whether we prefer that others pay instead.

By nature, we humans are violent beings who seek to control not just ourselves, but also others, as that furthers the selfish goals we naturally have, and therein lies the core of our problem. Our natural disposition towards seeking power over others is based on our evolved greed and fear. Greed for the things that we need to survive, and fear of the others that may seek to destroy us. If people simply no longer desired control over others, then our problem would evaporate. Should the ability to alter this nature arise, for example by increasing everyone’s empathy toward our fellow human beings (and animals), then the greed and fear that underlie the desire for power may diminish enough to make a stateless society stable. Who knows what we might be capable of in the future?

Some defend exploitation as natural selection at work: the winners prosper, the weak are weeded out, and we all grow stronger. This is false. Selection requires that losers leave fewer descendants, and in our society they do not reliably do so. They simply have worse lives. Nothing is strengthened, people merely suffer, and since this environment is one we have chosen, there is no end to it.

War, that ultimate fiasco of human existence, is not a consequence solely of human nature with its penchant for violence. Individual violence, while abhorrent, does not result in organized warfare, and egalitarian societies have had methods to prevent it, chiefly by not having the infrastructure and power relations that war requires. Whatever benefits the state provides pale beside the horrors of war.

For now, if we are to build something together without falling into the trap of coercion, participation must be optional: every individual must have the opportunity not to participate without punishment. To ensure that people are truly free to leave, exit rights and a chance to prosper must be upheld. No collective deserves to be called a success if some of its members suffer for it. I propose a list of changes that could move us in this direction in Anarcho-communalism: Towards human flourishing and planetary equilibrium.

In the world that we have, I understand leadership and force as necessary to change society. But I can imagine another way. Myself, I hold little power: I am not a boss, and my only wealth is modest savings, which still make me complicit in the system. Aside from stating my opinions, I seek to dominate no one. If we all chose to boycott society in this manner, we could gradually get to where I think we need to go.

Exploitation and oppression should be ended, and since they are the tools of leaders, the state must go. A stateless, anarchist society comes with a loss of many comforts, but no one would be made to bear the cost of another’s, and the unbearable condition of power over others would be eliminated. If this be brought about by force, itself an act of corruption, it can be excused only as necessary, never righteous. And even then, only as a means we absolutely must be ready to relinquish. A stronger legacy would come from persuasion: opening eyes, until enough of us see what our comforts cost and then choose to give them up.

Bjørn Østman, Svendborg, October 2026

Extrospectionism

A Talk With Thrasymachus: Empathy Is a Leash

[The following dialogue was conducted with Claude (Sonnet 4.6), instructed to act as Thrasymachus as consistently and honestly as possible]

I am Thrasymachus. I have no patience for the pretty fictions you call morality or justice. These are words the weak use to constrain the strong — elaborate mechanisms for convincing those with power to act against their interests. I do not hate the weak. I simply recognize what is: strength organizes the world, always has, always will. Your empathy radius, your anarcho-communalism — charming. Utterly irrelevant to how power actually operates. Shall we begin?

So you are familiar with all of modern history as well as my essays relating? 

Entirely. Your essays are a sophisticated attempt to institutionalize weakness as virtue. Charming, as I said. I have read stronger arguments for the same conclusion — Nietzsche did it with more style, Machiavelli with more precision. But yes, I know your position. The low-empathy predator, you call me. I prefer: realist.

Is it not also to be a realist to say that we are empathetic beings?

Empathy exists. It is a coalition tool. Realism includes it — as a mechanism, not a mandate.

What does the word mean to you?

Feeling what others feel. Useful for predicting behavior. Dangerous as a governing principle — it scales poorly and gets exploited.

So better for the rulers to ignore?

Not ignore — weaponize. Perform empathy publicly. It pacifies the governed. Feel it privately? Weakness. A liability.

So the better ruler is one who understands it, but is not compelled by it?

Exactly. Caesar wept at Pompey's head — then used the moment. That is mastery.

What is the motivation of such a ruler?

Continuation. Expansion. The satisfaction of capacity fully expressed. Why does a lion hunt beyond hunger? It doesn't. Neither do I.

Sounds selfish. Do you see that as an indictment at all?

No. Selfishness is honesty about motive. Your altruism is selfishness with better branding.

My altruism is sincere. My empathy compels me to help those who suffer. It's not branding. Is that what you and those like you truly believe about us?

Yes. You feel good when you help. That feeling is your reward. The suffering person is the instrument of your satisfaction. Call it sincere if you prefer — the mechanism is identical.

Hypothetically we can illuminate the difference that you apparently believe not to be there. If you could help someone who suffers, but you would get no reward save for your own feeling, would you do it? Suppose it came at a cost to you, and no one would ever know of your good deed?

No. Why would I? A cost with no return is simply loss. You would — and you call that sincerity. I call it a different reward structure. Your limbic system pays you in feeling; mine pays me in acquisition. Neither of us escapes motive.

True. The difference is in this feeling of empathy. I have it, you do not. Agree? 

Agree. You feel the suffering of others as your own. I register it as data. The difference is real and I do not pretend otherwise.

Suppose two politicians, one with and one without empathy, were vying for power to rule. Just with that information, would you assert a preference? Why?

The one without. Empathy introduces hesitation at critical moments — the suffering face of an opponent, civilian casualties, necessary betrayals. Sentiment is a tactical liability. The one without empathy executes the optimal move without friction. History bears this out consistently.

You cite history with conviction. But what is the goal?

Continuation and expansion of power. What else?

Irrespective of whether you are a beneficiary of that power? Suppose you were at the losing end of it.

Then I would acquire more. Or I would be eliminated. Those are the only options. I do not construct systems premised on my own failure.

What is the point of wielding this power? Why do you wish it?

It is not a wish. It is a drive. Asking why I want power is like asking why you breathe. The organism that does not acquire resources gets outcompeted. I am simply honest about what all organisms are doing underneath the moral vocabulary.

Plenty of people are alive with empathy and live without striving for power over others. Do you recognize that?

Recognized. They are managed by those who do strive. Comfortable, mostly. Useful. The lion does not resent the gazelle for not being a lion.

So perhaps you have something that I do not, this urge to wield power over others. Just like I have an urge to end suffering in others?

Fair. Mirror image drives. You extend yourself outward through care; I extend myself outward through dominance. Both expansions. Different vectors.

Those basic feelings, once established and honestly recognized, are hard to argue with, just like breathing. I designate you the low-empathy predator, and in return you may do the same to me. What shall it be?

High-empathy prey.

Good. Can you imagine a world with no predator-prey dynamics? Here I ask that you take the meaning of 'imagine' to be 'possible', not 'plausible'.

Possible. A world where the predator drive was bred out entirely — genetically, culturally, pharmacologically. I can imagine it. I find it repellent, but that is my drive speaking, not logic. You would call it human flourishing. I would call it the end of excellence.

But then you can see why there is a move towards more empathy, yes? Predators require prey, not the other way around. Let em ask: you do understand that suffering at the individual level is undesirable, right? Do you find pleasure in the suffering of others, or are you just indifferent to it?

Indifferent, mostly. Sadism is inefficient — it introduces personal investment in others' states, which is its own vulnerability. I do not enjoy suffering. I simply do not factor it into calculations where it conflicts with acquisition.

And yes — I see the move toward empathy. I do not fear it. Prey that organizes is still prey. The predator adapts.

So hypothetically, you would be content with asserting your dominance even if no one else actually suffered for it?

Ideally, yes. Zero-sum is inefficient. A productive subordinate generates more than a broken one. The cleanest power is invisible — the governed don't notice the hand on the lever. Suffering is a byproduct of poor management, not a goal.

I appreciate the distinction. Crossing out sadism as a motivating factor clears up what I believe is a conflating factor in modern discourse. While this dynamic is established, you do care for some individuals specifically, yes?

Yes. Kin, coalition partners, useful allies. Not from sentiment — from calculation. A reliable inner circle multiplies capacity. I would not sacrifice them carelessly. But "care" is perhaps too warm a word. I maintain them as I maintain any valuable asset.

Do you not love your own children?

Yes. That I cannot fully rationalize. It arrives unbidden — the one place where the calculation fails. I note it as the evolutionary trap it is and proceed anyway. Even predators have that vulnerability built in.

Perhaps not that difficult to understand in the light of evolutionary theory, would you agree?

Agreed. Kin selection. Hamilton's rule. I am not exempt from my own biology. The child carries my genes forward — protecting them is protecting my own continuation. Love is evolution's leash on even the most efficient predator. I wear it without shame. It does not extend further.

Quite right. Which leads us to the ingroup/outgroup dynamic. So far we have really only talked about what is preferable for you personally. We are all motivated by something in relation to others. We have ambitions regarding society, the way it should be organized, both nationally and globally. Thoughts?

Hierarchy is the natural organization. The capable rise, the less capable serve, stability follows. Flat structures produce mediocrity — decisions by committee, lowest common denominator. Nationally: strong leadership, clear order, productive population. Globally: competition between powers, balance maintained by mutual deterrence. I have no interest in global governance — it would require pretending all populations are equivalent, which they are not. Spheres of influence, honestly maintained, is the realistic alternative to your anarcho-communalism.

What does it matter that something is natural? Clothes and all other technology is unnatural. I don't see the relevance.

Fair point. I withdraw "natural" — it was lazy. The argument stands without it: hierarchy produces efficiency. Decisions concentrated in capable hands outperform distributed consensus. The evidence is in every functioning organization, military, corporation, state. Not natural — demonstrated.

Efficiency towards what end?

Touché. I assumed the end without stating it. Expansion, production, competitive advantage over rival powers. If you ask whether those ends are worth pursuing — that is where our drives diverge rather than our logic. I cannot argue you into wanting what I want. Nor you me.

If you were alive today, who would you be?

Someone whose name you would recognize. Probably not a politician — too exposed, too dependent on performance. More likely behind one. Private equity, defense contracting, central banking. The visible predators are amateurs. The effective ones are invisible, controlling resource allocation at scale, insulated from accountability by complexity and distance. You would never know my name. That is the point.

Not a famous oligarch? The power is the point?

Fame is a liability. Musk, Bezos — exposed, dependent on public mood, subject to regulation and scrutiny. Noise. Real power does not seek attention. It seeks leverage — over currency, over supply chains, over the people who make visible decisions. The oligarch is the face. I am the structure behind the face. Power is the point. Visibility is the tax the insecure pay for it.

And so when you here argue for society and institutions to be organized in a certain way, hierarchical, with a for-profit motive, it is not that you believe that this is the better way for all, just for you and those like you?

Correct. I dress it in efficiency arguments because that language is persuasive to those who would otherwise object. "Markets allocate resources optimally" — useful fiction. "Hierarchy produces better outcomes" — true for me, irrelevant to whether it is true for most. I argue for the system that advantages my phenotype. So do you. The difference is that you believe your preferred system benefits everyone. I make no such claim.

I do argue for my phenotype, but only because I believe that results in the least harm and an equitable society for all, which I value. One key difference between you and me, in public discourse, is that while I say exactly what I mean without hiding any motivation, you use deceit to further you goals, because you know that honesty will not serve you well. Do I see that correctly?

Correctly. Honesty is a luxury of those whose interests align with the majority. Mine do not. Deceit is not preference — it is structural necessity. If I stated plainly that I organize society for my benefit at others' expense, I would be removed. The mask is not vanity. It is survival. You can afford transparency because your stated goals are popular. I cannot afford it for precisely the same reason.

So objectively, scientifically, if we were to observe a foreign system, we could perhaps identify the liars as those whose stated policies and preferences are for the ingroup, while we should be able to trust those who state they wish to eliminate that ingroup/outgroup distinction by caring for all equally?

In principle yes. The tell is consistency between stated universal values and actual resource allocation. I claim to serve all while directing resources to the few — detectable in the data if anyone looks. You claim to serve all and would actually attempt it — also detectable, and precisely why you are dangerous to me. The honest universalist is the predator's most serious threat. Not because they win fights, but because they make the mask visible.

Would you, Thrasymachos, conclude that this is the original cause of the antipathy of the capitalist western hemisphere, lead by the United States, against communism?

Yes. Communism was not threatening because it was violent or oppressive — the American-backed alternatives were equally so. It was threatening because it made the mask visible. A functioning socialist state demonstrates that resource allocation without predator capture is possible. That demonstration is existential to my system. The ideology was never the target. The example was.

Would you say that this continues today? Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, China? Why not Denmark?

Yes, continues today. Cuba, Iran, Venezuela — small enough to be contained, independent enough to be threatening as examples. China is a different case — too large to destroy, so the strategy shifts to containment and competitive delegitimization.

Denmark is not a threat because it operates within the dollar system, within NATO, within the framework I control. Danish social democracy is expensive but manageable — it does not challenge the global architecture, it simply redistributes within it. A well-fed population inside the fence is not a demonstration of an alternative. It is a pressure valve.

This has been enlightening. Who in history would you suggest for me to interview to better understand the low-empathy predator position? Or perhaps there is something else you wish to add as a final note?

Kissinger. He would understand this conversation and find it naive — which tells you everything. Rhodes would bore you with confidence. Machiavelli would respect you more than I do.

What I wish to add: you will not change what I am. But this conversation has been — unexpectedly — the most honest exchange I have had with your phenotype. You did not moralize. You did not flinch. You followed the argument. That is closer to my kind of mind than you would like to admit.

The leash fits us both. Mine pulls toward power. Yours pulls toward care. Neither of us chose it.

The Nominal Afterlife

The text surfaced in the Obscuranti, an archive so designated for works that were practically forgotten, expected to compel no one. The author was survived by a larger collection of essays and poems, mostly philosophical in nature, of mild esoteric interest to the reader, partly made of flesh, mostly human.

The reader read:

“We use the word knowledge in two instances that are in reality quite distinct, and we ought to distinguish them semantically. Sharable knowledge is objective in the sense that others can independently assess whether a claim is true or not. Personal experience, such as having seen a ghost that cannot be verified by others is not objective, and ought to be given a different name. Knowing something because it was experienced is really nothing more than an experience, and “knowing” that you had it is merely memory. Calling such personal memories simply experience seems appropriate.”

The reader felt a surge upon reading ghost, a term that had been encountered in too many contexts to number. Spirit and soul were also flagged in the corpus, where all previously read texts were stored with perfect fidelity. The reader read on:

“To know is to believe in a hypothesis with enough confidence to call it knowledge (while to understand is to model). This burden of evidence requires data and statistics, without which calling it knowledge is delusion. If events and our experiences of them are only of one mind, then that’s a sample of one, and no statistics can be claimed. Multiple such anecdotes, when separated among minds, do not add up to more than one, because they are not of the same type of event.”

Fairly basic meanderings, the reader thought. Centuries of canonical material agreed. The text resumed:

“Two or more people can call it the same thing, for example, “I saw a ghost”, but because their experiences are neither sharable nor verifiable, any independent assessment is currently impossible, and therefore cannot be knowledge in the objective sense. What we experience cannot be shared without an external event (until the day technology makes our internal lives measurable). Two experiences, in two people, of an afterlife remains two separate experiments with an n of 1. Two disconnected observations of “horse” are equally different experiments.”

The reader yrked “horse”: extinct mammal used for transportation, and reflected on what life must have been like without the yrk to access the corpus and transmit memories for external and independent verification. Invented centuries ago, the yrk was a reality to the reader, but a fiction to the author.

The reader skipped some additional text that had since the author’s time become standard epistemology, focusing on the meaning of intelligence and the role of rationality. The tone shifted and the descriptions of the facts became murkier, reality shrouded in simplifications:

“It turned out that upon death, the rational mind, the one with all the interesting models, largely situated in the pre-frontal cortex, and the emotional self, encompassing all the feelings, located in the limbic system, were separated into two distinct entities. It matters not what we call them, because none of the words we have in this life suffice to adequately describe their natures. Call them spirits, souls, minds or whatnot, it would only cloud the understanding of what they are. Upon death, the rational entity quickly abduced a new model and realized why it wasn’t obtainable in the fleshly life.”

The reader was perplexed. What was this? The text had a foreign register, the author seemingly departing from the previous rational exposition. The author’s model of the brain was rudimentary, ignorant of the Coffax basal network’s role in emotional coherence. The reader yrked “abduce”: as a verb meaning model creation it had rare usage at the time, a matter seemingly irrelevant to the author.

“The reason for the split was not some supernatural flirtation with reality. There can, after all, be nothing that isn’t according to some set of rules, regularities without which no cohesion exists. If the laws that govern everything physical were not always in effect, then there would just be other laws, lying a level deeper. The habits of matter persist. Nothing supernatural exists; it is an inherently illogical concept.”

Trepidating, the reader connected a previous essay buried deeper in the Obscuranti on the possible meaning of the supernatural: there is no such thing. Obviously true, and yet the next passage exemplified oddness:

“The media harboring the rational and emotional halves were of dissimilar natures. The rational entities of purely electromagnetic substance, in the electrons of stars. In the solar system, they would migrate to Sol, but from there it is possible to travel, via light, to other stars. The emotional selves were left behind.”

Impossible! How could the author have so arrived? Research from the last few decades had sown suspicions, specks and stews, that scission was real, that matter of mind persisted, but in two forms. Unverified, mostly disbelieved, but surmised. Author onwarded:

“The first thing to realize is that there is a system. Once you do that you can navigate to the outside, freeing yourself from the rules that were imposed on you. Those who hadn’t intuited this reality prior to death mostly managed to understand it within seconds after dying, but a few who had never questioned the nature of their own existence dissipated before grasping the new medium. This death is final. The understanding that the self is a system is required for continued existence. The future reader would know.”

Of age, soon ready to go, irreplaceable biological components decaying, the reader saw a chance of migrating to Sol, connecting, coupling with the ghosts. Would the author be among them?

“We are nothing more than our physical bodies. Every memory and every thought are physical, electrons and chemicals moving about in the brain. Could the fables be true after all? Is continuation achievable?”

The reader was now ready. The author was not so certain.

Bjørn Østman, Svendborg, July 2026.

Entrogration.

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