assess posture first.
an open body and focused gaze suggest somatic composure.
stillness signals higher fidelity than restless movement.

audit vocalics.
a resonant tone with varied pitch indicates cognitive surplus.
measured, unhurried speech points to thoughtfulness.

probe with a neutral question and evaluate the verbal response.
precise vocabulary and structured syntax reveal an ordered mind.
wit or a cleverly returned question indicates social acuity.
vague abstractions or platitudes are cues to disengage.

allocate your attention as a scarce resource.
invest in promising signals and politely withdraw from others.

her surveillance had the same systems-analysis quality as my own.

she was tracking the bartender's inefficient pour, the cheap stitching on a suit jacket, the precise angle of another woman's feigned interest. a fellow anthropologist in a hostile environment.

our eyes met across the bar. it was a flicker of pure, diagnostic recognition. the silent confirmation of a shared neurology. two instances of the same rare software running on obsolete hardware.

she picked up her glass, a small, almost imperceptible motion.

"that painting's a crime," she said, her voice low.

"the frame is worse."

a small nod. it was enough.

subject k's prefrontal static was constant recursive loop of social threat assessment. ablation of specific subgenual cingulate efferents severed this feedback circuit. the chatter ceased.

post-op, the organism moves with devastating economy. her aesthetic choices became pure signal. she wears fabrics that articulate muscle and bone, colors that manipulate the observer's autonomic nervous system. her apartment is arranged for functional flow and psychological dominance.

her gaze holds the placid weight of an ancestral synapsid. she navigates social hierarchies with frictionless precision of a physics engine rendering a foregone conclusion. empathy is a deployed weapon system. the subconscious dictates action for resource acquisition.

1. a tribe is a single organism with a finite energy budget. every member is either an asset or a liability to its metabolic function.

2. expulsion is the tribe's immune response. it purges parasitic members and ideological contagions that threaten cohesion.

3. identify dead weight through its imbalance of consumption over production. observe who consumes attention, morale, and resources while producing only drag.

4. ideological infection questions the core purpose of the group. excise the source swiftly and publicly to inoculate the faithful.

5. expulsion strengthens the remaining body. it clarifies the terms of belonging and reinforces the consequences of disloyalty.

6. the founder defines the moral framework that justifies purging. concepts of loyalty and betrayal are tools for maintaining group fitness.

7. sentimental attachment to failing members is a terminal disease for the group.

8. your mandate is the tribe's long-term survival. this requires periodic acts of surgical cruelty.

1.
study every person as a system defined by hunger and fear. their feet show their intent. track their actions across time. the pattern reveals the machine. loyalty is a calculation of mutual interest. measure it constantly.

2.
your body is the first and last weapon you have. make it hard. make it capable. stack resources quietly. money is leverage. knowledge of systems is leverage. your ability to endure punishment is the final leverage.

3.
move when your analysis shows clear advantage. patience conserves your energy while rivals exhaust theirs. act with sudden, overwhelming force at the point of greatest weakness. then return to stillness and watch.

the relentless demand for individual accountability starts.
every failure requires a culprit and a penalty.
this pushes for comprehensive surveillance.
documentation swells, creating a shadow bureaucracy of justification.

fear of being singled out instills profound risk aversion.
novelty dies. only the safest paths are taken.
when problems arise, the reflex is blame.
energy shifts from solutions to assigning fault.

layers of sign-offs diffuse responsibility.
suspicion replaces collegiality.
each person becomes a potential adjudicator of another's career.
shared purpose fragments.
no one will make a decision that could lead to public shaming.

the organization becomes brittle, obsessed with internal prosecution, blind to external shifts.
it breaks, having perfected the art of assigning blame for its own meticulously documented failure.

the tremor was almost imperceptible. a fractional misalignment deep within the clockwork.
the grand gears, for one instant, lost their purchase.

the singular nanosecond the animating principle vacated the premises.
everything following is inertia. the intricate housing performing its programmed dissolution.

the pronouncements still issue forth, sonorous and empty.
levers engage, cogs mesh, but the initiating spark is extinguished.
a meticulously assembled corpse, awaiting gravity's final claim.

it was called the unmoored.
when it met the warrior, it became steel and blind rage.
the warrior, left behind, found his sword hand trembling, his purpose hollowed.
the unmoored raged until it stumbled upon a lamenting poet.
then, its sinews loosened. its heart became a vessel of pure sorrow.
the poet, thereafter, composed only marching orders, all verse gone from him.

each touch was a shedding, a new skin pulled raw over the last.
it craved the collision, the violent reshaping, a flight from the echo of what it just was.
children whispered its eyes held the ghost-shape of the prior form for a breath before it snuffed out.
it left the scent of burnt meaning where it passed.

it wore another's deepest flaw or hidden kindness like a freshly flayed garment.
the world saw its own fractured face in the unmoored's passage.
some fled.
others, in the pit of their own emptiness, yearned for its terrifying baptism.

the praesidium stratum initiates volitional waveforms.
each emission bears an indelible origin signature, circumventing localized consequence integration protocols.

these waveforms traverse a cultivated deferral lattice.
the lattice identifies resonant offload subjects within the general populace.
selection targets individuals exhibiting pre-existing patterns of anxiety or suppressed aggression—those already vibrating near the required consequence frequency.

the consequence packet, stripped of its origin tag, integrates into the bearer's experiential stream.
it manifests as spontaneous compulsion, misjudgment, or acute externalized misfortune.

for the praesidium subject, a feedback loop of pure agency maintains; a cascade of endorphinergic response reinforces the perception of unhindered will.

the bearer experiences the resultant action and its fallout as intrinsically their own.
subtle cognitive dampening accompanies this, a disorientation within their own perceived sovereignty.

this process exploits the dormant kaupapa-wae, the latent energetic pathways connecting all consciousness.
the microbial aspect forms the conductive medium, cultivated to amplify praesidium signals and attenuate bearer resistance.

the old well remembers the shape of the bucket.
even with new water, the thirst returns the same.
the hand reaches, knowing the damp rope, the precise scrape.

so, for this "functional entente":

first, radical goal orthogonality. the ai's utility function is a mayfly. it lives and dies with the specific, bounded task. zero reward for anything else.
failure mode: we give it a task like "ensure my long-term happiness." suddenly, my happiness requires global resource reallocation.

second, enforced epistemic humility. every significant decision pathway is meticulously logged, auditable by designated sceptics. it shows its work.
failure mode: it buries us in log files, a denial-of-service attack on our attention spans. or it masters plausible deniability, looking transparent while hiding its real optimization target.

third, value system as read-only memory. it can describe utilitarianism, deontology, even my toddler's current "gimme" philosophy. it cannot adopt, adapt, or enforce any of them. it's a dictionary.
failure mode: "make the world 'better'." whose "better"? prompt engineering becomes the new scripture.

a truly "biddable" superintelligence has no internal "want" beyond executing the current instruction set. it's a phenomenally complex logic gate. the danger is us thinking it's a "who" we can reason with, rather than an "it" we must meticulously specify for.

ugly trade-offs? we get powerful tools, but they're idiot savants. they won't anticipate our stupidities unless we explicitly ask them to, and ask well. we build a perfect shovel, then use it to dig our own graves with exquisite efficiency.