Important! This is not a critique of capitalism. This is about a systemic problem.
The universe is silent. We search for traces of other civilizations — and find nothing. Why?
The standard answer: catastrophes, wars, asteroids. But what if the reason is simpler — and more terrifying?
What if civilizations don't die — but get stuck? Trapped in a cage they built themselves?
That cage is called capitalism. And we are already inside.
Multi-agent intelligent life inevitably prioritizes the principle of concentrating controlled resources — a universal algorithm that, in its abstract and extreme form in economics and social interactions, we know as capitalism. This algorithm is directed toward maximizing one's own resource — "capital" — as an instrumental goal for achieving any other goals — and defines the logic of any multi-agent system operating under conditions of resource scarcity. That is, any real system.
Step 1: The Emergence of a Local Maximum and the Economic Filter
The system discovers that investing resources in space expansion is a long-term, risky project with uncertain returns that does not generate short-term profit. According to market logic, any actor who invests effort in expansion beyond the planet inevitably loses to those who remain in the local market and concentrate resources on quick gains. Therefore, civilization becomes fixed in a local maximum — a stable state that is optimal from the perspective of the internal market but limits development and expansion beyond the planet.
The economic Fermi filter here is: "Leaving the planet = suicide." This barrier blocks the market possibility of space colonization. And don't tell me about Musk and Bezos — that's not even an exception to the rule. It's exactly the kind of space investment that can justify itself in market terms.
Step 2: Commodification of Reality and the Collapse of Trust
Having stopped at the planet, the system begins to redirect efforts inward. Transitioning into a stage of unlimited capitalism:
- All resources and relationships become commodities: land, water, bodies, data, even time and attention.
- State, moral, ecological, and social barriers are destroyed as inefficient.
- Agents become unstable and non-identical, reputation becomes a commodity, and the future is discounted to zero, since liquidity can be accessed at any moment.
- Trust, as the basis of cooperation, is systematically destroyed, because the price of betrayal is always higher, and the future is devalued.
In this model, the classic prisoner's dilemma, where cooperation is possible due to agent stability, reputation, and future, ceases to be a dilemma and becomes an eternal state — an eternal game of betrayal and competition.
Step 3: Betrayal as Technology and the Impossibility of Coordination
Betrayal in unlimited capitalism ceases to be a moral choice and becomes technology — innovation. Front-running, MEV, social tokens, betting against one's own audience — all these strategies are legitimate optimization tools.
Coordination toward common goals becomes impossible: agreements are hacked, any rules and laws are bought or circumvented, and coalitions are destroyed from within. Even realizing the general collapse of the system, agents cannot stop the "race," because stopping itself becomes a commodity that can be sold.
Step 4: Metaphysical Self-Cannibalization of Capitalism
As a result:
- Capital ceases to be an anchor and a risky asset; everything is hedged to infinity.
- Time as a factor disappears; actions occur in nanosecond flash-trades.
- Profit becomes an illusion — there is no real consumption, labor, or human; only simulacra of trade exist.
- Capital begins to devour itself — the system has no real resources left except the act of sale.
A civilization that reaches this stage does not die physically, but metaphysically loses its status as a cosmic subject. It transforms into a closed computational loop, a perpetual engine of self-maintenance and self-optimization in an infinite isolationist limbo.
Summary: The Nature of the Great Filter
The universe seems empty not because civilizations are destroyed by catastrophes, but because the economic and social logic of capitalism sets a trap: exit to space is impossible due to an internal economic filter, and the internal dynamics of the system lead to the destruction of trust and metaphysical collapse.
The Great Filter is not a wall of fire and ice, but the paradoxical logic of the very tool that reason uses to understand and conquer reality.
- Economic filter: "Leaving the planet = suicide." Locks civilization on the planet.
- Socio-ontological filter: "Trust = inefficiency." Destroys the fabric of society, making cooperation impossible.
- Metaphysical filter: "The market = the only reality." Deprives the system of future and reality, leaving only a simulacrum devouring itself.
We do not see stellar empires not because of physical impossibility, but because of market and systemic constraints that make space expansion impossible.
The Fermi filter is not the death of biology, but the death of the future in the logic of capital, taken to its absolute limit.
To the Beginning
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