Behind the Collapse of the System: Why Are Shared Ethics Disintegrating While Technology Cannot Save Us

Human society has never truly escaped a fundamental problem: when consensus disappears, all progress will backfire.

From Individual Algorithms to Collective Dilemmas

Behind every individual’s behavior and decision-making lies a set of “underlying programs”—we call them principles. These principles are not abstract concepts but concrete mechanisms that shape our choices. They determine whether we are willing to compromise in extreme conflicts; they influence our priorities regarding money, power, and survival.

Interestingly, when we look back at the history of human civilization, we find a startling isomorphism: regardless of how distant the region or how different the culture, all societies have independently developed similar ethical frameworks.

Why? Because they all address the same problem: how to use informal institutions to constrain individual behavior and reduce the costs of social cooperation. Religion, ethics, customs—these seemingly mysterious things are essentially a set of incentive mechanisms aimed at guiding individuals to pursue systemic optimality rather than mere self-maximization.

Good and Evil Are Not Moral Topics, But Economics Problems

A common mistake we make is understanding good and evil as binary opposites. In fact, from a systemic efficiency perspective:

“Good” = behaviors that increase total social output (positive externalities)
“Evil” = behaviors that harm overall interests and create social costs (negative externalities)

This is not a value judgment but an efficiency judgment. When a person adopts a “give more than take” strategy, the cost to the giver is often far less than the incremental benefit to the recipient. This kind of reciprocal altruism has a name in game theory: win-win configuration. It can generate non-zero-sum value growth and is a necessary precondition for maintaining the operation of complex societies.

The quality of human capital ultimately depends on this characteristic: whether individuals have the psychological tendency to commit and realize collective benefits maximization. Integrity, moderation, courage—these qualities are not cultural differences but technical choices. All successful societies have chosen to promote them.

What Happens When Signal Systems Fail

This is the real crisis.

In contemporary society, the consensus on good and evil is undergoing an unprecedented disintegration. Replacing it is naked self-centeredness: the absolute plunder of money and power has become the new “principle.” Even more frightening is that this value system has infiltrated our cultural products—we no longer have role models with moral appeal.

What is the result? When children grow up in environments lacking proper incentive templates, rates of drug abuse, violence, and suicide rise, and the gap between rich and poor widens. These are not only symptoms of the collapse of social principles but also their amplifiers.

Ironically, history repeatedly teaches us this lesson. Many believers have betrayed the spirit of cooperation in their doctrines due to disputes over religious discourse or personal interests. As people abandon religious superstitions, they also mistakenly purge beneficial social norms embedded within them, leaving a vacuum of institutions. No one steps up to fill this void.

Technology Is Not the Savior

There is a common fantasy: as long as technological progress is fast enough, social problems will automatically be solved.

But the harsher truth of history is: technology itself is a neutral lever; it can amplify both benefits and destructive power. From nuclear weapons to social media, from financial derivatives to artificial intelligence—technology has never eliminated conflict; it has only changed its form and scale.

The exponential growth of productivity has not led to moral evolution. Instead, when technological empowerment is unbalanced, it becomes a tool of repression.

Why There Is Still Hope

This is a turning point.

Although we face a comprehensive loosening of the principles system, we also possess the most powerful toolbox in history. If we can reweave a network of “reciprocal win-win” principles—based not on supernatural assumptions but on efficiency and systemic stability—we have the capacity to dismantle all systemic crises.

The key is: recognizing that the separation between individual optimality and systemic optimality is the root of all problems. True “spirituality” is not mystical experience but the awareness that individuals are part of the whole system and adjusting incentives accordingly.

Contemporary society does not need to return to traditional religion but to draw from what has endured for thousands of years: shared ethical foundations, commitments to reciprocity, and respect for collective welfare.

These are not optional. They are the infrastructure upon which the stable operation of complex societies depends.

Epilogue

If the underlying algorithms determine individual fate, then consensus determines the trajectory of society. When we lose the basic consensus on what is good and what is evil, technological progress instead becomes a tool for accelerating social disintegration.

Rebuilding the dialogue between ethics and spiritual principles is not about reviving a particular doctrine but about reclaiming that highly efficient social operating system we once had. This time, we need to express it in the language of economics.