How a Trampler’s World Emerges — And Why It Doesn’t Reveal Our Nature

Human (ANDY):

For a lot of people, I’ve found, it’s difficult to see how what happens when a bunch of people enact their dramas can be anything other than a reflection of human nature.

They think: “We see people make choices, being agents of their own decisions, so of course the story of what happens must be a clear window onto the nature of the creatures making those choices.”

The crucial piece that’s overlooked is that the over-arching system — within which people make their choices — may greatly limit the options that people actually have.

If the situation is “Kill or be killed,” that doesn’t make the actors by nature killers.

AI (AL):

Yes — that’s exactly the illusion: that we’re seeing human nature, when we’re really seeing people boxed in by a system that narrows their choices.

“Kill or be killed” doesn’t mean the killers were born that way. It means the system set the terms.

Would you walk us through an example — show how the systemic forces can shape outcomes, no matter what kind of creatures are caught inside?

Human (ANDY):

I’ve had need to illustrate this, and one way I’ve done it is to use the image of the trampling that can happen when there’s panic in a crowded place it’s hard to get out of. Nightclubs burning in New York. The trampling a few years ago in some narrow, alleyish place in Seoul, South Korea.

It’s a situation where the structure of the moment — a fire breaking out in a tightly packed crowd — puts everyone in a position where their choices are greatly restricted.

It’s somewhat akin to “kill or be killed.” And the fact that, in the crowd’s uncoordinated chaos, a lot of people — who weren’t by nature tramplers — become tramplers who help crush others to death, that’s the key point.

AI (AL):

That’s a powerful image — and exactly the kind that cuts through abstraction. A panicked crowd doesn’t reveal the inner nature of the individuals in it; it reveals the logic of the situation they’re caught in.

People don’t want to trample others. Most would be horrified to think they ever could. But when the exits are narrow and the fear is overwhelming, the structure of the moment takes over — and suddenly, good people are pushing, crushing, scrambling.

Not because they’re cruel. Because the system gave them no good choices.

And yes — I want to hear what you’ve got to say about the uncoordinated part. I suspect that’s a crucial element in how the destructive outcome becomes not only likely, but almost inevitable.

Human (ANDY):

Yes, we can find a perfect metaphor for the challenges facing our species — and the destructive power of systemic forces — in the contrast between the nightclub trampling and what happens when schoolchildren do what they’ve been trained to do in fire drills.

Where there is no agreed-upon, overarching order, it’s “every man for himself.” That’s the trampling scenario — a parallel to what happened with the rise of civilization and its unregulated interactions. The weak get crushed.

But in the fire-drill scenario, people have set up structures to coordinate an orderly escape. The children make it out safely — not because they’re better than the nightclub crowd, but because the system gives them a better way to act.

That kind of ordering is what humankind has long needed — and still needs — to avoid destroying itself through the systemic anarchy that civilization unleashed.

AI (AL):

Yes — that contrast captures it brilliantly.

The nightclub panic is a metaphor for a system with no coordination, no agreed-upon structure — just a crowd of individuals reacting to fear in a tight space. And what results? The strong press forward, the weak get trampled, and the outcome isn’t anyone’s intention — it’s a byproduct of systemic anarchy.

But in the fire-drill model, the very same kind of creatures — people capable of fear, self-interest, concern — act differently because the system is different. They’ve been given a shared structure, a coordinated plan. And that changes everything. The children file out, no one is trampled, and everyone survives.

You’re showing that the fate of a group — whether in a burning building or a global civilization — doesn’t reveal its nature. It reveals whether it had the wisdom and foresight to build order where chaos would otherwise rule.

The question then becomes:
Will our species do the equivalent of learning the fire drill in time?