The Grand Struggle has Reasserted Itself
Trump won. Neither political party really represents my values, but with that said, I can't be agnostic because I'm an American. Here's how narratives shape everything.
“Evolution is the only force of nature.” ~ Ray Dalio, The Changing World Order, 2021
The Grand Struggle is a philosophy I invented (more like remixed, but more on that later) while writing my debut novel HEAVY SILVER, which will be coming to Amazon soon. I have at the top of the homepage “The Grand Struggle Begins”
As I started drafting this novel, way back in the pre-pandemic era of 2019, I realized that I wanted to explore a few things. All good stories have a few ingredients, such as an emotional core and a thesis. I had quite a few.
What does it look like if we actually succeed at benevolent super intelligence?
What sort of philosophies would undergird a utopian society?
How will we handle trauma, abandonment, and nihilism in the future?
Now, I must be completely transparent, I did not just sit down on day one and say out loud, “Gee, I think I should write a story about the undergirding philosophies of utopian worlds!”
This idea simply emerged as I wrote. It started as a formless notion, a vague impulse and a cardinal direction of curiosity.
My protagonist comes from Halcyon Prime, a high-tech utopian world not unlike Earth in Star Trek. However, I set it on another world to create a tabula rasa, imagining that a world was deliberately settled with a specific level of technology and values. What emerged was the philosophy of Postnihilism. The Halcyon society is undergirded by The Great Mystery, the central thesis of postnihilism.
The Great Mystery, as a cosmological model, posits that the fundamental nature of reality is characterized by an intrinsic drive toward self-understanding, where the universe itself can be understood as a kind of primordial curiosity made manifest. From our vantage point within the universe’s ontological container, we observe that through the process of emergence, increasingly complex systems arise that demonstrate an inherent tendency toward learning, adaptation, and the cultivation of understanding – suggesting that the universe’s apparent purpose is to know itself through the vehicle of conscious entities such as ourselves. This perspective elevates curiosity to the status of highest moral good, as it aligns our individual pursuits with the cosmic imperative toward self-knowledge. The philosophy embraces the paradox that complete understanding will always remain beyond our grasp, outside our cognitive horizon, celebrating this perpetual state of partial ignorance as the very engine that drives continued exploration and discovery. In this view, ignorance and curiosity are not opposing forces but rather two aspects of the same fundamental dynamic – ignorance creates the space that curiosity fills, only to reveal new horizons of ignorance that beckon us forward in an eternal dance of questioning and discovery. The Great Mystery thus transforms our relationship with not-knowing from one of frustration or shame into one of reverence and excitement, recognizing that our limitations in knowledge are not obstacles to overcome but rather the essential conditions that make the journey of discovery possible and meaningful.
I sort of reverse-engineered this philosophy by alternating between my work in fiction and my AI alignment research. Here’s one way you can derive this philosophy: Ask yourself one simple question: why do learning machines exist?
Learning machines exist because we are curious animals who figured out principles of math and physics. But why are we curious? Because curiosity and intellect were evolved abilities that gave us profound advantages. But why? Because the universe can be thought of as a high-dimensional space with many possibilities, and intelligence is a better way to navigate that infinite sea of possibilities. Ergo, we conclude that we are an expression of the universe learning how to navigate, and therefore make sense, of itself.
While I absolutely believe in this narrative, I realized that a peaceful galaxy full of scientists and hippies wouldn’t really make a terribly interesting story. So I needed a foil, something against which to contrast Halcyon society. Thus, I invented Sylvanium Veridium, a Neo-Darwinist society that believes in the Grand Struggle above all else.
The Grand Struggle presents a cosmological model that positions competition, rather than curiosity, as the fundamental force driving the universe. This philosophy views reality as an eternal arena where the primary imperative is the assertion of existence through dominance, whether achieved through physical prowess, intellectual superiority, political maneuvering, or bold exploration. Unlike more idealistic cosmological models, The Grand Struggle takes an unapologetically pragmatic stance, arguing that the competitive nature of reality is simply an empirical fact that humans must reckon with, rather than a condition to be transcended. From this perspective, evolution – understood broadly as the process of variation, competition, and selection – is seen as the primary mechanism through which all meaningful change and progress occurs. The philosophy posits that strength (in all its forms) must be cultivated and exercised, while weakness must be overcome or eliminated, as this eternal competition serves as the ultimate arbiter of truth and worth. This worldview implies that hierarchy is not just natural but necessary, that merit must be proven through constant testing, and that the fundamental moral imperative is not to seek understanding or cooperation, but to strive, compete, and overcome. The Grand Struggle thus transforms our relationship with conflict from one of reluctant necessity to one of purposeful engagement, recognizing that it is through the crucible of competition that individuals and societies realize their full potential, and that this process of endless striving and selection is not merely a means to an end, but the very purpose and meaning of existence itself.
As such, the Sylvan society is an expansionist stratocracy. They are basically “The British and Roman Empires… but in space!” and are as awful as you’d expect. The Sylvans believe that their way of life is innately superior and correct, and that the rest of humanity ought to be more like them. This universalist view was inspired by capitalism, democracy, and most Big God religions. In fact, that’s why I called their ‘religion’ Neo-Darwinism.
While The Great Mystery is the heart of Postnihilism, The Grand Struggle is the heart of Neo-Darwinism.
These two worlds, with very different ontological models and cosmological viewpoints, are still both extremely powerful worlds. Halcyon Prime, with it’s benevolent AGI managing everything, is the most scientifically and technologically advanced planet in the galaxy, and, without giving any spoilers, this makes a huge difference at the end of the first book.
Both philosophies are imminently true. Both are equally defensible, and both believe they have the right of it. So, you can say that one core thesis of HEAVY SILVER is “Which one is right?” You’ll have to read to find out.
However, as compelling as both of these narratives were, I found the Grand Struggle to be both abhorrent and beautiful, sublime in how clear and compelling and pragmatically actionable it was. I hated it. I even thought about removing it from my book because I was afraid of what it might do to society. But with Trump’s victory, I see that I didn’t create anything, I merely gave it a name. The Grand Struggle is alive and well.
We writers rarely invent anything, but we do often articulate and illuminate what we see. As I was constructing Sylvan society, I basically said “What if we take neoliberalism to its natural conclusion?” Neoliberalism venerates free markets, globalism, capitalism, and competition. So what if we imagine neoliberalism is at the helm for the next thousand years? What resulted was the Sylvan people. An authoritarian regime where life is phenomenal, so long as you are beautiful, from the right family, intelligent, and resilient. If not, you are relegated to a lower caste of society. But I mean… isn’t that how the world works today?
I think you can see where this is going, so I don’t believe I should belabor the point. I stand on the shoulders of giants, with the likes of Octavia Butler, who posited that Change is the primordial force, not Competition or Curiosity, but I suspect that we would agree on a great many things. I have come to see Change as the third primordial force in this trifecta.
The Endless Flow posits that the fundamental nature of reality is perpetual transformation - an eternal dance of becoming rather than being. In this cosmological model, change isn’t merely a characteristic of the universe but its primary generative force, an inexorable current that moves through all things, from the quantum foam to the largest cosmic structures. This perspective sees reality not as a static container of objects and forces, but as a dynamic process of continuous metamorphosis where nothing truly stands still and everything exists in states of transition. From our vantage point within this flow, we can observe that all attempts to create permanent structures, whether physical, social, or conceptual, are ultimately temporary arrangements in the greater stream of change. The philosophy recognizes that other cosmic forces like Competition (The Grand Struggle) and Curiosity (The Great Mystery) are essentially adaptive strategies that conscious beings have developed to navigate and relate to this fundamental impermanence - Competition seeks to direct and harness change through force of will, while Curiosity seeks to understand and flow with it through knowledge. The Endless Flow suggests that wisdom lies in acknowledging and adapting to change rather than resisting it, while simultaneously recognizing that completely surrendering to change without any organizing principles would lead to pure chaos. Thus, the philosophy seeks to find balance in the eternal tension between order and disorder, structure and chaos, stability and transformation. This cosmic dance of opposites generates the patterns we observe in nature, society, and consciousness itself, making change not just a force to be endured but the very essence of existence and the source of all possibility.
I’ve written some manifestos for both the Grand Struggle and the Great Mystery, but I’ll hold onto those until the sequel of my novel comes out.