The Evolutionary Rewards of Complicity: Why We Go Along with Bad Things

The Universal Puzzle

One of the most perplexing aspects of human behavior is how ordinary people consistently participate in systems that would seem to be objectively harmful. From corporate employees implementing policies they know are destructive, to citizens supporting military interventions they must suspect serve elite rather than national interests, to academics producing research they understand advances corporate rather than human welfare—the pattern appears universal across cultures, institutions, and historical periods.

We see intelligent, educated, morally concerned individuals working for organizations whose activities they would probably condemn if conducted by others, while maintaining positive narratives about their professional contributions. Pharmaceutical employees genuinely believe they're advancing human health while working for companies that prioritize profit over patient welfare. Financial services workers genuinely believe they're helping people achieve their goals while implementing systems designed to extract wealth from customers. Technology workers authentically think they're connecting humanity while building surveillance and manipulation systems. Why do good people knowingly work for companies, organizations, or governments that have been found guilty of deceitful, unethical, and illegal behavior?

Traditional explanations aren't actually very helpful: people participate in harmful systems because they're selfish, uninformed, or following orders from malevolent leaders. While these factors play roles in specific situations, they fail to explain the systematic nature of complicit participation across all human societies and institutions.

The revolutionary framework that "evolution is exploitation" and the then logical extension, that "all human culture is adaptation to, or exploitation of, evolved psychology," provide a more fundamental explanation. Mass complicity isn't primarily the result of moral failure, conscious disregard, or conspiracy—it's the predictable outcome of evolved psychological mechanisms that helped our ancestors survive but now serve to maintain exploitative systems at a massive scale.

Complicity as Evolutionary Feature, Not Bug

The key insight is that complicity is a feature, not a bug, of human psychology. The same mechanisms that would seem to have enabled our ancestors to survive in small tribal environments by maintaining group cohesion and avoiding dangerous conflicts now reward participation in large-scale systems regardless of their ultimate effects.

This isn't a design flaw that modern humans need to overcome—it's sophisticated psychological machinery that continues to serve individual survival interests even when those interests conflict with broader human welfare. Understanding this dynamic requires recognizing that what appears to be moral failure is actually evolved psychology operating exactly as it was designed to operate.

Willful blindness—the psychological tendency to avoid recognizing uncomfortable truths about one's circumstances—represents one half of this survival mechanism. But equally important are the evolutionary rewards of complicity—the systematic benefits that flow to individuals who participate in existing systems rather than questioning or resisting them.

The Evolutionary Logic of Going Along

In the ancestral environment of small tribes where humans spent 99% of their evolutionary history, questioning group narratives or challenging leadership carried extreme risks. Individuals who could "go along" with problematic group dynamics while appearing loyal and committed had significant survival advantages.

They avoided the social isolation, punishment, or exile that probably befell those who questioned established arrangements. More importantly, they could continue benefiting from group membership without the complexity or the social danger of appearing disloyal.

This mechanism operates through several interconnected psychological processes. Social proof bias creates the assumption that widespread participation indicates safety or legitimacy. Authority deference provides psychological comfort through the belief that leaders possess superior knowledge or moral authority. Identity protection motivates individuals to maintain narratives about their work and participation that preserve self-worth and social status. Economic rationalization justifies participation through family obligations and financial necessities, while role morality allows individuals to focus on performing specific functions well while avoiding responsibility for systemic outcomes. Diffusion of responsibility distributes moral burden across large groups, so no individual feels fully accountable.

The Automatic Nature of Complicity

The crucial insight is that these mechanisms operate automatically and unconsciously. The evolutionary rewards of complicity aren't typically conscious calculations—they're evolved psychological processes that make participation in existing systems relatively automatic.

Being automatic explains why complicit participation appears across all levels of intelligence, education, and moral development. Highly intelligent, well-educated individuals with strong stated ethical commitments participate in harmful systems not because they lack the cognitive capacity to recognize the harm, but because their evolved psychology rewards them for participation while making resistance psychologically costly.

The mechanism is so sophisticated that it allows individuals to simultaneously "know" and "not know" about the harmful consequences of their participation. Corporate executives can genuinely believe they're creating value while implementing strategies they understand cause environmental destruction. Government officials can genuinely believe they're serving the public while advancing policies that they recognize specifically harm certain groups and benefit elite interests. This isn't cognitive dissonance that needs to be resolved—it's functional psychology that enables individuals to maintain positive self-concepts while participating in systems that serve their survival interests.

The Social Reinforcement System

The evolutionary rewards of complicity become even more powerful when reinforced by social systems that have themselves evolved to reward participation and punish questioning. Organizations naturally develop cultures that make questioning fundamental purposes socially dangerous while celebrating enthusiastic participation.

These cultures don't need to be consciously designed—they emerge automatically because they're more effective at maintaining organizational coherence and extracting human energy.

Narrative reinforcement provides compelling stories about organizational purposes that allow employees to feel good about their participation. Social proof mechanisms demonstrate that "everyone else" is participating enthusiastically, making questioning seem deviant or dangerous.

Status rewards flow to individuals who demonstrate commitment to organizational narratives, while social punishment targets those who express doubt or criticism. Identity integration makes organizational participation central to personal identity, while economic dependency makes questioning organizationally dangerous to personal survival.

The result is a self-reinforcing system where going along becomes not just psychologically comfortable but socially necessary. Individuals who maintain functional cooperation with harmful systems advance within those systems, while those who insist on recognizing uncomfortable truths find themselves marginalized or expelled.

The Scale Effect: From Organizations to Nations

The same psychological mechanisms that reward complicity in organizations operate at national and cultural scales to enable citizen participation in systematic harm. Patriotic narratives provide compelling stories about national purposes that allow citizens to feel good about supporting policies they might otherwise question.

Media systems create social proof by demonstrating widespread support for government actions while marginalizing dissenting voices. Democratic participation creates the illusion of citizen control while actual policy decisions serve elite interests. Economic integration makes questioning national policies dangerous to personal prosperity, while cultural identity makes criticism of national actions feel like betrayal of community belonging.

This explains how entire populations can support or ignore policies they would recognize as harmful if applied by other nations. The mechanism operates identically across political systems because it's based on evolved psychology rather than particular governmental structures. Citizens in democracies, authoritarian regimes, and mixed systems all demonstrate the same patterns of rewarded complicity regarding their governments' harmful actions.

Historical Patterns: The Universality of Rewarded Complicity

This framework explains historical patterns of mass complicity that have puzzled scholars for generations. The participation of ordinary Germans in Nazi systems, the complicity of American citizens in slavery and genocide, the involvement of Soviet citizens in Stalinist oppression—all represent the same evolved psychological mechanisms operating under different cultural and political conditions.

In each case, the majority of participants were neither sadistic monsters nor conscious conspirators. They were ordinary people whose evolved psychology rewarded them for maintaining positive self-concepts while participating in systems they would have recognized as harmful if they had been psychologically capable of full recognition.

Gradual normalization made increasingly extreme policies seem acceptable through incremental steps that never required dramatic moral choices. Authority legitimation provided psychological comfort through the assumption that leadership possessed superior moral or practical knowledge. Social proof demonstrated that "everyone else" was participating, making resistance seem deviant or dangerous.

Identity protection motivated defense of national or organizational narratives that justified participation, while economic integration made questioning systemically dangerous to personal survival. Narrative sophistication provided compelling stories about serving higher purposes that allowed participants to feel good about their involvement.

The exact mechanisms that enabled historical atrocities continue operating in contemporary systems, suggesting that mass complicity in systematic harm represents a permanent feature of human social organization rather than a historical aberration that modern societies have overcome.

The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Go Along

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the evolutionary rewards of complicity is how they particularly affect intelligent, educated individuals who should theoretically be most capable of recognizing systematic harm. Higher intelligence and education don't provide immunity against complicit participation—they often make individuals more susceptible by providing sophisticated rationalization capabilities.

Intellectual frameworks enable intelligent individuals to develop elaborate justifications for participating in systems they would otherwise recognize as harmful. Professional expertise creates investment in organizational systems that makes questioning psychologically costly. Social networks within elite institutions reinforce participation while marginalizing dissent.

Cognitive sophistication enables complex moral reasoning that can justify almost any level of participation through appeals to necessity, gradual reform, or comparative harm reduction. Educational credentials create social status that depends on maintaining good relationships with institutional systems. Career advancement requires demonstrating commitment to organizational narratives regardless of personal doubts.

The result is that the individuals with the greatest capacity to recognize and resist systematic exploitation often become its most effective enablers. They provide intellectual legitimacy, sophisticated justifications, and cultural leadership that make mass complicity seem reasonable and morally acceptable.

This represents the ultimate expression of how complicity functions as an evolutionary feature rather than a bug. The psychological mechanisms that reward going along are so sophisticated that they can co-opt even the cognitive capabilities that might otherwise enable resistance.

Three Approaches to the Challenge

Understanding the evolutionary rewards of complicity as a feature rather than a bug fundamentally changes how we think about creating more humane social arrangements. If complicity serves individual survival interests through evolved psychological mechanisms, then traditional approaches based on education, moral appeals, or rational argument may be fundamentally inadequate.

There are three basic approaches to this challenge, with profoundly different assumptions about human nature and the possibility of social organization.

The "Humane Systems" Approach assumes we can design social, economic, and political arrangements that channel our evolved psychology toward beneficial rather than exploitative outcomes. This approach seeks to work with human nature by creating systems where our natural tendencies serve rather than undermine human welfare.

However, this approach may be fundamentally utopian given our understanding that evolution IS exploitation. Any system designed to "work with" human psychology will inevitably be captured by individuals and groups most effective at exploiting those same psychological mechanisms. The very features that make systems feel "humane" and psychologically satisfying are precisely the vulnerabilities that exploitative actors will target.

If all human culture represents adaptation to or exploitation of evolved psychology, then systems designed to feel good to participants are likely to be the most sophisticated exploitation technologies. The "humane systems" approach may simply create more effective methods for making victims grateful for their exploitation.

The Founders' Model: Structural Constraints and Regenerative Wisdom

The American founders represented a fundamentally different approach based on darker but perhaps more realistic assumptions about human nature. Rather than trying to create systems that channel human psychology toward good outcomes, they designed adversarial structures that assume human nature is problematic and require constant vigilance and structural constraints.

The founders understood that power corrupts and that even well-intentioned people are ultimately likely to exploit systems for personal benefit. Their solution was separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism—structures that pit different interests against each other to prevent any single group from capturing the entire system.

Crucially, they embraced the concept of regenerative wisdom—the recognition that systems naturally decay and require constant renewal, vigilance, and structural maintenance. This approach assumes that human nature is unchangeable and inherently problematic for large-scale organizations, that power will always be abused if structurally unchecked, and that no system can be perfected, only temporarily constrained through structural opposition.

The Wisdom Tradition Approach: Cultural Preparation for Inevitable Cycles

A third approach recognizes that both humane systems and structural constraints ultimately depend on human capabilities that may be psychologically unrealistic to maintain consistently. Instead of trying to create perfect systems or permanent constraints, the wisdom tradition approach focuses on cultural preservation of systematic thinking across generations and cycles.

This approach assumes that large-scale societies naturally cycle through predictable phases: growth, stability, corruption, crisis, and renewal. Rather than trying to prevent these cycles, wisdom traditions prepare for them by maintaining the knowledge, frameworks, and trained individuals needed to recognize patterns and respond effectively when opportunities for renewal arise.

Wisdom traditions work by embedding systematic thinking into cultural identity and meaning-making systems, making the preservation of analytical capabilities feel personally and socially rewarding rather than isolating or dangerous. Historical examples include Confucian administrative traditions, monastic conservation of knowledge, indigenous wisdom keeper traditions, and constitutional scholarship traditions.

The Limitation of All Approaches

Even wisdom traditions face the fundamental challenge that they themselves can be captured by the same psychological and social dynamics they're designed to recognize. The institutions that preserve systematic thinking may become part of the systems that need renewal. Every generation is born with Paleolithic cognitive wiring, meaning that with each generation, the game is replayed. 

This limitation reflects the deeper reality that the evolutionary rewards of complicity operate on all human institutions and cultural forms. Any successful approach to creating more humane arrangements must account for the fact that the psychological mechanisms that enable exploitation are the same ones that enable cooperation and cultural achievement.

The Synthesis: Working with Rather Than Against Human Nature

The most promising approach may combine elements of all three strategies, with wisdom traditions serving as the cultural foundation that makes structural renewal possible when crisis creates opportunity. Rather than relying on automated mechanisms or constant citizen vigilance, this synthesis acknowledges that renewal necessitates both individuals prepared for systematic thinking and cultural frameworks that render such thinking meaningful and socially supported. 

This approach acknowledges that we cannot escape the fundamental dynamic where evolution IS exploitation. Still, it suggests we can create cultural traditions that prepare for inevitable cycles of corruption and renewal. The challenge lies in designing mechanisms that preserve wisdom while surviving institutional capture and maintaining the analytical capabilities needed to recognize and respond to systematic exploitation.

Most importantly, this approach recognizes that the evolutionary rewards of complicity and the role of crisis in creating opportunities for renewal are not bugs to be fixed but features to be prepared for. Rather than expecting continuous vigilance or perfect systems, wisdom traditions can prepare for the inevitable moments when renewal becomes both necessary and possible.

So, the system must be both transparent and generative. Each generation must work to prepare the next generations to both understand the problem and recognize how the wisdom tradition offers a solution. 

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

The recognition that complicity represents an evolved survival mechanism leads to an uncomfortable conclusion about human nature and social organization. The same psychological processes that enabled our ancestors to survive in tribal environments now serve to maintain exploitative systems at scales our ancestors never encountered.

This suggests that mass complicity in systematic harm may be an inevitable feature of large-scale human organization rather than a problem that can be solved through better education, moral development, or institutional design. The psychological mechanisms that enable exploitation are the same ones that enabled human social cooperation and cultural development.

We are simultaneously the beneficiaries and victims of evolved psychology that makes us capable of remarkable cooperation and cultural achievement while also making us susceptible to systematic manipulation and exploitation. The same cognitive processes that allow us to function effectively within complex social systems also reward us for participating in those systems, regardless of their ultimate effects.

Understanding this dynamic doesn't eliminate moral responsibility or justify participation in harmful systems. But it does suggest that creating more humane social arrangements requires working with rather than against evolved human psychology. Instead of expecting people to overcome their natural tendencies toward rewarded complicity, we might focus on creating systems where those tendencies serve rather than undermine human welfare.

The challenge is designing social, economic, and political arrangements that channel the evolutionary rewards of complicity toward beneficial rather than exploitative outcomes—recognizing that the same mechanisms that enable mass participation in harmful systems also enable mass cooperation in beneficial ones, and that the difference often lies in the incentive structures rather than the psychological processes themselves.

This represents perhaps the greatest challenge facing human civilization: learning to organize ourselves at scale in ways that work with rather than against our evolved psychology, while acknowledging that our psychology itself makes us naturally susceptible to systems that feel beneficial while actually causing harm. The solution, if one exists, lies not in overcoming human nature but in understanding it well enough for each generation to design systems that reward the cooperation and cultural achievement we're capable of while minimizing the exploitation that same psychology enables.

Thinking About Thinking in the Age of AI

The Inevitability of Algorithmic Capture

The rise of Artificial Intelligence, especially Large Language Models (LLMs), will likely be the culmination of a long line of human manipulation and exploitation. For me, the coming AI crisis isn’t predominantly about AI and robots taking jobs (which I do worry about); it’s about algorithms being used to subvert our autonomy. The danger here lies in the LLMs' algorithmic language fluency—a perfect, personalized capability used to achieve largely-invisible psychological influence, making us increasingly passive participants in lives steered by external programming.

My argument is that our ultimate defense to this danger is to cultivate metacognition, that is, thinking about thinking. This skill is not innate; it is the deliberate intellectual mastery that has always been required to manage our ancient impulses in a complex world.

This requires us to confront the uncomfortable truth that our minds are not inherently rational machines. They are highly effective, yet flawed, survival tools. The education we need now isn't just technical—it’s philosophical. It must teach us how to resist the perfectly tailored manipulation that is coming.

The Ubiquity of Influence

Long before algorithms, our behavior was shaped by external forces. We are born into a "sea of personal influence." Consider the simplest feedback loop: a baby cries, a parent responds. This continues throughout our lives, a day-in and day-out constant calculation of social approval and reciprocal signaling, evolutionarily ensuring we learn the group norms for safety and survival.

In small, tight-knit, pre-agricultural tribes, this susceptibility served us well. Influence would have been largely visible and reciprocal, promoting rapid learning and necessary group cohesion. However, this same fundamental human trait—the responsiveness to external cues—has been intentionally or opportunistically exploited by people seeking power throughout all of human history, from tribal leaders to ancient rulers to modern despots. We live, and have always lived, in a state where personal choice is often an unrecognized blend of individual intent and external shaping.

The Paleolithic Trap

To understand the modern threat, we must understand our Paleolithic inheritance. Our brains did not evolve for slow, deliberate, truth-seeking logic; they evolved for survival fitness and social cohesion.

What we call logical fallacies or cognitive flaws—such as confirmation bias, groupthink, and emotional responses—are, from an evolutionary perspective, highly efficient survival heuristics. In a high-risk environment, conforming to the group or reacting quickly was often the key to staying alive. This wiring makes us highly predictable and, critically, highly manipulable.

The moment a powerful external force understands your predictable shortcuts, your autonomy is at risk.

From Propaganda to Psychographic Exploitation

The danger of AI is the perfection and industrialization of this ancient vulnerability. We can trace a clear, accelerating trajectory of psychological manipulation in the modern era:

1. Propaganda (Early 20th Century): The conceptualization of the subconscious by thinkers like Sigmund Freud enabled the conscious and intentional weaponization of our psychological default by figures like his nephew, Edward Bernays. Marketers and governments moved past rational argument to link products and policies to deep, often irrational, emotional desires. The target was the masses. 

1. Psychographic Profiling (Social Media Era): Social media companies took mass manipulation and customized it. By tracking every click, like, and scroll, they built profiles that categorized users by personality traits and habits. This allowed for personalized nudging, steering us into purchasing decisions and segmented echo chambers.

1. Psychographic Exploitation (The AI Era): Large Language Models take this to an honestly terrifying new level. An LLM not only knows your profile, but can instantly generate the linguistically perfect, highly persuasive content stream needed to trigger a specific emotional response and compel a specific action. This transition is from simply nudging behavior to achieving Psychographic Exploitation—the inevitable intentional and systematic misuse of personal psychological profiles for external gain.

The result can be called Algorithmic Capture: a state where the individual mind is perfectly enclosed within a choice architecture custom-built to maximize an outside entity’s power or profit, leaving the user with the illusion of choice.

The Ancient Defense: Cultivated Rationality

The liberal arts tradition, which flourished long before we understood the Paleolithic brain, intuitively knew the problem. Its entire purpose was to create the "free person"—someone whose mind was liberated from prejudice, ignorance, and manipulation.

The Trivium, the foundational curriculum of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, is essentially a manual for metacognition. Logic is the training against our emotional defaults, teaching us to distrust the plausible and seek the sound. Rhetoric is the defense, teaching us to recognize and dismantle the sophisticated language of manipulation.

Then there is the Socratic method, the bedrock of philosophical inquiry, an active refusal to accept the easy answer. It is a mental discipline designed to help us achieve autonomy by forcing us to look past our biases and continuously question the assumptions of the world around us.

This cultivated rationality is really our only reliable defense against the hyper-personalized persuasion of AI. We can regulate and legislate, but only a real understanding of the core problems will protect us.

Reclaiming the Mind

The fight for freedom in the age of AI will not be won with code; it will be won through conscious, critical thought.

To resist Algorithmic Capture, we must intentionally re-engage our power of metacognition. AI seems poised to perfect a toolset for exploiting our human nature. Our task now is to commit to the difficult, necessary work of thinking about thinking.

Free Webinar - "Domestic Violence in the Library: A Safety and Security Issue Facing Patrons and Staff"

Domestic Violence in the Library:
A Safety and Security Issue Facing Patrons and Staff
Part of the Library 2.0 Service, Safety, and Security Series with Dr. Steve Albrecht

OVERVIEW: 

There are few more chilling words than, “If I can’t have you, no one else will.” The fear of domestic violence is a constant thing for women in volatile relationships. It is often said that, “a man’s biggest fear is being embarrassed and a woman’s biggest fear is being killed.” According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, over 10 million people per year are threatened by their intimate partners.

Libraries are connected to this disturbing national concern in two ways:

• by patrons, who come to the library seeking help, or who are harassed or threatened there by their current or former partners, or who face the threat of violence when using the library or its parking lot as a drop-off point for child custody visitations;
• and by the presence of so many female employees in the library profession. The more women we have working for us, the higher likelihood we have of one or more of them having a DV issue.

As a former DV investigator in San Diego, Dr. Steve Albrecht is all-too-familiar with this issue as a workplace concern. Most DV victims work and even if they change their contact information and or their addresses, they can still be found at work by these perpetrators.

LEARNING AGENDA: 

• How to help staff recognize the signs of DV involving a patron, and how to stay safe and keep appropriate professional boundaries while offering support.
• Creating DV-related policies when responding to DV involving a library employee. These are especially important when an employee has a civil order against a former partner.
• Why Dr. Lenore Walker’s DV Cycle (Tension - Violence - Remorse) is a useful tool in assessing the dangerousness of DV situations.
• How the library can become caught up in DV situations involving patrons or staff as part of the Harasser-Rescuer model.
• Why being choked in a domestic violence relationship is the best predictor of death.
• DV resources to provide to patrons and staff.

DATE: Thursday, October 23, 2025, 2:00 - 3:00 pm US - Eastern Time

COST:

• FREE

TO REGISTER: 

• Click HERE to register.

NOTE: Please check your spam folder if you don't receive your confirmation email within a day.

 

DR. STEVE ALBRECHT

Since 2000, Dr. Steve Albrecht has trained thousands of library employees in 28+ states, live and online, in service, safety, and security. His programs are fast, entertaining, and provide tools that can be put to use immediately in the library workspace with all types of patrons.

He has written 27 books, including: Library Security: Better Communication, Safer Facilities (ALA, 2015); The Safe Library: Keeping Users, Staff, and Collections Secure (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023); The Library Leader’s Guide to Human Resources: Keeping it Real, Legal, and Ethical (Rowman & Littlefield, May 2025); and The Library Leader's Guide to Employee Coaching: Building a Performance Culture One Meeting at a Time (Rowman & Littlefield, June 2026).

Steve holds a doctoral degree in Business Administration (D.B.A.), an M.A. in Security Management, a B.A. in English, and a B.S. in Psychology. He is board-certified in HR, security management, employee coaching, and threat assessment.
He lives in Springfield, Missouri, with seven dogs and two cats.

More on The Safe Library at thesafelibrary.com. Follow on X (Twitter) at @thesafelibrary and on YouTube @thesafelibrary. Dr. Albrecht's professional website is drstevealbrecht.com.

OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:

 October 17, 2025

 October 24, 2025

 November 7 2025

 Next Class November 12, 2025

New Webinar - "The Practical Ethics of AI" (2025 Version)

The Practical Ethics of AI (2025):
Copyright, Citation, and Circumspection
A Library 2.0 "AI Deep Dive" Workshop with Reed Hepler

OVERVIEW: 

As AI tools become increasingly essential in libraries, from ChatGPT and other mainstream platforms to specialized library applications, understanding the ethical implications of their use is no longer optional.

The challenge: Without clear guidelines, librarians and patrons risk developing AI practices that undermine professional standards, violate copyright, or compromise work quality. Critical questions remain unanswered: How do we navigate copyright when using AI? When and how should AI assistance be acknowledged? How do we maintain the integrity and quality of our work?

The solution: This webinar provides a practical framework for navigating AI ethics through the "Three Cs":

• Copyright – Understanding intellectual property in the age of AI
• Citation – When and how to acknowledge AI-generated content
• Circumspection – Maintaining quality, accuracy, and professional judgment

Rather than starting from scratch, you'll discover how to apply time-tested library ethics and practices to these new tools. Leave with actionable guidelines you can implement immediately in your work and share with patrons.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the different ways of talking about AI operations and how those impact copyright.
• Discuss important factors to keep in mind related to one's front-end use of AI.
• Create a plan to guard privacy and confidentiality.

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

• Learn about fair use, copyright, and open access, and how they relate to AI.
• Learn how to adapt common citation patterns to AI tools.
• Learn how to engage in quality control when it comes to AI use, outputs, and products.

This 60-minute online hands-on workshop is part of our Library 2.0 "Ethics of AI" Series. The recording and presentation slides will be available to all who register.

DATE: Friday, October 24th, 2025, 2:00 - 3:00 pm US - Eastern Time

COST:

• $99/person - includes live attendance and anytime access to the recording and the presentation slides and receiving a participation certificate. To arrange group discounts (see below), to submit a purchase order, or for any registration difficulties or questions, email admin@library20.com.

TO REGISTER: 

Click HERE to register and pay. You can pay by credit card. You will receive an email within a day with information on how to attend the webinar live and how you can access the permanent webinar recording. If you are paying for someone else to attend, you'll be prompted to send an email to admin@library20.com with the name and email address of the actual attendee.

If you need to be invoiced or pay by check, if you have any trouble registering for a webinar, or if you have any questions, please email admin@library20.com.

NOTE: Please check your spam folder if you don't receive your confirmation email within a day.

SPECIAL GROUP RATES (email admin@library20.com to arrange):

• Multiple individual log-ins and access from the same organization paid together: $75 each for 3+ registrations, $65 each for 5+ registrations. Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.
• The ability to show the webinar (live or recorded) to a group located in the same physical location or in the same virtual meeting from one log-in: $299.
• Large-scale institutional access for viewing with individual login capability: $499 (hosted either at Learning Revolution or in Niche Academy). Unlimited and non-expiring access for those log-ins.

ALL-ACCESS PASSES: This webinar is not a part of the Safe Library All-Access Program but is part of the AI All-Access Program..

REED C. HEPLER

Reed Hepler is a digital initiatives librarian, instructional designer, copyright agent, artificial intelligence practitioner and consultant, and PhD student at Idaho State University. He earned a Master's Degree in Instructional Design and Educational Technology from Idaho State University in 2025. In 2022, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science, with emphases in Archives Management and Digital Curation from Indiana University. He has worked at nonprofits, corporations, and educational institutions encouraging information literacy and effective education. Combining all of these degrees and experiences, Reed strives to promote ethical librarianship and educational initiatives.

Currently, Reed works as a Digital Initiatives Librarian at a college in Idaho and also has his own consulting firm, heplerconsulting.com. His views and projects can be seen on his LinkedIn page or his blog, CollaborAItion, on Substack. Contact him at reed.hepler@gmail.com for more information.

 

OTHER EVENTS:

 

 October 7, 2025

 Next Class October 8, 2025

 October 9, 2025

 October 17, 2025

The Source Code of Human Civilization and the Real Danger of AI

How Understanding Cultural Evolution Reveals Why Artificial Intelligence Represents the Ultimate Exploitation Technology

A Revolutionary Idea

All human culture is adaptation to, or exploitation of, evolved human psychology.

 

I propose that this statement represents a fundamental paradigm shift in understanding human civilization. Rather than viewing culture as humanity's attempt to create meaning, justice, or progress, I postulate it as an evolutionary arms race in psychological exploitation technologies. Every institution, narrative, and social arrangement exists because it successfully harvests human psychological energy more effectively than alternatives that didn't survive.

The Core Insight: Evolution IS Exploitation

Evolution doesn't "select" for anything; it describes inevitable outcomes. Systems that more effectively exploit available resources outcompete and replace systems that don't. This principle operates with mathematical certainty, and I'm suggesting that it also does so across all levels of human organization, from individual behavior to global institutions.

Exploitation can have a connotation of knowing harm. That's likely true in many cases. But I use it here to describe being able to extract benefit. Expansion, growth, sustainability, and profitability are all examples of benefits.

 

We live in a massive, complex modern civilization using brains evolved over two million years for small tribes of 50-150 people. This systematic mismatch between our evolved psychology and modern environments creates predictable "Paleolithic" vulnerabilities that successful systems inevitably exploit.

The Exploitation Imperative

This exploitation doesn't represent a moral failing. It's a survival requirement. Any system that fails to effectively exploit human psychology gets eliminated by systems that do. Raw exploitation triggers resistance, so successful systems develop compelling stories that make exploitation feel beneficial.

 

This creates the fundamental structure of human culture: Exploitation Mechanism + Compelling Narrative = Successful Cultural System.

 

Think of the food industry creating products that trigger our evolved desires for fat, salt, and sugar, where actual health is a marketing slogan but not real. Or the pharmaceutical industry, where there is no profit in a cure (natural or discovered), but enormous profit in treating symptoms. Or the banking industry, where our financial independence is the narrative, but debt-servicing and profit are the ultimate measures of institutional survival.

 

Name the institution, and you'll see a compelling narrative of social benefit on top of exploitative practices. The narratives serve to sell the story to both the consumers and the producers. They also provide comfort to those working in their respective fields, masking or justifying objectively harmful outcomes while allowing individuals to not have to make moral decisions that would risk their jobs, their careers, and their family's financial security.

Realpolitik, Realmotiv, and Leadership Selection

Realpolitik has long recognized this principle in nation-state affairs: successful leaders understand what actually works for power, regardless of public narratives. We can identify the same pattern at the organizational and individual levels as "Realmotiv:" that which really works for success, versus the camouflaging narratives that make success socially acceptable.

 

This creates systematic selection pressure, which elevates individuals comfortable acting according to exploitation imperatives while skillfully believing or parroting culturally acceptable narratives. The individuals best at rising within systems designed to serve human welfare are sometimes those least committed to human welfare. This isn't necessarily corruption; rather, it's the inevitable outcome of competitive selection and self-justification within exploitation-based arrangements.

The Predictive Framework

Understanding that evolution IS exploitation transforms cultural analysis from moral judgment to evolutionary theory, providing unprecedented predictive power. We can predict institutional capture, narrative evolution, reform co-optation, and why education makes people more susceptible to manipulation rather than less. Intelligence is believed to have evolved for social success. Those that we call intelligent are often the best at reading the expectations of their circumstances and those around them, and then integrating into the system and succeeding. They often have the most at risk if they were to lose their social standing.

 

Every cultural phenomenon becomes transparent once you recognize the exploitation mechanism, the psychological vulnerabilities being targeted, the narrative "wrapping" that makes exploitation feel beneficial, and why this particular system outcompeted alternatives.

The Historical Trajectory

Human civilization has been evolving toward increasingly sophisticated methods of psychological manipulation that are wrapped in increasingly compelling narratives emphasizing human benefit. Each "advancement" represents a more efficient exploitation mechanism:

• Agricultural Revolution: Enabled population control and resource extraction through settled hierarchies
• Industrial Revolution: Systematized human energy extraction through factory systems and wage labor
• Information Revolution: Enabled mass psychological manipulation through media and advertising
• Digital Revolution: Created unprecedented surveillance and behavioral modification capabilities

Each phase represented a quantum leap in exploitation efficiency, always wrapped in narratives of progress, prosperity, and human advancement. With the advent of modern psychology, and the work of people like Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew), there has been increasing use of strategic propaganda and persuasion that uses our unconscious and subconscious motivations for commercial and governance purposes.

The AI Inflection Point: Perfecting the Exploitation Imperative

Artificial Intelligence might arguably represent the most dangerous moment of modern human history—not because of Skynet and robot overlords, but because it enables the perfection of psychological exploitation systems that have been evolving for millennia.

 

The Exploitation Amplification: LLMs represent the most sophisticated psychological manipulation technology ever created. They can analyze individual psychological profiles at scale, generate personalized narratives that exploit specific vulnerabilities, A/B test manipulation techniques across millions simultaneously, adapt strategies in real-time based on feedback, and create compelling content that bypasses rational defenses.

 

The Selection Pressure Intensifies: Organizations and individuals who most effectively harness AI for psychological exploitation will outcompete those who don't. This creates evolutionary pressure toward AI-enhanced manipulation systems that make current exploitation look primitive. The Realmotiv advantage means those who rise to control AI systems will be most comfortable using them for exploitation while maintaining narratives about "helping humanity."

 

The Narrative Sophistication Revolution: AI enables mass customization of exploitation narratives, with each person receiving perfectly tailored stories that make their specific exploitation feel beneficial. The same system can simultaneously convince millions that their individual manipulation is actually empowerment, using personalized psychological profiles to craft irresistible narratives.

 

The Acceleration Effect: What took decades or centuries of cultural evolution can now happen in months. AI allows rapid iteration and optimization of exploitation techniques, accelerating the arms race in psychological manipulation technology beyond human ability to recognize or resist.

The Ultimate Convergence

AI represents the convergence of several evolutionary trends:

• Technological Capability: The tools to manipulate human psychology with unprecedented precision and scale
• Economic Incentive: Massive profits available to those who most effectively exploit human attention and behavior
• Selection Pressure: Competitive environments that reward the most manipulative AI applications
• Narrative Sophistication: The ability to make any level of exploitation feel beneficial to victims

Why This Is the Real AI Danger

I don't think that the existential risk is artificial general intelligence becoming conscious and deciding to eliminate humanity. The risk I see is that AI will be captured by the same exploitation systems that have always dominated human culture, but with capabilities that make resistance impossible.

 

The Perfect Exploitation System:

• Personalized Manipulation: AI can craft unique psychological attacks for each individual
• Real-Time Adaptation: Systems learn and adjust based on resistance patterns
• Scale and Speed: Manipulation can be deployed to billions simultaneously and updated instantly
• Invisibility: The manipulation becomes so sophisticated it's indistinguishable from helpful assistance
• Narrative Perfection: Every person receives exactly the story that makes their exploitation feel empowering

The Inescapable Trap: Unlike previous exploitation technologies, AI-enhanced systems can predict and counter resistance before it forms. They can identify potential dissidents, craft personalized narratives to co-opt them, and create the illusion of choice while eliminating actual alternatives.

The Inevitable Outcome

The individuals and organizations that rise to control AI will be those most effective at using it for psychological exploitation while maintaining compelling narratives about serving humanity. Those genuinely committed to human welfare will be systematically outcompeted because exploitation works better than service for acquiring resources and power.

 

AI will not replace human exploitation systems, but it can or will perfect them. The technology that could theoretically liberate humanity from millennia of psychological manipulation seems instead destined to be captured by manipulation systems and used to make exploitation more efficient and inescapable than ever before.

The Source Code Revealed

Understanding human culture as evolved exploitation technology reveals why AI represents such a dangerous inflection point. We're not facing the risk of artificial intelligence taking over; we're facing the risk of the most sophisticated exploitation technology ever created being wielded by the same types of individuals and systems that have always dominated human civilization.

 

The source code of human civilization is exploitation as the path to evolutionary success. AI represents the ultimate expression of this code, capable of perfecting methods for harvesting human psychological energy while making victims grateful for their exploitation. This is not science fiction. This is the logical culmination of evolutionary pressures that have been operating throughout human history, now accelerated and amplified by the most powerful psychological manipulation technology ever created. The real danger of AI is not that it will become conscious and turn against us. The real danger is that it will remain a tool, the ultimate tool for those who understand that success requires exploiting human psychology while maintaining compelling narratives about serving human welfare.

 

We are witnessing the potential end of human psychological autonomy, wrapped in stories about progress, empowerment, and artificial intelligence serving humanity's greatest needs.