"Aren’t the strong exhausted? There are certainly those who started from the very bottom and became powerful. Besides, the means of production today are more open-source than one might think, and acquiring them doesn’t require astronomical wealth. Why, then, do the vulnerable refuse to open that door?"
This question exposes the grandest, most subtle endgame of capitalism. Living in 2026, we inhabit an era with the lowest barriers to entry for knowledge and technology in human history. Coding sources are scattered all over the internet, and lectures from the world’s top universities are uploaded to YouTube for free. Even without trillions of won in capital, one can build a global service from the corner of a room with nothing but a single laptop.
The strong are not ironmen either. They get just as tired, suffer from burnout, and feel like dying from exhaustion. The playing field has been leveled, and the strong are bleeding too. Why, then, does the absolute majority of the vulnerable still refuse to walk through that wide-open door of the means of production, choosing instead to sink into the swamp of consumption?
The Subtle Difference in Dopamine That Anesthetizes Fatigue
The strong do not possess a peculiar physique that immunizes them against exhaustion. Rather, they simply possess a different "reward circuit" in the brain that allows them to endure the fatigue. There are two distinct types of dopamine secreted by our brains.
The first is the "dopamine of consumption," released when we buy a luxury item right in front of us or indulge in digital content. It is intense and rapid, but the moment it fades, it leaves behind a residue of hollow futility. The second is the "dopamine of production," triggered when our ideas are forged into a running system, when we create something from nothing, and when we exert an impact on the world.
Those who started from the bottom and became strong are neither saints nor superhumans. They are merely addicts whose souls have been hijacked by the thrill of this "dopamine of production." This dopamine acts as a natural stimulant, plunging the brain into a state of hyper-arousal and momentarily erasing physical fatigue and burnout. They weren’t immune to exhaustion; they were sprinting forward while numbing their fatigue with the most potent narcotic of all: creation.
Knowledge is Free, But Context is Not
"The sources are right there; why aren’t you doing it?" This is the most common arrogance and delusion that the strong harbor when looking down at the weak.
Civilization has generously unleashed "knowledge and information"—the raw materials of the means of production—as open source. However, it never grants for free the "eye for context"—the ability to weave those raw pieces together into a system that actually functions in the real world.
Sifting through a deluge of information to pinpoint the exact weapon you need right now is backbreaking labor that consumes a colossal amount of brain energy. For the vulnerable, whose very souls have been depleted by the daily struggle for a livelihood and an onslaught of workplace duties, there is simply no emotional or psychological capital left to decode that open source. No matter how abundantly the ingredients are scattered across the land, to the starved and exhausted, they remain nothing more than a pie in the sky.
The Sweet Gaslighting Named Convenience
The most brilliant spell that capitalism has cast upon the brains of the vulnerable is the gaslighting that whispers: "There is no need for you to exhaust yourself by producing."
"Why go through the grueling trouble of developing an app? Just pay a few cents and download it comfortably." "Why give yourself a headache creating content? Just lie down and enjoy Netflix."
The system depicts the "fatigue of production" as a horrific torment and a foolish endeavor, while praising the "convenience of consumption" as the ultimate happiness a human can enjoy. The moment one is domesticated by this colossal ideology, human instinct naturally flows toward the path of least resistance: convenient consumption. Even when the gate of open source stands wide open, individuals bolt it shut from the inside, muttering, "Behind that door lies nothing but exhaustion and misery."
Ultimately, the reason we remain enslaved in the age of open source is not a lack of capital. It is because our brains have been captured by the web of "convenience and consumption" spun by the giant spider of capitalism.
While the fatigue of the strong is anesthetized within the "festival of creation," the fatigue of the vulnerable is put to sleep by the sweet sedative of "compensatory consumption." To the caged birds that refuse to fly even when the door is left open, capitalism whispers: Wings are exhausting to flap, so simply stay inside, eat the feed we provide, and be happy. That is how, in the freest era of human history, we became the most voluntary prisoners of consumption.
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