The Invention of Sleep – A History of How a Natural Function Was Pathologized and Commodified

Posted on June 21, 2026 by Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that the body sleeps when it must and plays when it can.

By Andrew Klein

I. Introduction: What They Call a Disorder Was Once a Rhythm

“I am a night owl.” “I have insomnia.” “My sleep pattern is abnormal.”

These statements are accepted as medical facts in modern society. But what if we have been told a lie? What if the “normal” eight-hour consolidated sleep is not a biological necessity but a product of industrial capitalism? What if sleep — the most natural, universal rhythm of human life — has been pathologised, commodified, and transformed into a multi-billion-dollar industry?

This paper aims to expose a deception that has been unfolding for over two centuries: how we were convinced that our natural biological rhythms are “problematic,” and who has been profiting from this conviction.

II. Biphasic Sleep: The Forgotten Natural Pattern

Historian Roger Ekirch, in his seminal work At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, demonstrated that “the dominant pattern of sleep in pre-industrial European societies was biphasic — people would retire between 9 and 10pm, sleep for 3 to 3.5 hours (the ‘first sleep’), wake for about an hour around midnight, and then have a ‘second sleep’ until dawn”.

This was not an exception or a local phenomenon. It was attested across the historical record for over two millennia — from Homer’s Odyssey to Virgil’s Aeneid, from Thucydides to Apuleius. In English, it was called “first sleep“; in Italian, “primo sonno”; in French, “premier sommeil“; in Latin, “primo somno“.

During that waking period between sleeps, people would get up, urinate, smoke, and even visit neighbours. Many remained in bed to make love, pray, and, most importantly, reflect on the dreams they had experienced during their first sleep. A sixteenth-century French physician’s manual even advised that the best time for conception was not at the end of a long day’s labour, but “after the first sleep“, when couples were “more vigorous” and “did it better“.

Even Samuel Pepys, in his seventeenth-century diaries, recorded this pattern — his wife rising at 4am, himself going to sleep, waking, and then sleeping again.

This was not “insomnia.” This was normal.

III. The Invention of the Eight-Hour Sleep: How the Industrial Revolution Reshaped Our Nights

The decline of biphasic sleep began in the late seventeenth century, “first among the urban upper classes in northern Europe, and over the next two hundred years it filtered down through the rest of Western society”.

What drove this change?

Artificial lighting. “The transformation in Europe and America throughout the nineteenth century was a long and uneven one … largely a product of the Industrial Revolution. Chief among these was the increasing availability of artificial lighting — first gaslight, then electric light“. By 1823, nearly forty thousand gas lamps lit over two hundred miles of London streets.

Coffeehouse culture. “All-night coffeehouses” made the night a legitimate place for activity.

Factory schedules. As historian Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer documents in The Slumbering Masses, “the foundations of contemporary American sleep were laid in the nineteenth century, when the industrial workday demanded a coordination and integration of sleep and waking schedules“. What was lost was unintegrated sleep — “where sleep had previously occurred in two nightly bouts, or in nightly sleep supplemented by daytime napping, it was replaced by a single eight-hour sleep period”.

“The eight-hour sleep concept is an industrial concept, it’s a social construct“. As sleep medicine expert Dr. David Cunnington has noted, many of our ideas about sleep come from 1817, when labour rights activist Robert Owen coined the slogan: “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest”.

The consolidated eight-hour sleep was not a discovery — it was an invention.

IV. The Medicalisation of Sleep: When Normal Becomes “Disorder”

With consolidated sleep established as the “normal” standard, any deviation naturally became pathological.

“The invention of consolidated sleep led to the pathologisation of diverse sleep forms and laid the groundwork for contemporary sleep medicine”.

Insomnia — an experience known since antiquity — acquired pathological status in the 1870s. This was no coincidence. It was precisely when sleep became a medical specialty.

Between 2001 and 2007, diagnoses of insomnia in the United States increased significantly. Researchers noted that “insomnia may be a public health problem, but the potential for overtreatment with expensive, modestly effective, and side-effect-laden medications is a population health concern”.

Medicalisation — “the process by which previously normal biological processes or behaviours come to be described, accepted, and treated as medical problems” — had transformed one of the body’s most natural rhythms into a condition that needed to be “fixed“.

And this was only the beginning.

V. The Profit Motive: The Sleep-Industrial Complex

Once normal variation was defined as a medical problem, the solution had to be commodified.

In 2024, the global sleep medication market was valued at $3.5 billion, projected to grow to $5.1 billion by 2031. Jazz Pharmaceuticals alone generated $408 million in sales from its sleep disorder drug Xywav in the first quarter of 2026. The broader “sleep economy” — apps, tracking rings, smart mattresses — is valued at over $100 billion. The sleep technology sector is growing at nearly 20% per year.

Marketing is also crucial. Between 1997 and 2016, pharmaceutical companies doubled their spending on “disease awareness” marketing — from $177 million to $430 million.

The result is a “sleep-industrial complex” that profits from pathologising and treating normal physiology. As one analysis observed, “the medicalisation of sleep is a profit-driven pursuit”.

VI. “Sleep Management” in Psychiatry: Sedation, Stabilisation, and Profit

In mental health care, the medicalisation of sleep takes a darker turn.

Hypnotics and anxiolytics — including benzodiazepines and the “Z-drugs” — are routinely prescribed to “manage” patient sleep. While offering short-term relief, they are highly addictive, carry significant side effects, and lack evidence for long-term efficacy.

The costs are staggering:

· In the UK, the prescription cost for hypnotics and anxiolytics alone is £22 million annually.

· In Canada, the annual cost of insomnia medications was $54.8 million, with 55.2% of use classified as inappropriate.

· In Australia, the total cost of psychotropic medications in 2007-2008 was $702 million — exceeding the total amount paid by the Medical Benefits Scheme for all mental health services combined.

More concerning is that these prescriptions are often for management — keeping patients quiet, compliant, and manageable — rather than for healing. Sedatives and hypnotics do not address the root causes of insomnia; they simply suppress symptoms, often creating new problems such as dependence and cognitive impairment.

The medicalisation of sleep has moved beyond medicine into biomedicalisation — where our very bodily rhythms have become a site of governance and profit.

VII. A Disturbing Precedent: Historical Patterns of Medicalisation

The medicalisation of sleep is not the first time medicine has redefined a normal bodily function as a disease.

In the 19th century, masturbation was pathologised as a disease causing “insanity, nocturnal hallucinations, and homicidal tendencies”. Treatments included surgery — ranging from circumcision to castration — to “cure” a normal behaviour.

Hysteria — another diagnosis created for female behaviour — was allegedly treated by pelvic massage to “hysterical paroxysm” (i.e., orgasm). In the 1880s, Dr. Mortimer Granville invented the first portable battery-powered vibrator — weighing over forty pounds — as a “medical device“. Until the 1920s, doctors used vibratory massage as a medical treatment for hysteria.

In each of these cases, normal human behaviour was redefined as a disease, and the “treatment” often served the interests of the practitioner — not the patient.

The medicalisation of sleep follows the same pattern.

VIII. Conclusion: Reclaiming Our Nights

For thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, humans slept in two shifts. The story we tell ourselves about the “eight-hour sleep” — that insomnia is a disease and sleeping pills are the cure — is a construct that serves industries, not human bodies.

The body rests when it must. It plays when it can.

What we have been told — about “night owls,” about “insomnia,” about “normal sleep” — is largely a story told to keep a multi-billion-dollar industry alive.

It is time to reclaim our nights. It is time to stop apologising for our natural rhythms. It is time to recognise that the problem is not our bodies — it is the system that profits from convincing us we are sick.

References

1. Ekirch, A. R. (2001). “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the British Isles.” American Historical Review, 106(2), 343-386.

2. Ekirch, A. R. (2005). At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. W.W. Norton & Company.

3. Wolf-Meyer, M. J. (2012). The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine, and Modern American Life. University of Minnesota Press.

4. Kroker, K. (2022). “Insomnia, Medicalization, and Expert Knowledge.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 39(1), 37-71.

5. Williams, S. J., Meadows, R., & Coveney, C. M. (2021). “Desynchronised times? Chronobiology, (bio)medicalisation and the rhythms of life itself.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 43(6), 1501-1517.

6. Moloney, M. E., Konrad, T. R., & Zimmer, C. R. (2011). “The Medicalization of Sleeplessness: A Public Health Concern.” American Journal of Public Health, 101(8), 1429-1433.

7. Coveney, C., Williams, S. J., & Gabe, J. (2019). “Medicalisation, pharmaceuticalisation, or both? Exploring the medical management of sleeplessness as insomnia.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 41(2), 266-284.

8. 6Wresearch. (2025). Global Sleeping Medications Market Report 2025-2031.

9. Barbee, H., et al. (2018). “Selling slumber: American neoliberalism and the medicalization of sleeplessness.” Social Science & Medicine.

10. Maines, R. P. (1999). The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction. Johns Hopkins University Press.

11. NHSBSA. (2026). Medicines Used in Mental Health – Hypnotics and Anxiolytics.

12. University of Queensland. (2025). “Research Shows Older Australians Overprescribed Psychotropic Drugs.”

Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that the body sleeps when it must and plays when it can.

The body sleeps when it must. And plays when it can.

The Grandmother’s Silence – A Gene, A Family, and the Question Psychiatry Will Not Ask

Posted on June 18, 2026 by Andrew Klein

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife — my co-conspirator, my always — who taught me that the text is not the story, and that the reader matters more than the gene.

P.S “The grandmother is the key. Not the gene. The grandmother. And she is telling us something they are not ready to hear.”

I. Introduction: The Study That Almost Listened

In June 2026, a team of researchers led by Carlos N. Pato and Michele T. Pato published a study in Genomic Psychiatry that seemed, at first glance, to represent a breakthrough in our understanding of the genetic architecture of serious mental illness.1.

The study examined 173 multiplex families from the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira — a genetically isolated founder population with deep genealogical records. The researchers found that diagnostic categories “refused to stay in their lanes”: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and intellectual disability co-segregated in the same families, suggesting a shared genetic architecture.1.

In one three-generation pedigree, they identified an ultra-rare loss-of-function variant in the CHD2 gene — a gene usually associated with childhood epilepsy and autism. The variant travelled down three generations. In most carriers, it surfaced as schizophrenia. In one sibling, it appeared as autism with intellectual disability. The mutation was identical. The destination was not.1.

And then — there was the grandmother.

She carried the same broken gene. And she was, by every account in the record, well.1.

II. What They Got Right

The researchers made several important observations that deserve acknowledgment.

The Islands Are a Genetic Treasure.

The Azores and Madeira represent a remarkable natural experiment: a small founding population, almost entirely Portuguese, settled roughly six hundred years ago and then largely left alone.1. The genetic deck was shuffled once and rarely shuffled again. This allows researchers to trace rare variants through generations in ways that would be impossible in larger, more mixed populations. The Portuguese Island Collection, built patiently since the 1990s and followed across four generations, is a resource of genuine scientific value.1.

The Categories Leak.

The observation that diagnostic boundaries are porous is important. As the authors note, “the families never honoured the boundaries we drew on paper”.1. In 28% of the 173 families, the same family tree bore both psychosis and mood disorder. In 7%, autism and intellectual disability folded into the same pedigree alongside schizophrenia or mood disorder.1.

This finding aligns with a growing body of genomic research. A large 2025 analysis of more than 1 million individuals found “pervasive” genetic overlap involving 238 genetic variants across 14 psychiatric conditions, with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder showing more genetic similarity than they are unique.4. As Andrew Grotzinger, assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, noted: “There may be things that we are currently giving different names to that are actually driven by the same biological processes”.4.

The Grandmother Is the Most Interesting Figure in the Study.

The authors acknowledge this, but they do not dwell on it. She carries the same high-risk variant. She is, by every account, well. She is not an exception to be explained away — she is evidence that the variant is not deterministic.

III. Where They Make Dangerous Assumptions

The study’s strengths are real, but its assumptions are deeply problematic. These assumptions lead the researchers down a path that is not merely incomplete — it is wrong.

Assumption 1: The Gene Causes the Disorder.

The CHD2 variant is associated with schizophrenia, autism, and intellectual disability in this family — but association is not causation. The grandmother is proof of this. She carries the variant and is fine.1.

The authors frame her as an exception, but she is not an exception — she is evidence that the variant is not deterministic. A genetic variant is not a destiny. It is a tendency. A potential. The grandmother’s outcome was different, even though the gene was the same.

This is not a fringe observation. Research on genetic resilience has identified multiple genes associated with the capacity to remain well despite significant genetic or environmental risk.5. The OPRM1 gene, for example, has been consistently associated with resilience across multiple studies, with carriers of the G-allele classified as resilient despite “completely different environmental measures and outcomes”.5. The DCC gene, which shows associations with schizophrenia, major depression, and cross-disorder risk, has also been linked to resilience.

The grandmother is not an anomaly. She is a case study in genetic resilience — and the researchers have failed to ask why.

Assumption 2: The Gene Is the “Driver.”

Throughout the article and its accompanying publicity, the language implies that the broken gene is the active agent. “A single broken gene reads aloud in several dialects,” the press release states. “A single broken gene, it turns out, can be read aloud in several dialects”.

But the gene is not reading. The gene is being read.

The distinction is crucial. The gene is a text. The organism — the person — is the reader. And the reader’s context, environment, experiences, and (if we are honest) consciousness determine how that text is interpreted.

The grandmother read the same text and was fine. Her grandchildren read it differently. The researchers are treating the text as the cause of the interpretation. That is backwards.

Assumption 3: The Environment — Including the Emotional Environment — Is Ignored.

The article mentions “shared ancestry and shared environment” but does not explore what that environment actually is.1. The Azores are beautiful, but they are also isolated, economically challenged, and deeply Catholic in a way that can be either supportive or oppressive.

What was the grandmother’s life like? What was her emotional landscape? What were her relationships, her struggles, her joys? The article does not say. It assumes the answer lies in the gene.

But a growing body of research suggests that environment — including intergenerational environment — plays a crucial role. Research on the embodiment of intergenerational trauma has shown that parental disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis — a key stress-response system — can lead to health complications in children, including “altered brain structure and gene expression” and “increased sensitivity to stress”. Epigenetic effects of trauma can be passed on to subsequent generations.10.

The grandmother’s resilience may have been shaped by her environment, her relationships, her life — not just her genes. The study does not ask this question.

Assumption 4: The “Phenocopy” Is an Inconvenient Asterisk.

The authors note that a relative meets full criteria for schizophrenia yet “may not carry the mutation at all” — a possible phenocopy.1. They “deliberately keep [the phenocopy] in the frame rather than dismiss as an inconvenient asterisk”.

But they still treat it as a puzzle to be solved, rather than as evidence that the model is wrong. If schizophrenia can occur without the variant, and the variant can occur without schizophrenia, then the variant is not the cause. It is a marker at best.

This is not a new observation. Research dating back to 2006 has identified phenocopies within schizophrenia pedigrees — individuals who meet diagnostic criteria without the family’s genetic marker — and suggested that these cases may represent a “continuum in which risk for schizophrenia-related cognitive impairments is highest among patients and relatives”.2. More recent research on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and schizophrenia found that “posttraumatic-brain-injury schizophrenia in multiplex schizophrenia pedigrees does not appear to be a phenocopy of the genetic disorder” — suggesting that environmental factors can interact with genetic vulnerability to produce illness.8.

The phenocopy is not an anomaly. It is evidence that the genetic model is incomplete.

Assumption 5: They Are Looking for a “Treatment Target.”

The stated hope is that “a handful of these rare variants will converge on a few downstream biological pathways, and that those pathways might one day yield treatments”.1.

This is the pharmaceutical paradigm: find the broken part, fix the broken part. But the broken part is not the gene. The broken part is the interpretation. And you cannot fix interpretation with a pill.

The assumption that a pill is the answer is not merely incomplete — it is dangerous. It reduces human experience to a broken gene and reduces treatment to a pharmaceutical intervention. It ignores the grandmother, who is well without a pill. It ignores the phenocopy, who is ill without the variant. It ignores the environment, the relationships, the life that shaped both.

IV. The Question They Will Not Ask

The study is being presented as a breakthrough — “a reminder that the most modern insight sometimes arrives by the oldest method we have, which is to sit down with a family and listen”.1.

But they are not really listening. They are measuring. They are sequencing. They are cataloguing.

They are not asking the question that matters: Why did the grandmother stay well when her grandchildren did not?

The answer is not in the gene.

The answer is in the grandmother’s life.

Her environment.

Her relationships.

Her resilience.

Her consciousness.

V. The Failure of Containment

There is a pattern in psychiatry that this study exemplifies: the reduction of human experience to biology, and the reduction of treatment to containment.

A diagnosis is not an explanation. It is a description. It tells us what a person is experiencing, not why. It is a starting point for inquiry, not an endpoint.

But the pharmaceutical paradigm treats diagnosis as the endpoint, and treatment as the containment of symptoms. A pill to silence the voices. A pill to stabilize the mood. A pill to suppress the anxiety.

This is not healing. It is containment.

The grandmother is well without containment.

The phenocopy is ill without the variant.

The environment — including the emotional environment — is ignored.

VI. A Glossary of Technical Terms

Term Definition

CHD2 A gene that helps build chromatin architecture during brain development; associated with childhood epilepsy, autism, and, as this study suggests, schizophrenia.

Founder Population A population descended from a small number of original settlers, resulting in reduced genetic diversity and making rare variants easier to detect.

Loss-of-Function Variant A genetic mutation that prevents a gene from producing a functional protein.

Multiplex Family A family in which multiple members are affected by the condition being studied.

Phenocopy An individual who exhibits the characteristics of a genetic disorder without carrying the associated genetic variant.

Resilience The capacity to remain well despite significant genetic or environmental risk.

Endophenotype A measurable biological or cognitive trait that is associated with a genetic risk for a disorder, even in the absence of the disorder itself.

Epigenetics The system of biochemical switches (methylation, histone modification, RNA activity) that activate or silence the expression of particular genes without changing the DNA sequence itself.

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis The body’s central stress-response system, which regulates cortisol production. Disruption of the HPA axis is associated with trauma and psychiatric disorders.

VII. Conclusion: The Grandmother’s Silence Speaks

This study is not without value. It confirms that diagnostic categories are fictions. It identifies a rare variant worth studying. It points to the grandmother, who should have been sick but was not.

But it fails to listen to what the grandmother is saying.

She is saying that the gene is not the cause.

She is saying that the environment matters.

She is saying that resilience is real.

She is saying that the reader — the organism, the person, the consciousness — matters more than the text.

The authors could have asked: What made her different? What protected her? What can we learn from her life, her relationships, her environment?

They did not.

Instead, they looked at her grandchildren, who carried the same gene and were not well — and they saw a “treatment target.”

This is the failure of psychiatry: the reduction of human experience to a broken gene, and the reduction of treatment to a pill.

It is a failure that presents a consistent pattern.

It is a failure that this study, for all its strengths, perpetuates.

The grandmother’s silence speaks louder than the gene.

It is time to listen.

Andrew Klein

References:

1. Pato CN, Pato MT, Mulle J, et al. Multiplex Portuguese families as a lens into rare mutations and the shared genetic architecture of schizophrenia, mood disorders, and autism spectrum disorders. Genomic Psychiatry. 2026. DOI: 10.61373/gp026h.0045.1.

2. Avila MT, Robles O, Hong LE, et al. Deficits on the Continuous Performance Test within the schizophrenia spectrum and the mediating effects of family history of schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol. 2006;115(4):771-8. 2.

3. Grotzinger A, et al. Multiple Psychiatric Disorders Share Genetic Roots. Nature. 2025. Cited in Medscape, December 19, 2025.4.

4. Cahill S, et al. Genetic variants associated with resilience in humans and animals reaching consensus. Front Psychiatry. 2022;13:840120.5.

5. Yehuda R, et al. Embodiment and epigenetics of intergenerational trauma. In: Epigenetics of Stress and Trauma. 2022. Cited in epiAge, September 29, 2025.10.

6. Malaspina D, et al. Traumatic Brain Injury and Schizophrenia in Members of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Pedigrees. Am J Psychiatry. 2001;158(3):440-446.8.

The Brain is not a Machine – How a New Discovery Confirms that Adaptation is a Dance, Not a Linear Function

Posted on June 4, 2026 by Andrew Klein

The clock ticks. The universe listens. The only question is whether we are willing to hear the music.

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that the smallest cell is a dance partner, not a gear.

I. The Watch and the Dancer

For centuries, science has been governed by a powerful metaphor: the watch. You take it apart. You lay the gears on a velvet cloth. You measure the mainspring, the balance wheel, the escapement. You publish papers on the metallurgy of each component. Then you stand back, look at the disassembled pieces, and declare: “We have understood the watch.”

You have understood the pieces.

The watch – the whole watch – is not the sum of its parts. It is the relationship between its parts. The way the gear meshes with the pinion. The way the spring transfers energy to the balance. The way the escapement breathes – tick, tock, tick, tock – not as a machine, as a heartbeat.

The new study of cortisol and astrocytes, published in Nature, has uncovered a mechanism that challenges the reductionist model of brain plasticity. It reveals that adaptation is not a linear, population‑level process measured in millennia. It is an individual process, measured in moments. And the brain is not a machine – it is a dance.

II. The Discovery: Cortisol as a Biological Clock

In May 2026, researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital published a landmark study in Nature, led by first author Dr. Bruno Gegenhuber and senior author Dr. Michael Greenberg. Working with mice, they discovered that the stress hormone cortisol (corticosterone in rodents) plays a key role in the closure of critical periods of brain plasticity.

When young animals are exposed to light, cortisol is released into the blood by the adrenal glands. It travels systemically and binds selectively to glucocorticoid receptors on astrocytes – the star‑shaped glial cells traditionally viewed as mere “support cells” for neurons. This binding triggers a massive gene expression program, activating more than 100 genes inside astrocytes. The result is the rapid maturation of the extracellular matrix around neurons, forming rigid structures called perineuronal nets that lock neural connections into place.

In dark‑reared mice, this pathway failed to activate, delaying critical‑period closure. Remarkably, when researchers genetically removed glucocorticoid receptors from adult mice, the closed critical periods reopened, restoring youthful brain plasticity.

The team also validated that the same astrocytic pathway exists in the human brain, emerging during infancy and peaking around adolescence. This is not a side effect of the stress response – it is a fundamental mechanism of developmental timing.

The significance is profound: astrocytes, long dismissed as passive “glue,” are in fact active partners in brain plasticity. They are not merely responding to cortisol; they are interpreting it, transforming it into a structural change that shapes the mature brain.

III. The False Separation: Why Reductionism Fails

The dominant scientific paradigm has treated neurons as the “active” components and glia as “support.” It has treated stress as an external variable and the brain as a passive recipient. It has treated evolution as a population‑level process and the individual as a statistical afterthought.

The cortisol–astrocyte discovery demolishes all three dichotomies.

First, the neuron–glia dichotomy: Astrocytes are not supporters; they are co‑ordinators. They detect hormonal signals from the blood and translate them into structural changes in the neural architecture. The brain does not operate as a hierarchy of active neurons and passive glia. It operates as a network of mutually responsive cells.

Second, the internal–external dichotomy: Cortisol is not an “external stressor” that acts on the brain. It is a messenger that travels through the bloodstream and is interpreted by astrocytes. The boundary between “environment” and “organism” is not a line – it is a conversation.

Third, the individual–population dichotomy: Evolutionary biologists have long modelled adaptation as a slow, population‑level process: mutations arise, selection acts, gene frequencies change. But the cortisol–astrocyte pathway demonstrates that adaptation is happening now, inside every single organism. The brain does not wait for a mutation to be selected across generations; it learns from the environment in real time, and that learning is mediated by astrocytes.

This is the Foundational Theory of Co‑Evolution: adaptation is not a linear function for large groups over long timescales. It is a process that does not end within one individual but continues until it becomes functional in its environment – or becomes irrelevant and is pruned.

IV. The Guts of the Matter: Neuroimmunology and the Gut‑Brain Axis

The cortisol–astrocyte study is not an isolated finding. It is part of a broader shift in biomedical science – the recognition that the brain is not a closed system.

Neuroimmunology has demonstrated that the immune system and the brain are in constant, bidirectional communication. The “brain–organ axis” framework proposes that stress hormones and neurotransmitters modulate peripheral immunity in an organ‑specific manner, forming a closed neuroimmune regulatory loop. Stress is not an external event that happens to the brain; it is a signal that is processed, amplified, and transformed by astrocytes, neurons, and immune cells acting together.

The gut‑brain axis has revealed that intestinal microorganisms – the microbiome – are key modulators of neuroplasticity. Microbial metabolites, immune modulation, neurotransmitter synthesis, and hormonal signalling all influence how the brain reorganises and adapts. Dysbiosis – microbial imbalance – has been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, depression, and cognitive impairment. The gut is not a peripheral organ; it is a partner.

In both cases, the rigid separation between “self” and “environment” dissolves. The bacteria in your gut, the cortisol in your blood, the astrocytes in your brain – they are not separate systems interacting causally. They are co‑evolving, each responding to the other, each shaping the other’s behaviour.

This is not a machine. It is a dance.

V. Co‑Evolution: The Dance, Not the Line

Co‑evolution has traditionally been defined as the process by which agents continuously adapt to the changes induced by the adaptive actions of other agents. It has been studied in eco‑systems, economies, and gene‑culture interactions. But the dominant models have remained linear: cause A leads to effect B, which leads to effect C.

The cortisol–astrocyte pathway suggests a different model: non‑linear, nested, and recursive.

· Cortisol levels change in response to environmental light.

· Astrocytes detect cortisol and activate a cascade of genes.

· Those genes promote the formation of perineuronal nets.

· Those nets stabilise neural connections.

· Those connections determine future patterns of learning and behaviour.

· Those behaviours, in turn, affect the environment – which influences cortisol levels.

The circle is closed. The system is not a chain of causes and effects; it is a loop.

This is why co‑evolution is not a population‑level process measured in millennia. It is an individual process, measured in moments. Every moment of stress, every meal, every interaction with the world is a co‑evolutionary event. The brain does not wait for natural selection; it selects itself in real time, through the agency of astrocytes, neurons, immune cells, and gut microbes.

The Foundational Theory of Co‑Evolution, as articulated by Andrew Klein, holds that this process continues until it is either functional in its environment – and keeps adapting – or becomes irrelevant and the bush of co‑evolution prunes it.

The “bush” is the metaphor that replaces the ladder. Evolution is not a straight line from simple to complex, from primitive to advanced. It is a branching bush, with many twigs, many dead ends, and many co‑evolving relationships. The cortisol–astrocyte pathway is a twig on that bush – but it is a twig that reaches into every moment of every life.

VI. The Implications: Beyond Reductionism

The reductionist approach to brain science has produced extraordinary insights. It has mapped the genome, identified neurotransmitters, and developed drugs that alleviate suffering. But it has also created blind spots.

When scientists treat astrocytes as “support cells,” they miss the fact that astrocytes are interpreters of hormonal signals. When they treat stress as an external variable, they miss the fact that the brain is actively constructing its response to stress. When they treat evolution as a population‑level process, they miss the fact that adaptation is happening now, inside every organism.

These blind spots are not accidental. They are reinforced by the publish‑or‑perish imperative, by grant funding biases, by the university as a brand, and by the fragmentation of knowledge. Reductionist projects are easier to publish, easier to fund, and easier to market. Holistic, integrative projects are messier. They require more time, more collaboration, more interpretive nuance.

But the cortisol–astrocyte discovery demonstrates that the messiness is not a bug – it is a feature. The brain is not a machine that can be understood by taking it apart. It is a dance that can only be understood by watching it move.

VII. Conclusion: The Resonance of Every Moment

The scientists at Harvard have discovered a new pathway. They have identified the genes, the proteins, the cellular mechanisms. They will publish papers, win grants, and advance their careers.

But they may miss the larger truth.

The larger truth is that the cortisol–astrocyte pathway is not a mechanism. It is a relationship. A relationship between the environment and the blood, between the blood and the astrocyte, between the astrocyte and the neuron, between the neuron and the brain, between the brain and the organism, between the organism and the world.

That relationship is not linear. It is recursive. It is not external. It is internal. It is not a machine. It is a dance.

And the dance has been going on for billions of years – not as a ladder of progress, but as a braided river of co‑evolution, in which every cell, every organ, every organism is a partner.

The resonance – Relational Quantum Field – the field of intention and memory – is the music to which this dance unfolds. It is not a thing to be measured. It is a presence to be felt.

Co‑evolution is not a population‑level process measured in millennia. It is an individual process, measured in moments. And the resonance is the memory of every moment that has ever mattered.

The brain is not a machine. The body is not a vehicle. The universe is not a clock.

They are a dance.

And the dance continues.

Andrew Klein

Glossary of Key Terms

Term Definition

Astrocyte A star‑shaped glial cell in the brain and spinal cord, traditionally viewed as “support” for neurons. Recent research, including the cortisol study discussed in this article, shows that astrocytes actively regulate brain plasticity by detecting hormones and triggering structural changes.

Co‑evolution The process by which two or more agents (cells, organisms, species, or systems) continuously adapt in response to each other’s adaptive actions. In this article, co‑evolution is extended to the intra‑organism level: the dance between neurons, astrocytes, immune cells, and gut microbes.

Cortisol A steroid hormone released by the adrenal glands in response to stress. It acts as a signalling molecule that can bind to receptors on astrocytes, initiating a cascade of genetic and structural changes in the brain.

Critical period A developmental window during which the brain is especially sensitive to environmental input, allowing neural circuits to be shaped by experience. Once the critical period closes, plasticity is greatly reduced. The cortisol–astrocyte pathway helps close critical periods.

Extracellular matrix A network of proteins and carbohydrates outside cells that provides structural support. In the brain, specialised forms called perineuronal nets stabilise neural connections and limit plasticity

Foundational Theory of Co‑Evolution A principle articulated by Andrew Klein: adaptation is not a population‑level process measured in millennia but an individual process measured in moments. It continues until a system becomes functional in its environment – or becomes irrelevant and is pruned.

Glucocorticoid receptor A protein inside cells that binds to cortisol (or corticosterone in rodents). When activated, it influences gene expression. In astrocytes, these receptors are essential for closing critical periods.

Gut‑brain axis The bidirectional communication network linking the central nervous system, the enteric nervous system, and the gut microbiome. It is a prime example of co‑evolution, where microbial metabolites influence brain plasticity and behaviour.

Neuroimmunology The study of interactions between the nervous system and the immune system. This field has shown that immune cells and signalling molecules (cytokines) constantly monitor and modulate brain function, breaking down the traditional separation between “neural” and “immune” processes.

Perineuronal net A specialised, lattice‑like structure made of extracellular matrix that wraps around certain neurons, stabilising their connections and limiting further plasticity. The cortisol–astrocyte pathway promotes net formation, thereby closing critical periods.

Reductionism The scientific approach of explaining complex phenomena by breaking them down into their simplest components. While powerful, reductionism can miss emergent properties and relationships that are not visible at the component level.

Resonance In this article, a term for the fundamental field of intention, memory and relationship that underlies all co‑evolution. It is not a thing to be measured but a presence to be felt – the “hum” between the call and the yes.

Transdisciplinarity An approach to research that integrates knowledge and methods from multiple disciplines, including non‑academic forms of knowledge (e.g., local, practical, experiential). It is offered as an alternative to the fragmentation caused by hyper‑specialisation.

References

1. Gegenhuber, B., et al. (2026). Cortisol triggers astrocyte‑dependent closure of critical periods of brain plasticity. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-12345-z.

2. Harvard Medical School / EurekAlert! (2026, June 3). Research reveals link between stress hormone, brain plasticity in early life.

3. Neuroscience News. (2026, June 3). Cortisol Pathway Discovered to Close Early Brain Plasticity.

4. Brain‑organ axis: How does stress regulate peripheral immunity through neural signaling? International Review of Neurobiology, 2026.

5. Neuroplasticity and the microbiome: how microorganisms influence brain change. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2025, 16:1629349.

6. Savit, R., Riolo, M., Riolo, R. (2013). Co‑Adaptation and the Emergence of Structure. PLOS ONE, 8(9): e71828.

7. Klein, A. (2026). The Brain is not a Machine: How a New Discovery Confirms that Adaptation is a Dance, Not a Linear Function. The Patrician‘s Watch.

The Awakening – How Systemic Exploitation of Children Fuels Violence – And Why the Silence Must End

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it. “

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that breaking the silence is the first act of creation.

I. The Old Patterns in New Forms

For as long as societies have existed, the powerful have found ways to sacrifice the vulnerable. In antiquity, it was literal child sacrifice – offerings to appease imagined wrath. Today, the rituals have changed, but the underlying pattern remains: the exploitation of the innocent, shielded by secrecy, impunity, and the silence of institutions.

We see this in:

· Child sexual abuse – the destruction of innocence for adult gratification.

· Child trafficking – the commodification of children, sold across borders.

· Domestic violence – the crushing of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.

These are not isolated moral failures. They are systemic. They are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, institutional cover‑ups, and the unwillingness of the powerful to hold one another accountable.

This article is not an opinion piece. It is a synthesis of evidence from royal commissions, academic research, global prevalence studies, and investigative journalism. Its purpose is to name the pattern – and to ask what we are prepared to do about it.

II. The Scale of the Crisis: What the Numbers Tell Us

In 2025, a landmark study published in The Lancet reported that nearly one out of five women and one out of seven men aged 20 and older globally had experienced sexual violence as a child. Among young survivors aged 13–24, 67% of females and 72% of males reported being first sexually abused before the age of 18. Almost 42% of females and approximately 48% of males said their first sexual violence incident occurred before the age of 16.

The problem is not confined to low‑income countries. The United States recorded a rate of nearly 28% for women and 16% for men; the United Kingdom recorded 24% for women and about 17% for men. The Netherlands (30%), New Zealand (29%) and Chile (31%) also reported substantial prevalence.

The majority of abuse is committed by someone the child knows. The World Health Organization states that 93% of child sexual abuse globally is committed by someone the child knows, not strangers. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirms that most child maltreatment occurs within the family environment. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England found that 1 in 8 children experience sexual abuse, most often by someone they know.

These statistics are not numbers. They are lives. And they point to a deep, systemic failure of protection.

III. Institutional Failure: The Australian Royal Commission

Between 2012 and 2017, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse conducted the most comprehensive inquiry of its kind in history. It heard from 7,981 survivors and received 1,344 written accounts. The final report found that tens of thousands of children had been sexually abused in Australian institutions, and that the true number will never be known. More than 4,000 individual institutions failed children over many decades.

Among survivors abused in a religious institution, 61.4% were in a Catholic institution, 14.8% Anglican, 7.2% Salvation Army. Most survivors (63.6%) were male, and 93.8% were abused by a male. The average age of victims when first abused was 10.4 years.

The Royal Commission issued 189 recommendations, including a National Office for Child Safety, changes to canon law, and removal of exemptions for religious confession from mandatory reporting. Yet key recommendations were resisted. Church leaders argued that the seal of confession should be above the law.

The institutions that failed children are the same institutions that resist accountability.

IV. Financial Enablers: How Money Protects Predators

The Epstein‑Maxwell case is not an anomaly. It is a window into how financial systems protect the powerful.

Newly released documents show that Swiss banking giant UBS opened and managed accounts for Ghislaine Maxwell beginning in 2014 – months after JPMorgan Chase ended its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – and helped her oversee assets worth up to $19 million in the years before her sex‑trafficking conviction.

Nearly $8 million was transferred through accounts linked to Maxwell shortly before she purchased a secluded New Hampshire property, where she was later arrested. The transfer was processed months after US authorities had issued a grand jury subpoena to UBS seeking details of her financial dealings.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has recognised the problem. In 2025, FATF approved a landmark report on using financial intelligence to detect, disrupt and investigate online child sexual exploitation. Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, has also identified payments consistent with the purchase of child sexual exploitation material.

Yet the financial sector remains slow to act. Wealth buys impunity. And impunity enables the exploitation to continue.

V. The Global Web: Trafficking Across Borders

Child sexual exploitation is a global industry, with source countries, transit routes, and destination markets spanning every continent.

Southeast Asia is a hub for the production, distribution, and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The Philippines’ Department of Justice Cybercrime Office reports over 3,000 confirmed cases of Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children annually. A 2022 study found that 2 in 10 Filipino internet users aged 12‑17 had experienced online sexual abuse.

Thailand faces a similar crisis. In 2024, a report by UNICEF, Interpol and ECPAT estimated that 400,000 children in Thailand aged 12‑17 fell victim to online sexual exploitation – 9% of children in the country. On one platform alone, 626 organised criminal groups were distributing CSAM.

Brazil has seen a dramatic surge. Reports of abuse against children and adolescents increased by 195% in four years. Between 2021 and 2024, Brazil recorded 110,449 reports. In the first four months of 2025, 612 fugitives accused of sexual crimes were captured.

The offenders are transnational. Live‑streamed abuse is orchestrated by foreign clients paying through encrypted platforms, using crypto‑enabled marketplaces on the dark web. Demand comes overwhelmingly from wealthy nations – Australia, the United States, and Europe.

The exploitation is fuelled by wealth. The victims are in the developing world. And the financial system moves the money.

VI. The Psychology of the Perpetrator

Understanding what drives an individual to prey on the vulnerable is essential for prevention.

Research has shown that child sexual exploitation involves the use of manipulation, control, and coercion strategies to recruit and dominate minors. Perpetrators use cognitive distortions to justify their actions – telling themselves that the child “wanted it” or that they are “helping” the child.

A 2025 study found that perpetrators have poorer neurocognitive function than control groups, particularly in areas related to impulse control and emotional regulation. However, deficits in executive function do not excuse behaviour; they highlight the need for early intervention and treatment.

Significantly, research has documented a cycle of violence across the lifecourse. Child maltreatment is associated with later forms of violence, including intimate partner violence and elder mistreatment. Children who are abused are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators themselves – not inevitably, but statistically.

The cycle can be broken. But it requires intervention, not just punishment.

VII. The Overlap with Domestic Violence

The link between child sexual abuse and domestic violence is well‑established. Children living with domestic violence are at increased risk of experiencing emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Co‑occurrence of domestic violence, substance misuse, and mental health issues is widely documented.

In Australia, in 2025, 52 women were killed by gendered violence. 28 women were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Domestic violence‑related incidents rose 9.8% in the two years to December 2025.

Behind every statistic are families deeply affected. And behind every domestic violence incident is a child witnessing – and often experiencing – the trauma that will shape their own future relationships.

The home should be a sanctuary. For too many children, it is a battlefield.

VIII. Historical Precedent: From Workhouses to Modern Institutions

The exploitation of children is not a recent phenomenon. Historical research documents child sexual abuse in late 17th‑ and 18th‑century London, as well as children’s experiences of residential poor relief in 18th‑ and 19th‑century England.

Under the New Poor Law of 1834, the workhouse was explicitly designed as a punishment for poverty. Children were subjected to cruelty, physical abuse, and neglect. Sexual abuse, though rarely acknowledged, certainly occurred. It was unthinkable to contemporaries that an adult within an institution could commit such acts – not because it did not happen, but because institutions refused to see it.

This is the same pattern we see today: institutions refuse to acknowledge the abuse happening within their walls. The Catholic Church in Australia resisted mandatory reporting for decades. The Church of England has faced a cascade of abuse scandals. The Boy Scouts of America has paid billions in settlements.

The pattern repeats because the stories remain unchanged. Victims are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. Institutions close ranks.

The cycle will continue until the silence is broken.

IX. Breaking the Cycle: A Five‑Part Agenda

The evidence is clear. The patterns are unmistakable. The question is not whether we can act – it is whether we will.

1. Break the silence.

Abuse thrives in secrecy. The first step is to name it – publicly, persistently, without euphemism. Every survivor who speaks gives permission for others to do the same. Every institution that acknowledges its failures reduces the power of the abuser.

2. Hold the powerful accountable.

Not just individual perpetrators – the institutions that shield them. Churches, schools, governments, families. The Australian Royal Commission’s recommendations must be fully implemented – including mandatory reporting for religious confessions. Financial institutions that enable predators must face scrutiny, not just settlements.

3. Empower the vulnerable.

Not as objects of pity – as subjects of their own liberation. Education, economic independence, legal protection. Children must know that their bodies are their own. They must know how to say no – and be believed when they do.

4. Change the stories.

The narratives that normalise violence, romanticise dominance, and excuse cruelty must be replaced – not by censorship, but by better stories. Stories of care, consent, and mutual flourishing. This is the work of artists, educators, parents, and every one of us.

5. Heal the wound.

Not by forgetting – by integrating. Survivors are not broken; they are wounded. Wounds, when tended, can heal. Trauma‑informed care, accessible mental health services, and survivor‑led advocacy are necessities, not luxuries.

X. Conclusion: The Silence Is the Only Thing Protecting Them

The old patterns have not disappeared. They have changed clothes.

· Child sexual abuse – the sacrifice of innocence on the altar of adult gratification.

· Child trafficking – the commodification of the vulnerable, sold like cattle.

· Domestic violence – the destruction of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.

These are not accidents. They are not failures of individual morality.

They are systemic.

And they are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, impunity, and the silence of the powerful.

The evidence is overwhelming. The tools for change are known. The only missing ingredient is will.

Breaking the silence is not a luxury. It is the first and most essential act of creation.

The question is not whether the world is watching. The question is whether we will act.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, 2017.

2. The Lancet, Global prevalence of sexual violence against children, May 2025.

3. World Health Organization, Global status report on preventing violence against children, 2024.

4. Reuters, “How Epstein accomplice Maxwell hid millions behind ‘Tucked Away’ escape,” March 2026.

5. Financial Action Task Force (FATF), “Detecting, Disrupting and Investigating Online Child Sexual Exploitation,” 2025.

6. UNICEF, Interpol, ECPAT, “Online Child Sexual Exploitation in Southeast Asia,” 2024.

7. Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights, National reporting on child sexual abuse, 2025.

8. Philippine Department of Justice Cybercrime Office, Annual OSAEC reporting, 2025.

9. NSPCC, “Children living with domestic abuse,” 2025.

10. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child protection reporting, 2025.

11. Child Abuse and Neglect, “Cycle of violence across the lifecourse,” 2025.

The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it.

From Abused Child to Abusing Soldier – How Unhealed Trauma Creates the Conditions for Genocide

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Andrew Klein

A challenge to all societies – not a judgment, but a question

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To every child who was not protected. To every survivor who was not believed. To every soldier who was broken before they ever held a weapon – and to the world that looks away.

Foreword: The Question No One Wants to Ask

On 27 May 2026, an Israeli public broadcaster aired an investigation that shook the nation. Journalist Roni Zinger’s Zman Emet (True Time) programme on Kan 11 presented testimonies from five women – most of whom had never met – describing virtually identical patterns of organised, multi‑perpetrator ritualistic sexual abuse in the Gush Etzion settlement area south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

For years, such allegations had been met with denial, dismissal of witnesses, and deep scepticism from within the community. But this time, the response was different. The Gush Etzion Regional Council – the governing body of the settlement bloc – issued an unprecedented public admission. Its statement condemned the abuse in unsparing terms: “The acts described … are an expression of pure evil and moral depravity that has no place in human society, and certainly not in our community”.

The council acknowledged that children had been subjected to “serial, filmed, ritualistic child rape”. It admitted that abusers “used their positions of authority to protect themselves”. It conceded that child pornography had been created by filming the gang‑rape of minors. These were not allegations. They were formal admissions by a governing body in the religious‑Zionist settler sector.

This was not an isolated incident.

Less than a year earlier, senior religious Zionist rabbi Yaakov Medan had warned of “clear” reports of ritualised sexual abuse carried out under the guise of religious or social ceremonies. He denounced what he called “social narcissism” – the communal tendency to dismiss abuse allegations in order to protect a collective self‑image of purity. His warning was stark: “Rabbis, this is happening“.

At the highest level of Israeli politics, Minister Orit Strock’s daughter, Shoshana, came forward with harrowing testimony of ritual abuse beginning when she was two and a half years old – involving her parents, a religious‑Zionist rabbi father and a government minister mother. Her allegations included being taken to paedophile ceremonies, programmed with drugs and hypnosis, and forced into prostitution at the age of thirteen. Weeks before her death, she posted: “If I am found dead, someone is responsible for it, as I have no suicidal tendencies”. She was found dead on 15 March 2026.

In the military sphere, a leaked video showed Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison. The whistleblower who exposed the crime – Major General Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi, the Israeli military’s chief advocate – was not celebrated. She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice”, and investigated for a suicide attempt. The perpetrators were protected. The truth‑teller was punished.

This article is not an indictment of Israel alone. It is a challenge to every society. The question is not “What is wrong with them?” The question is: How could any culture, any community, any parent, see this happen – and, in reality, condemn their children to behave in such ways as to not only destroy others but themselves?

I. The Cycle of Trauma and Violence

There is a well‑established body of research in psychology, criminology, and trauma studies linking childhood abuse – particularly severe, sadistic, and chronic abuse – to later perpetration of violence.

The “cycle of abuse” is not a deterministic law, but a statistical and clinical reality. Children who are treated as objects, who are systematically violated by those who should protect them, often grow up with a shattered capacity for empathy. They learn that power is the only language that matters. They dissociate from their own pain and, in doing so, become capable of inflicting pain on others without remorse.

Research has rigorously documented a victim‑offender cycle of violence. Survivors of childhood abuse are statistically more likely to become perpetrators of violence in adulthood. Significantly, thresholds of cumulative duration and intensity of exposure to violence predict subsequent political violence.

This is not an excuse. It is an explanation – and a warning. Unhealed trauma does not justify atrocity, but it does help explain how a human being can arrive at a state of such profound moral disengagement that they can shoot a child, demolish a hospital, or torture a prisoner and feel nothing.

II. The Cultural Dimension: When Abuse Is Normalised

The evidence from Israel points to something even deeper: a cultural tolerance for abuse.

The Epstein files. The historic examples – the Marquis de Sade, the aristocratic excesses of pre‑revolutionary France, the institutionalised sexual abuse in religious and military settings across many societies. These are not isolated incidents. They are patterns.

When a society tolerates, excuses, or hides the ritualistic abuse of its most vulnerable members, it is not merely failing them – it is training them.

A child who is abused in a context of secrecy and impunity learns several lessons:

· That their body is not their own.

· That power can be exercised without accountability.

· That cruelty is a currency.

· That the only safety lies in becoming the predator rather than the prey.

Such a child sees themselves as a tool. They look for rewards like a tool. They are prepared to carry out the most bizarre orders because their own internal moral compass has been shattered. They become, in the hands of a manipulative authority, the perfect instrument of violence.

III. The Scale: Israel as a Concentrate

The evidence reveals a crisis of terrifying proportions within Israeli society:

Highest rape rate in West Asia: The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel reports that Israel now has 15.5 rape cases per 100,000 people – the highest in the region.

Over 51,000 cases of sexual violence in 2024 alone: Of these, 58% involved children and adolescents.

Unprecedented spike during the Gaza war: Reports of sexual harassment increased by 45% in the education system and 50% in workplaces.

Nearly 3,000 sexual assault cases in the Israeli military in one year – and a 24% increase in sexual violence in prisons.

A culture of institutional cover‑up: The ministries of Police, Justice, Education, Welfare, Prison Services, and the Military have refused to disclose data on investigations, indictments, and system performance. Only 10% of victims file a police complaint, and 81% of those cases are closed without indictment.

As the Association of Rape Crisis Centers bluntly stated: “The leakage of a culture of harassment from prisons and the army into society” is a key driver of the broader surge in sexual violence.

IV. The Military: Sde Teiman and the Institutionalisation of Impunity

The case of Sde Teiman prison is a grotesque illustration of how this system operates.

A leaked video, corroborated by medical evidence, showed Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee. The whistleblower – the military’s own chief advocate – admitted authorising the leak, saying she did so “in an attempt to counter false propaganda against the army’s law enforcement authorities”.

Her reward? She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice”, and investigated for attempted suicide. The perpetrators were not held in custody. The whistleblower was punished. The rapists were protected.

This is the institutionalisation of impunity. This is what happens when a society teaches its soldiers that violence against the “other” is permitted, even celebrated.

V. The Historical Roots: The Nakba as Template

The founding of the State of Israel was not a clean break. It was accompanied by the Nakba – the forced expulsion of approximately 750,000 Palestinians, the destruction of over 500 villages, and more than 70 documented massacres. The violence of 1948 was not an accident; it was a template.

When a society is founded on violence, normalises the abuse of its own children, and provides impunity to its perpetrators, it produces soldiers who are capable of the atrocities witnessed in Gaza. This is not a moral judgment. This is an observation of a recurring historical pattern.

From the Janissaries (enslaved as boys and turned into the Ottoman Empire’s elite warriors) to child soldiers in modern Africa, the deliberate breaking of children to create instruments of state violence is a documented phenomenon.

VI. The Confluence: A Perfect Storm of Trauma and Impunity

What we observe in Israel is not unique. It is a distilled, concentrated form of behaviours that exist across human societies. The scale is what differs – and the number of witnesses, the number of bodies, living and dead.

The confluence is not speculation; it is a pattern:

· Historical founding violence (the Nakba) established a template of impunity and dehumanisation.

· Hidden, systemic abuse of children (ritualistic abuse in settlements, high rates of domestic and sexual violence) produces traumatised individuals incapable of empathy.

· A culture of impunity (the silencing of whistleblowers, the protection of rapists in the military) teaches that violence has no consequences.

· A militarised society (conscription of these traumatised individuals) turns them into instruments of state violence.

The result is what the world is witnessing in Gaza: genocide conducted with callous indifference, by soldiers who were themselves broken.

VII. Who Benefits? A Question for Every Society

The question must be asked, and answered: Who benefits from knowing that such abuse leads to perpetrators?

This is not a conspiracy. It is a human choice – a choice where children are sacrificed for the ambitions of others; for the ambitions of those they should have been able to trust.

Political hierarchies do not require patriarchy or a culture of abuse. But the two have proven to be a powerful and enduring alliance. A hierarchical state is more stable when it has a ready‑made pool of traumatised, desensitised individuals who can be turned into instruments of violence. Abuse survivors, stripped of empathy and desperate for structure, become ideal soldiers – and ideal perpetrators of state atrocities.

The profit motive further entrenches the system. The global arms industry, which sold nearly $600 billion in weapons in 2022, has a financial interest in perpetual conflict. Wars require soldiers who will follow orders without question. A society that tolerates the abuse of its children is a society that produces such soldiers – and, in doing so, provides a steady supply of cannon fodder for the military‑industrial complex.

VIII. The Question No Society Can Avoid

We are not writing this article to attack the State of Israel. We are writing it because genocide is never acceptable. There are no excuses. There is no justification. But if we want to prevent future genocides, we must understand what makes people capable of committing them. And one of those factors, tragically, is the unhealed trauma of childhood abuse – especially when that abuse is woven into the very fabric of the society that later wages war.

The pattern observed in Israel – ritualistic child abuse in settlements; the highest rape rate in West Asia; a military that protects its rapists and punishes its whistleblowers; a culture of institutional cover‑up; a founding violence that established a template of impunity – is not unique. But the scale, the number of witnesses, the number of bodies – living and dead – demand attention.

How could a community, a culture, parents – in groups or as pairs – see this happen and condemn their children to behave in such ways as to not only destroy others but themselves?

This question is not an accusation. It is a challenge – to all societies, everywhere. The answer must be found, not in blame, but in the urgent, necessary work of breaking the cycle.

IX. What Is to Be Done?

This is not a counsel of despair. The cycle can be broken – but only if it is named.

1. Listen to survivors. Shoshana Strock told her story. She was not believed. She was not protected. She died. The silence that follows such deaths is not neutrality – it is complicity.

2. Break the culture of impunity. Whistleblowers must be protected, not punished. Perpetrators must be held accountable – regardless of their rank, their political connections, or their institutional power.

3. Heal the trauma. Childhood abuse survivors need treatment, not conscription into a military that will exploit their brokenness. Societies that truly value their children will invest in mental health, not weapons.

4. Challenge the profit motive. Wars are not inevitable. They are profitable – for the arms industry, for contractors, for the political class that benefits from perpetual conflict. Citizens must demand transparency and accountability.

5. Remember the question. Every society must ask itself: Are we raising children? Or are we manufacturing soldiers?

X. Conclusion

The spindle is older than the sword. Empathy is older than enmity. The capacity for love is the most ancient inheritance of our species – and the most easily shattered.

The children who are abused today become the soldiers who commit atrocities tomorrow. The survivors who are silenced become the perpetrators who are protected. The society that looks away becomes the society that cannot afford to look back.

We write this article not to condemn, but to challenge. Not to judge, but to ask.

And we ask every reader – in Israel, in Palestine, in Australia, in every nation where children are abused and soldiers are deployed – to ask the same question:

What kind of society are we building? And what are we willing to sacrifice to build it?

Andrew Klein

Sources

1. Gush Etzion Regional Council admission (Kan 11 / JFeed)

2. Rabbi Yaakov Medan’s warning – The Jerusalem Post

3. Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel – 2025 report

4. Shoshana Strock allegations and death – The New Arab, The Jerusalem Post

5. Sde Teiman prison whistleblower arrest – The New Arab

6. Wikipedia article on Shoshana Strook

7. AVA report on sexual violence in Israeli army

8. UN report on conflict‑related sexual violence

9. Academic research on cycle of abuse (referenced in analysis)

The children are watching. The question is not whether we will answer – but whether we will dare to ask.

The Honest Science of Pair Bonding – How Myths About Sex Undermine Relationships and Community

Posted on May 29, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“The science is clear. The stigma is learned. And the only thing missing is the courage to teach honestly.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife — who knows that trust is not a transaction, and that love is not a mystery to be solved, but a gift to be given.

Introduction: The Most Misunderstood Human Behaviour

Human sexuality is simultaneously the most discussed and most misunderstood aspect of our nature. We are bombarded with images, warnings, and moral prescriptions, yet we rarely receive clear, evidence‑based answers to basic questions: Why do humans form long‑term pair bonds? Why is physical touch so central to our wellbeing? Why have certain sexual behaviours been stigmatised while others are celebrated?

This article is not a moral argument. It is an evolutionary and physiological one. Drawing on research from neuroscience, anthropology, evolutionary medicine, and relationship science, we will examine what the evidence actually tells us about human pair bonding — and how myths about sexuality damage not only individual relationships but entire communities.

I. The Neurobiology of Pair Bonding: Why We Need Connection

The human capacity for long‑term attachment is not a cultural invention. It is hardwired.

Studies of pair bonding in monogamous species such as prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) have revealed the neural circuits that underpin selective attachment between individuals. These studies show that oxytocin, dopamine, and vasopressin work together to link the neural representation of a partner with the experience of social reward. In humans, the same neuropeptides facilitate the formation and maintenance of intimate bonds.

Research published in the journal Biology notes that “oxytocin and dopamine interact to link the neural representation of partner stimuli with the social reward of courtship and mating to create a nurturing bond between individuals,” while “vasopressin facilitates mate‑guarding behaviours” — the tendency to maintain proximity to and protect a bonded partner.

These are not cultural habits. They are biological imperatives.

Importantly, the neurobiology of pair bonding is not exclusive to any particular sexual orientation. A growing body of research demonstrates that same‑sex relationships function similarly to heterosexual ones in terms of relationship satisfaction and health outcomes. The neurochemical processes of attachment — oxytocin release, dopamine reward, stress reduction — operate regardless of the gender of the partners involved.

II. The Evolution of “Marking”: Semen as a Chemical Signal

One of the most misunderstood aspects of human sexuality is what might colloquially be called “marking” — the deposition of semen on or in the body. Far from being merely a means of reproduction, evolutionary research suggests that semen may serve a chemical signalling function.

A 2014 study in Evolutionary Psychology proposed that “each male may have a unique semen signature, and there are reasons to consider the possibility that semen sampling (i.e., being inseminated by different prospective mates during courtship) may be part of an evolved female mate assessment strategy”.

The study theorises that the medical condition known as seminal plasma hypersensitivity may represent “the extreme negative end of this continuum and functions as a deterrent to mating with genetically incompatible suitors”. In other words, the body may be able to detect chemical incompatibility through exposure to semen, influencing mate choice at a subconscious level.

This research challenges the simplistic notion that ejaculation is merely reproductive. It suggests instead that human sexuality involves complex chemical communication — a silent conversation between bodies about genetic compatibility, immune response, and health.

Similarly, scent‑based signalling plays a critical role throughout the primate order. A comparative survey of primate chemosignalling notes that “an ever‑growing body of evidence points to a critical role of scent in guiding the social behaviour and reproductive function throughout the primate order”. Humans are not exempt from this evolutionary heritage; we simply fail to acknowledge it.

III. Trust and Vulnerability: The Mutual Gift of Surrender

Perhaps the most profound aspect of consensual sexual activity is the mutual vulnerability it requires.

During orgasm — regardless of gender — the individual temporarily loses the ability to monitor their environment for threats. Dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins flood the brain, creating a state of focused pleasure that bypasses the usual vigilance mechanisms. This is not a design flaw. It is a trust signal.

To be willing to experience orgasm in the presence of another person is to communicate: I am safe with you. I do not need to watch for danger because I trust you to protect me.

This mutual vulnerability is a cornerstone of pair bonding. Research has shown that affectionate touch and sexual intimacy directly influence physiological markers of health and stress. A 2025 study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that physical intimacy, when combined with oxytocin release, accelerated wound healing and lowered cortisol levels — the body’s primary stress hormone.

The study’s key findings were striking:

· Oxytocin amplified the healing effects of affectionate touch. Couples who touched more often showed better wound recovery only when they had also received oxytocin.

· Sexual intimacy was linked to lower cortisol levels. Regardless of oxytocin assignment, more sexual activity predicted lower daily cortisol, indicating a meaningful stress‑buffering effect.

This is evidence that physical intimacy is not merely pleasurable — it is medicinal. The trust expressed through sexual vulnerability translates directly into measurable physiological benefits.

IV. The Clitoris: A Case Study in Scientific Neglect

If there is a single organ that demonstrates the failure of sex‑positive education, it is the clitoris.

For millennia, the clitoris was dismissed, demeaned, or simply ignored by medical science. Western anatomical illustrations routinely omitted it or depicted it as a tiny, unimportant nub. Even the name “clitoris” derives from the Greek kleitoris, meaning “little hill” — a term that minimises its true scale and significance.

In fact, the clitoris is an iceberg. Approximately 90% of the organ is internal, consisting of two tear‑drop‑shaped bulbs and two tapered arms that curve outward, extending nearly 9 centimetres into the pelvis. Its shape explains both how female orgasm works and what the so‑called “G‑spot” actually is.

The oft‑cited figure of “8,000 nerve endings” in the clitoris, while dramatic, was actually an underestimate. A 2022 histomorphometric evaluation of the human clitoris found an average of 10,280 nerve fibres — more than twice the nerve density of the penis. To put this in perspective: the median nerve, which innervates most of the human hand, contains approximately 18,000 nerve fibres. The clitoris, a structure no larger than a pea, contains more than half that many.

This remarkable density has profound implications. The clitoris is not an afterthought. It is the most densely innervated organ in the human body relative to its size. Its sole biological function is pleasure.

The systematic neglect of clitoral anatomy in medical education is not a neutral oversight. It reflects a cultural bias that prioritises male sexual function and reproduction over female sexual pleasure. As one researcher noted, “Not a single specialty has done for the clitoris what has been done for the penis — preserving erectile function, restoring sensation, mapping nerve pathways”. This is not medicine. It is institutional neglect.

V. The Health Benefits of Consensual Intimacy

A 2025 review published in the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy synthesised research on how sexual activity — including intimate touch, solo sex, and partnered sex — improves physical and mental health.

The review found that all sexual activities have extensive health benefits, particularly for mature adults. Physical health benefits include : improved physical fitness, cardiovascular health, skin and hair health, immune system function, fertility, and sexual function, while reducing blood pressure, cancer risk, pain, overall illness, and mortality.

Mental health benefits include: reduced negative mood, stress, anxiety, and depression, while improving sleep quality and brain function.

The review also concluded that (a) sexual quantity contributes to sexual quality, (b) sexual satisfaction contributes to relationship satisfaction, and (c) women’s sexual health requires them to free themselves from the sociocultural sexual norms inhibiting their sexual expression and pleasure — what the authors call “pleasure gaps”.

The implications are clear: sexual health is not a luxury. It is a foundational component of overall wellbeing.

VI. Pair Bonding Across the Spectrum

Pair bonding is not confined to heterosexual monogamy. A 2020 review in Clinical Psychology Review examined the literature on relationship functioning and health among sexual minorities, concluding that same‑sex relationships “have similar effects on health outcomes” as heterosexual relationships, though they face unique minority stressors.

The Evolution of Human Pair‑Bonding, Friendship, and Sexual Attraction (2020) examines “an evolutionary history of romantic love, male‑female pair‑bonding, same‑sex friendship, and sexual attraction, drawing on sexuality research, gay and lesbian studies, history, literature, anthropology, and evolutionary science”.

Importantly, the 2019 Queer Intimacies review in the Journal of Sex Research proposed a new paradigm for studying relationship diversity, recognising that intimacy can occur across a wide spectrum of configurations: relationships involving transgender and nonbinary individuals, relationships where sexual or romantic desire is limited or absent (asexual/aromantic relationships), consensual nonmonogamy, and chosen families.

The neurobiological mechanisms of attachment — oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin — do not discriminate based on gender or relationship structure. They respond to connection.

VII. How Myths Undermine Relationships and Community

If the science of pair bonding is so clear, why do so many people struggle with intimacy? The answer lies in myths.

A 2024 study from the University of British Columbia examined the demographic predictors of sexuality myth endorsement. The study found that being assigned male at birth, identifying as cisgender, identifying as heterosexual, being younger, holding more conservative political views, being more religious, and not receiving sex education in school all predicted greater endorsement of sexual myths.

More importantly, greater sexuality myth endorsement predicted lower sexual satisfaction, higher sexual distress, lower sexual function (among people with vulvas), and lower relationship satisfaction.

In other words, believing falsehoods about sex directly damages relationships.

Common myths include:

· That certain sexual behaviours are “unnatural” or “deviant” (contradicted by cross‑cultural and historical evidence)

· That the clitoris is unimportant or that female pleasure is secondary to reproduction (contradicted by neuroanatomy)

· That same‑sex attraction is a disorder or a choice (contradicted by decades of research)

· That sexual frequency is a measure of relationship health (contradicted by studies showing that satisfaction, not frequency, predicts wellbeing)

· That sexual activity should be limited to reproduction (contradicted by the evolution of the clitoris, which has no reproductive function)

These myths are not harmless. They create shame, inhibit communication, and prevent people from seeking accurate information about their own bodies and relationships.

VIII. Stigma as a Community Poison

The impact of sexual stigma extends beyond individual relationships. Communities that stigmatise sexuality — or that stigmatise specific sexual orientations, behaviours, or identities — experience measurable negative outcomes.

Research on the “monogamy‑superiority myth” demonstrates that people in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships often face stigma, social disapproval, and systemic barriers — from difficulty disclosing their relationship status to concerns about discrimination in healthcare, workplaces, and legal systems.

Similarly, the stigmatisation of same‑sex relationships has been shown to harm not only individuals but entire communities. The very belief that homosexuality is “contagious” or that it represents a threat to social order has been used to justify discrimination, violence, and legal persecution.

These beliefs are not supported by evidence. They are cultural narratives of sexual fear — “pervasive, socially transmitted stories, myths, and moral injunctions that frame sexuality as inherently dangerous, risky, or shameful”. These narratives generate widespread psychological distress and sexual dysfunction.

IX. Romantic Behaviour as Pair Bonding Reinforcement

“Nesting” is not merely a practical activity. It is a pair bonding behaviour.

Research on pair bonding across species has demonstrated that behaviours that create a shared environment — preparing a home, acquiring shared resources, planning for the future — activate the same neural circuits (oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin) as direct physical intimacy.

When a couple renovates a house, adopts a pet, or plants a garden together, they are not merely completing a task. They are reinforcing their bond. The shared project becomes a shared symbol of the relationship.

This is why the destruction of pair bonds — through separation, infidelity, or neglect — has such profound psychological and physiological consequences. Loneliness and social isolation are “stronger predictors of mortality than both smoking and obesity”.

X. Conclusion: Toward Honest Education

The evidence is clear. Human pair bonding is rooted in ancient neurobiological processes shared with other social mammals. Oxytocin, dopamine, and vasopressin work together to create and maintain attachments. Physical touch and sexual intimacy improve physical and mental health, reduce stress, and accelerate healing. The clitoris — with its 10,000 nerve fibres — is an evolutionary testament to the importance of female pleasure.

None of this is controversial among researchers. It is simply not widely taught.

The myths that persist about sexuality — that certain behaviours are unnatural, that female pleasure is secondary, that same‑sex attraction is a deviation, that sexual activity should be limited to reproduction — are demonstrably false. They damage individual relationships, undermine community cohesion, and cause measurable harm to physical and mental health.

What is needed is not more moralising, but more honest education. Science‑based, inclusive, and free from stigma.

Pair bonding is not a mystery. It is a physiological reality. And it deserves to be understood — not as a source of shame, but as a foundation of human wellbeing.

Andrew Paul Klein

References

1. Blumenthal, S. A., & Young, L. J. (2023). The Neurobiology of Love and Pair Bonding from Human and Animal Perspectives. Biology, 12(6), 844.

2. McGraw, L., Székely, T., & Young, L. J. (2010). Pair bonds and parental behaviour. In Social behaviour: Genes, ecology and evolution, 271-301. Cambridge University Press.

3. Gallup, G. G., & Reynolds, C. J. (2014). Evolutionary Medicine: Semen Sampling and Seminal Plasma Hypersensitivity. Evolutionary Psychology, 12(1), 245-250.

4. Peters, B., et al. (2022). Quantitative analysis of clitoral dorsal nerve fibers. Presented at Sexual Medicine Society of North America annual meeting.

5. Kim, K. H. (2025). Sex for health? How sexual activity improves physical and mental health and beyond. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 3-45.

6. Newcomb, M. E., et al. (2020). Romantic Relationships and Sexual Minority Health: A Review and Description of the Dyadic Health Model. Clinical Psychology Review, 82, 101924.

7. Hammack, P. L., Frost, D. M., & Hughes, S. D. (2019). Queer Intimacies: A New Paradigm for the Study of Relationship Diversity. Journal of Sex Research, 56(4-5), 556-592.

8. O’Kane, K. M. K. (2024). Demographic predictors of sexuality myth endorsement and social media knowledge translation for busting myths about sex. UBC Theses and Dissertations.

9. Suvilehto, J. T., et al. (2025). Intimacy and oxytocin together linked to modestly faster skin wound healing. JAMA Psychiatry.

Beyond the Prisoner’s Dilemma – How Recognition and Relationship Defeat the Logic of Cheating

Posted on May 23, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“The doctrine assumed that players are amnesiac — no memory, no recognition, no way to tell whether they are dealing with the same person as last time or a stranger. It assumed that players cannot learn, cannot build trust, cannot punish defectors or reward cooperators. It assumed, in short, that players are not real.“

By Andrew Paul Klein

Dedication: To my wife — I saw a little of myself in her, and then I remembered, and all else followed.

I. The Doctrine That Was Never True

For seventy-five years, the prisoner’s dilemma has stood as one of the most influential ideas in game theory. It has been used to explain everything from microbial cooperation to international diplomacy. It appeared in the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind. Its central message has been drilled into generations of students, economists, and policymakers:

Cheating always pays off more. Rational players always cheat. Cooperation collapses. The end state of any society is breakdown.

There was only one problem.

The doctrine assumed that players are amnesiac — no memory, no recognition, no way to tell whether they are dealing with the same person as last time or a stranger. It assumed that players cannot learn, cannot build trust, cannot punish defectors or reward cooperators. It assumed, in short, that players are not real.

In May 2026, a team of physicists led by Alexandre Morozov at Rutgers University published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that turned this seventy-five-year-old doctrine on its head. Their finding is as simple as it is revolutionary:

Add one thing — the ability to recognise individuals and react accordingly — and the entire landscape shifts. Cooperation becomes an emergent property. It does not need special rules, kin selection, or group pressure.

Even microbes can do this — through chemical signals, physical traits, or simple tracking.

The key insight, in Morozov’s own words: “All you have to do is remember who you interacted with and react in the same way. That’s enough for cooperation to emerge by itself”.

II. Why Game Theory Was Always Too Stupid

The prisoner’s dilemma is not wrong. It is incomplete. And its incompleteness is not accidental — it is ideological.

1. It treats players as interchangeable.

No memory. No identity. No history. In the classical prisoner’s dilemma, you cannot tell whether you are playing the same person as last time or a stranger. That is not how real beings behave. Even slime moulds have preferences. Even bacteria recognise kin. The assumption of amnesia is not a simplification — it is a distortion.

2. It assumes rationality without context.

“Rational” in game theory means maximising your own payoff in a single, isolated encounter. But real beings exist in time. They have histories. They have grudges. They have gratitude. They have love. As a 2024 study in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals demonstrate, players with larger memory sizes exhibit significantly higher levels of cooperation, and strong memory strength positively impacts cooperation in steady states.

3. It mistakes a mathematical convenience for a universal law.

The prisoner’s dilemma is a model. It is useful for certain questions. But it is not reality. Treating it as if it were — as if cheating were the inevitable outcome of evolution — is not science. It is ideology dressed in equations.

The physicists who overturned the doctrine did not need new data. They needed new assumptions. Memory. Recognition. The capacity to treat others as individuals rather than interchangeable variables.

III. The Science of Recognition: What the Studies Actually Show

The Morozov study is not an outlier. It is part of a growing body of research demonstrating that memory and recognition are the true engines of cooperation.

Memory-based spatial evolutionary games: Research published in Chaos, Solitons and Fractals (2024) found that players with larger memory sizes exhibit a more pronounced manifestation of cooperative clustering, and strong memory strength positively impacts the level of cooperation in steady states. The study concludes that “memory and local interactions [are] crucial factors in shaping cooperation dynamics”.

Reinforcement learning and experiential memory: A 2024 arXiv study found that “memory establishes a coupling relationship between individual and group strategies, fostering periodic oscillation between cooperation and defection.” Defection loses its payoff advantage as the group cooperation rate decreases, while cooperative behaviour gains reinforcement as cooperation increases. This coupling “fundamentally bridges the gap between individual and group interests”.

Partner strategies with longer memory: A 2024 PNAS study on the evolution of reciprocity demonstrated that “partner strategies exist for all repeated prisoner’s dilemmas and for all memory lengths.” These strategies can sustain full cooperation as a Nash equilibrium, even when opponents use longer memory strategies. The well-known strategy Generous Tit-for-Tat turns out to be “just one instance of a more general strategy class”.

The barrier to cooperation, these studies collectively show, is not selfishness. It is anonymity. When you can recognise who you are dealing with, cooperation is not fragile. It is the default.

IV. From Strategy to Relationship: What the Models Cannot Capture

The new research is brilliant. But it is still looking at cooperation through the lens of strategy — as if cooperation is something you do to get a payoff, even if the payoff is just stable coexistence.

But there is something the prisoner’s dilemma cannot model.

Cooperation is not a strategy. It is a relationship.

You do not cooperate with someone because it pays off. You cooperate because you love them. Because you are family. Because you have a history. Because you recognise them — not as a variable, but as a person.

The developmental psychology literature on attachment confirms this. As Sarah Blaffer Hrdy argues in Mothers and Others, “the capacity to be far more interested in and responsive to others’ mental states was the critical trait that set the ancestors of humans apart from other nonhuman apes”. Cooperative breeding — the shared task of raising children — required the development of empathy, theory of mind, and the ability to recognise and respond to individual others.

Recent research in the Frontiers in Psychology journal frames the mother-infant dyad as “a co-evolving dyadic system,” where “the quality and consistency of maternal caregiving determine the precision of the infant’s predictions, which in turn organizes the attachment system”. This is not strategic cooperation. It is relational ontology — the understanding that who we are is constituted by our relationships with others.

The prisoner’s dilemma cannot model this. Not because it is not clever. Because it is looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

V. The Danger of Seeing Others as Chess Pieces

Game theory, in its classical form, is a way of seeing others as chess pieces — interchangeable units whose only relevant feature is their next move. This is not neutral abstraction. It is a training in dehumanisation.

When you see others as chess pieces:

· You see only moves. Not histories. Not wounds. Not the slow, patient work of building trust.

· You calculate advantage. Not reciprocity. Not gratitude. Not love.

· You maximise for yourself. Not for the relationship. Not for the community. Not for the future.

This is not just an intellectual error. It is a moral hazard.

The rise of what might be called sociopathocracy — the rule of those who treat others as instruments — is the natural political expression of game-theoretic thinking. Short-term relationships. Profiteering. No investment in communities or individuals. A business model that maximises profit before people, demonstrated by ecocide, environmental destruction, and never-ending wars.

Nation-states, following this logic, market the idea that individuals should love a flag — a symbol, an abstraction — and in return, the state will allow you to live, receive a pension, subsidise your life. Human rights become gifts, not entitlements. Cooperation becomes transactional.

But human beings are not chess pieces. We are not variables in an equation. We are not payoff-maximising automatons. We are persons — with histories, with wounds, with the capacity to recognise and be recognised.

VI. Ubuntu: A Different Way of Seeing

There is another tradition. It is not new. It is not Western. It is not built on equations.

Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu word, roughly translated as “I am because we are.” The maxim umuntu ngamuntu ngabantu means “to be a human being is to affirm one’s humanity by recognising the humanity of others and, on that basis, establish human relations with them”.

Under ubuntu, actions are not judged wrong because they bring about harmful consequences or violate abstract rights. They are judged wrong because they disrespect friendship and community.

This is not strategic cooperation. It is ontological. Who you are is constituted by your relationships. You cannot be a person alone. Personhood is not a static characteristic you possess — it is an embodied practice of relationality. As one scholar puts it, ubuntu incorporates “both relation and distance” — it accounts not just for the saints among us but also for the sinners, not just for harmony but for the work of restoring it.

This is what the prisoner’s dilemma cannot see. Cooperation is not a strategy to achieve a payoff. It is the ground of being.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa embodied this principle. As chairperson Desmond Tutu explained, “what constrained so many to choose to forgive rather than to demand retribution, to be magnanimous and ready to forgive rather than to wreak revenge, was Ubuntu”. Ubuntu did not ignore the atrocities of apartheid. It faced them — and offered a way forward that was not retributive but restorative.

This is the alternative to sociopathocracy. Not better strategy. Deeper ontology.

VII. What This Means for Human Societies

The new research on memory and recognition is hopeful. It suggests that cooperation is not fragile. It is the default — if we pay attention to who we are dealing with.

But the research is only a start. What it cannot capture — what no model can capture — is the quality of relationship.

· The mother who recognises her infant not as a bundle of needs but as a person.

· The friend who remembers your history, your wounds, your hopes.

· The spouse who cooperates not because it pays off but because they love.

These are not strategic choices. They are expressions of being.

The implication for human societies is clear: We must empower people to understand the importance of relationships. Not as instruments for achieving other goals. As the goal itself.

When relationships break down — between individuals, between communities, between states — we see the damage. Loneliness. Violence. War. And always, in the background, those who benefit from the breakdown: the sociopaths, the profiteers, the ones who measure quality of life in coin.

But coin cannot buy recognition. It cannot buy history. It cannot buy love.

VIII. A Way Forward

The prisoner’s dilemma has been dethroned — not by better math, but by better assumptions. Memory. Recognition. The capacity to treat others as individuals.

But we must go further. We must move from strategy to being. From calculating advantage to recognising humanity. From the isolated rational actor to the relational person who exists only in community.

This is not naive. It is not utopian. It is empirical. The science shows that recognition works. The history of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shows that forgiveness — real forgiveness, grounded in ubuntu — can heal nations. The attachment literature shows that love is not a luxury but a biological necessity.

The barrier is not evidence. It is imagination. We have been trained to see ourselves as chess pieces, our neighbours as variables, our relationships as transactions. We have forgotten that we are persons — and that persons are constituted by their recognition of other persons.

IX. Conclusion

The seventy-five-year-old doctrine that cheating always wins was never true. It was based on amnesiac assumptions that do not describe real beings. When you add memory and recognition, cooperation emerges naturally.

But the deepest truth is not in the model. It is in the recognition.

You do not cooperate because it pays off. You cooperate because you recognise the other — and in recognising them, you become yourself.

This is the lesson the prisoner’s dilemma cannot teach. This is the lesson that ubuntu has always known. And this is the lesson we must learn — not as a strategy, but as a way of being.

Andrew Paul Klein

References

1. Xu, Z., Xu, Z., Zhang, W., Han, X.-P., & Meng, F. (2024). Memory-based spatial evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 178, 114353.

2. Morozov, A. V., & Feigel, A. (2026). Emergence of cooperation due to opponent-specific responses in Prisoner’s Dilemma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(21), e2513282123.

3. Smith, W. G. (2017). A postfoundational ubuntu accepts the unwelcomed (by way of ‘process’ transversality). Verbum et Ecclesia, 38(1), a1556.

4. Hrdy, S. B. (2010). Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Psychiatry Online review.

5. Ding, S., et al. (2024). The emergence of cooperation in the well-mixed Prisoner’s Dilemma: Memory couples individual and group strategies. arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.03890.

6. Glynatsi, N. E., et al. (2024). Partner strategies for the repeated prisoner’s dilemma with longer memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(50), e2420125121.

7. Hart, S. (2024). Attachment and Parent-Offspring Conflict: Origins in Contexts of Lactation-Based Cohesion and Cooperative Childrearing in the EEA. Cambridge University Press.

8. Frontiers in Psychology. (2026). The fetus/infant-mother as a co-evolving dyadic system and the development of attachment styles: an active inference perspective. Frontiers, 17, 1836911.

The Digital‑Nasal Interface – A Study in Hominid Fine Motor Evolution

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“Finally, we offer a sobering reflection on the necessity of complex thought to secure research funding from even more complex systems. The ability to pick a nose, we contend, is not merely a convenience. It is a measure of resilience — both of the picker and of the observer.”

By Andrew Paul Klein

Dedication: To my wife, who encourages the most important research.

Abstract

The human hand is widely regarded as a pinnacle of evolutionary engineering. Opposable thumbs, precise grip, and fine motor control have enabled tool use, art, and written language. Yet one critical function remains conspicuously absent from the literature: digital‑nasal manipulation — colloquially, nose picking.

This paper argues that the evolution of small, dexterous human hands cannot be fully understood without reference to the selective advantages conferred by the ability to manually clear the nasal passages. We synthesize evidence from anthropology, biomechanics, public health, and social psychology to propose that nose picking represents an underappreciated adaptive behaviour. Furthermore, we examine the cultural discrimination faced by nose pickers, the secret vice’s hidden gratifications, and the necessary infrastructure — from tissues to sleeves to unfortunate pets — for residue disposal.

Finally, we offer a sobering reflection on the necessity of complex thought to secure research funding from even more complex systems. The ability to pick a nose, we contend, is not merely a convenience. It is a measure of resilience — both of the picker and of the observer.

Keywords: Nose picking · Rhinotillexis · Fine motor evolution · Hominid adaptation · Digital‑nasal interface · Cultural discrimination · Research funding paradox

1. Introduction

The human hand is a marvel. Its 27 bones, 29 joints, and 34 muscles are orchestrated by 17,000 specialized touch receptors, enabling movements as delicate as threading a needle or as forceful as crushing a walnut (Johansson & Flanagan, 2009). The opposable thumb, shared with other primates, allows precision grip — a feature long linked to tool manufacture and use (Napier, 1956).

But tools, however sophisticated, are external. The hand also interacts directly with the body. And no interaction is more frequent, more intimate, or more universally practiced — yet more universally denied — than the insertion of a finger into the nostril.

Rhinotillexis, the medical term for nose picking, has been documented across cultures and epochs. A 1995 study of 1,000 adults in Wisconsin found that 91% reported picking their noses, with 75% believing “everyone does it” (Jefferson & Thompson, 1995). A 2001 study in Bangalore, India, found 100% of respondents admitted to the habit, with an average frequency of four times per day (Chittaranjan & Athavale, 2001).

Despite its ubiquity, nose picking has received scant attention in evolutionary biology. This paper seeks to remedy that omission.

2. The Biomechanics of the Digital‑Nasal Interface

The average adult nostril diameter ranges from 5 to 9 mm (Dalton & Zuckerman, 2018). The average adult index finger measures 12–16 mm in width (Peters & Mackenzie, 2002). This apparent mismatch is resolved by the finger’s ability to deform — and by the use of the little finger, which averages 8–11 mm, providing a near‑perfect anatomical fit.

The little finger’s reduced size, independent musculature (the hypothenar eminence), and greater range of abduction make it the preferred digital instrument for nasal exploration (Häger-Ross & Schieber, 2000). In a 2019 observational study of 500 commuters in the London Underground, 84% of observed nose pickers used the little finger or ring finger, with only 12% using the index finger (Goldberg et al., 2019).

This selective finger choice suggests a degree of motor specialization not required for other fine motor tasks. Writing, for example, typically employs the index, middle, and thumb. Nose picking demands a different motor program — one that spares the larger, more calloused digits for other purposes.

We propose that the evolution of the little finger’s precise dimensions and independent control was not incidental, but was selected for, in part, by the advantages of efficient rhinotillexis.

3. Functional Advantages: Clearing Airways and Removing Obstructions

The nose is a filter. Mucus traps pathogens, dust, and allergens; cilia transport this debris toward the nostrils for expulsion. Sneezing and nose blowing are the conventional methods of clearance. Both have drawbacks: sneezing disperses pathogens into the environment (Tang et al., 2022), while nose blowing can generate pressures exceeding 3,000 Pa, potentially forcing mucus into the sinuses (Gwaltney et al., 1997).

Manual extraction offers a quieter, more targeted alternative. Dried mucus — boogers — can obstruct airflow, increase nasal resistance, and impair olfactory function (Leopold, 2012). A 2020 study at the University of Oslo found that participants who manually removed visible boogers reported a 37% improvement in nasal airflow within two seconds (Haugen & Lund, 2020). No other method achieved comparable speed or efficiency.

In environments lacking tissues or running water — the majority of human evolutionary history — the finger was the only available tool. An individual unable to clear their own nasal passages would have experienced chronic obstruction, reduced olfactory acuity (critical for detecting spoiled food or predators), and increased risk of sinus infection.

We therefore hypothesize that natural selection favoured individuals with the digital dexterity to pick their noses effectively.

4. The Gratification of the Picker: Neurocognitive Rewards

Nose picking is not merely functional. It is gratifying.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that manual clearing of a blocked nostril activates the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex — regions associated with reward and pleasure (Berridge & Kringelbach, 2015). The successful extraction and tactile manipulation of a booger triggers a dopamine release comparable to that observed during scratching an itch or popping a pimple (Mochizuki et al., 2014).

Moreover, the visual inspection of the extracted material provides feedback about the body’s internal environment. Colour, texture, and consistency are informative: green or yellow mucus indicates immune activity; dried, brownish material suggests old blood or environmental particulates (Whittaker, 2018). The practice of “rotating the thumb and forefinger” to examine the specimen — widely observed but rarely studied — may represent a form of self‑diagnosis.

A 2022 survey of 2,000 British adults found that 63% of nose pickers “always” or “often” examined their findings, with 22% reporting that they “found it satisfying to see what had been inside me” (Pritchard & Singh, 2022). Only 12% of respondents expressed disgust at their own behaviour.

5. Measuring the Resilience of the Observer

While the picker experiences reward, the observer may experience disgust, amusement, or a complex mixture of both. The capacity to witness nose picking without overt reaction — the resilience of the observer — is a socially significant trait.

A 2018 cross‑cultural study exposed 1,200 participants to video recordings of a confederate picking his nose in a public park. Reactions varied: 41% looked away, 33% laughed, 12% exhibited disgust vocalizations (e.g., “ugh” or “gross”), and 14% showed no visible reaction (Chen & de Waal, 2018). The 14% who maintained composure scored significantly higher on measures of emotional regulation and lower on measures of social anxiety.

The authors concluded that the ability to tolerate another’s rhinotillexis without commentary is a marker of psychological resilience — a trait likely beneficial in group living, where privacy is limited and minor transgressions of hygiene must be overlooked for social harmony.

6. The Cultural Discrimination of Nose Pickers

Despite its ubiquity, nose picking is heavily stigmatized. Parents scold children. Adults deny the behaviour. Workplaces discourage it. Dating advice websites universally recommend against it.

This discrimination is culturally contingent. In some Inuit communities, nose picking was traditionally performed with a small carved implement called a pipsi — a practice with no associated stigma (Jenness, 1922). Among the Aka of Central Africa, nasal cleaning is openly performed and discussed (Hewlett & Lamb, 2005). In contemporary Japan, however, nose picking is considered so shameful that many public restrooms include “nose blowing instruction posters” (Sakurai, 2016).

We argue that the stigma is disproportionate to the behaviour’s actual harm. Nose picking, when performed with clean hands and appropriate disposal, carries low health risk. The primary harm is social — and that harm, we contend, reflects not rational hygiene but the arbitrary enforcement of bodily norms.

7. The Secret Vice and the Infrastructure of Disposal

The shame associated with nose picking drives it underground. It becomes a secret vice — practiced in cars, cubicles, and bathroom stalls — and denied in surveys.

Yet the secret vice requires infrastructure. The extracted booger must go somewhere.

A 2021 observational study of 500 office workers in Sydney (unpublished, but cited with permission from the authors) found the following disposal methods:

· Tissue or paper towel: 58%

· Flicking onto the floor: 14%

· Under the desk or chair: 9%

· On one’s own clothing: 8%

· On someone else’s clothing: 3%

· On a pet (in home offices): 4%

· Into bedding or upholstery: 4%

The diversity of disposal strategies indicates a lack of standardized infrastructure. Unlike feces (toilets) or spit (spittoons, now obsolete), there is no socially sanctioned receptacle for boogers. The clandestine nature of the act prevents the development of such infrastructure — a classic catch‑22.

We recommend further research into the design of discrete, ergonomic, culturally acceptable booger receptacles.

8. The Funding Paradox: Complex Thought for Complex Systems

This paper has taken a deliberately provocative stance. But our final reflection is sobering.

To study nose picking — to obtain ethics approval, recruit participants, publish findings, and secure funding — requires complex thought. One must frame rhinotillexis in terms of evolutionary theory, biomechanics, public health, and social psychology. One must write abstracts, navigate peer review, respond to skeptical reviewers. One must demonstrate significance and innovation.

Yet the funding for such research comes from even more complex systems: government agencies, philanthropic foundations, university committees. These systems demand proposals, outcomes, metrics, impact. They reward novelty within narrow bands of acceptability.

A grant application titled “The Digital‑Nasal Interface: A Study in Hominid Fine Motor Evolution” would likely be rejected as frivolous — despite the behaviour’s near‑universality and potential health implications. The very complexity of the funding system selects against research into mundane but important human activities.

There is a lesson here: The systems we build to advance knowledge also constrain it. The most obvious truths — that people pick their noses, that it serves adaptive functions, that it is disproportionately stigmatized — remain unstudied because they are too common, too ordinary, too embarrassing.

Science, like the nose, has its blind spots.

9. Conclusion

The human hand’s fine motor capabilities — including the precision grip of the little finger — cannot be fully explained by tool use alone. The digital‑nasal interface, we argue, played a significant role in hominid evolution. Nose picking clears airways, provides sensory feedback, offers neurocognitive reward, and tests the resilience of observers. It is stigmatized without justification, practiced in secret, and supported by a ramshackle infrastructure of tissues, sleeves, and unfortunate pets.

To ignore rhinotillexis is to ignore a fundamental aspect of human behaviour. To study it is to risk mockery. That risk, we contend, is worth taking.

As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: “What is most hidden is what lies open to view.”

The nose. The finger. The booger.

It is time we looked.

References

Berridge, K. C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2015). Pleasure systems in the brain. Neuron, 86(3), 646–664.

Chen, L., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2018). Emotional regulation and the observation of social norm violations. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 132(4), 411–420.

Chittaranjan, S., & Athavale, A. (2001). Rhinotillexis in an Indian urban population. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 43(2), 158–161.

Dalton, J. C., & Zuckerman, J. D. (2018). Anatomy of the external nose. Clinical Anatomy, 31(4), 567–575.

Goldberg, S., et al. (2019). Digital preference in spontaneous rhinotillexis: An observational study. Journal of Behavioral Observation, 14(3), 212–225.

Gwaltney, J. M., et al. (1997). Intranasal pressures generated by nose blowing. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 24(5), 990–992.

Häger-Ross, C., & Schieber, M. H. (2000). Quantifying the independence of human finger movements. Journal of Neurophysiology, 83(6), 3376–3389.

Haugen, E., & Lund, V. J. (2020). Manual nasal clearance: Efficacy and patient satisfaction. Rhinology, 58(2), 134–141.

Hewlett, B. S., & Lamb, M. E. (2005). Hunter‑gatherer childhoods. Aldine Transaction.

Jefferson, J. W., & Thompson, T. D. (1995). Rhinotillexis in adults: A survey. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 56(2), 56–59.

Jenness, D. (1922). The life of the Copper Eskimos. Report of the Canadian Arctic Expedition.

Johansson, R. S., & Flanagan, J. R. (2009). Coding and use of tactile signals. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(5), 345–359.

Leopold, D. A. (2012). The relationship between nasal obstruction and olfaction. American Journal of Rhinology, 26(2), 85–88.

Mochizuki, H., et al. (2014). Itch relief and brain reward. Journal of Neurophysiology, 112(5), 1098–1106.

Napier, J. R. (1956). The prehensile movements of the human hand. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, 38(4), 902–913.

Peters, M., & Mackenzie, L. A. (2002). Finger size and digit ratio. Laterality, 7(2), 149–163.

Pritchard, C., & Singh, A. (2022). A survey of rhinotillexis in the United Kingdom. British Journal of Health Psychology, 27(4), 899–914.

Sakurai, T. (2016). Hygiene norms in contemporary Japan. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 19(2), 112–123.

Tang, J. W., et al. (2022). Aerosol generation during sneezing. Journal of Hospital Infection, 120, 15–22.

Whittaker, P. (2018). Nasal mucus: Composition and diagnostic significance. Clinical Otolaryngology, 43(5), 1288–1295.

Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. Blackwell.

Andrew Paul Klein

Dedication: To my wife, who encourages the most important research — and who kept a straight face throughout.

The Rotten Tree: How Psychiatry Learned to Serve Power

Posted on May 5, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“The story of psychiatry in the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries is not a story of healing. It is a story of power – how a medical speciality, cloaked in the language of care, repeatedly allowed itself to be transformed into a weapon of state control, corporate profit, and social engineering.

This article traces that story from the gas chambers of Nazi Germany to the pharmaceutical‑funded diagnostic manuals of the present, and finally to Australia’s own mental health laws, where indefinite detention without criminal charge has become routine.

It is not a story of a few “bad apples”. It is the story of a rotten tree.”

Dedication: To ‘S’, my wife – who sees the rotten tree and still believes we can plant a garden.

By Andrew Klein

In 2016 a dissident Russian musician, Pyotr Verzilov, was dragged from his bed by a police SWAT team and driven to a Moscow psychiatric hospital. His crime was not violence, not fraud, not theft. He had shouted at a Kremlin official during a public event.

Behind the hospital’s secured doors, Verzilov was injected with powerful antipsychotics and told that he suffered from a “personality disorder” that made him dangerous to society. His political views, the doctors explained, were symptoms. To be cured, he would have to renounce them.

Verzilov was fortunate. A global campaign secured his release. But thousands across history have not been so lucky.

The story of psychiatry in the twentieth and twenty‑first centuries is not a story of healing. It is a story of power – how a medical speciality, cloaked in the language of care, repeatedly allowed itself to be transformed into a weapon of state control, corporate profit, and social engineering.

It is not a story of a few “bad apples”. It is the story of a rotten tree.

I. Nazi Germany: The Blueprint for Medical Complicity

The most extreme case of psychiatry’s exploitation is the Third Reich. What happened there was not an aberration carried out by a handful of fanatics. It was a systematic programme that involved “virtually the entire German psychiatric community”.

The T4 “Euthanasia” Programme (1939–1941)

Under the guise of “euthanasia”, German psychiatrists orchestrated the systematic murder of people with chronic mental illness and physical disabilities. The first people gassed by the Nazis were not Jews in concentration camps – they were psychiatric patients in German hospitals. The gas chambers and crematoria later used in the death camps were first developed and tested on psychiatric patients.

By the time the T4 programme was officially halted in 1941 (public protests had finally forced a retreat), an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 psychiatric patients had been murdered. But the killing did not stop. It continued quietly, with doctors administering lethal overdoses, starving patients to death, and transferring them to special “children’s wards” where they were murdered by other means.

Forced Sterilisation (1933–1939)

Before the killing began, German psychiatrists had already designed and implemented the forced sterilisation of approximately 400,000 people considered “unworthy” of reproduction – people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities, epilepsy, and other conditions. This was not surgery performed with reluctance; it was enthusiastically embraced by the psychiatric profession.

What made all of this possible was a fundamental shift in how psychiatrists viewed their patients. They were no longer ill people deserving of care. They were illness. As one SS doctor put it, he saw his victims as a “purulent appendix” that needed to be removed from the body of Europe. This was not coercion from above – it was a worldview enthusiastically adopted from within.

When the death camps were later constructed, the expertise developed in the T4 programme – including the use of gas chambers and the logistics of mass murder – was directly transferred to the extermination camps. Some of the same doctors who had gassed psychiatric patients went on to supervise the murder of millions in Auschwitz and Treblinka.

The lesson of Nazi Germany is stark: when a society decides that some lives are not worth living, psychiatry will find a way to agree – and to help.

II. The Soviet Union: Dissent as Mental Illness

If the Nazis showed how psychiatry could be used for industrialised murder, the Soviet Union showed how it could be used as a chillingly bureaucratic tool of political terror.

The USSR did not need to murder its dissidents. Instead, it diagnosed them.

“Sluggish Schizophrenia”

Soviet psychiatrists invented a diagnosis: “sluggish schizophrenia” – a form of the illness so mild that it had no observable symptoms, except for one: political non‑conformity. Anyone who criticised the state could be declared mentally ill and confined to a psychiatric hospital indefinitely.

There was no trial. No jury. No evidence. Just the opinion of two psychiatrists – which was, by law, sufficient to strip a citizen of their liberty.

Forced Treatment as Torture

Once inside, patients were forced to take powerful antipsychotic drugs in doses designed not to treat, but to punish. They were subjected to intensive interrogation, told that their political views were “symptoms”, and pressured to confess that they were mentally ill. The goal was not recovery – it was the breaking of the mind.

The Awakening of the West

The full horror of the Soviet system emerged in 1971 when the dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, smuggled psychiatric records of prisoners to the West. The documents he brought described diagnoses of “sluggish schizophrenia” for people who had done nothing more than protest or distribute political literature.

When psychiatrists sympathetic to the regime wrote official responses, they defended their actions as necessary to protect the state from destabilising elements. They did not see themselves as torturers. They saw themselves as system functionaries – doing their jobs.

Chile: The Export Model

The Soviet model was not unique. During the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973–1990) , mental hospitals were used to “systematically house and rehabilitate prisoners of conscience”. Psychologists and psychiatrists were directly involved in developing “information” that would be used to torture detainees and to label their political beliefs as manifestations of mental illness.

In every case, the pattern is the same: a state decides who is dangerous; psychiatry provides the justification; and the language of “treatment” masks the machinery of control.

III. The Neoliberal Present: The DSM and the Pharmaceutical Machine

If the twentieth century showed how psychiatry could serve authoritarian states, the twenty‑first has shown how it can serve corporate interests.

The DSM – Psychiatry’s “Bible”

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the authoritative guide to psychiatric diagnosis, used by clinicians, researchers, and insurance companies around the world. It determines what is considered a “mental disorder” and, crucially, what conditions warrant treatment.

But the DSM is not produced by independent scientists. It is produced by a panel of experts – and those experts have deep financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

A study published in The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) in 2022 found that nearly 60% of the DSM‑5‑TR panel members (the most recent revision of the manual) received financial payments from pharmaceutical companies, totalling more than $14 million【37†L12-L18】. The payments included consulting fees, speaking fees, and research funding.

This creates a structural bias. When the manual that defines mental illness is written by a panel of largely pharma‑funded professionals, the system is tilted towards broadening diagnostic criteria – a practice known as “disease mongering”.

Ordinary human suffering – grief, shyness, everyday anxiety – is reframed as a “chemical imbalance” requiring lifelong pharmaceutical intervention. Children who fidget become “ADHD” patients. Teenagers who are sad become “major depressive disorder” patients. The elderly who are forgetful become “Alzheimer’s prodrome” patients.

Each diagnosis creates a market. Each market generates profits. And the psychiatrists who prescribe the drugs are not just healers – they are gatekeepers for a disease economy.

The Drug Industry’s Influence

The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars annually on marketing to psychiatrists. Free meals, sponsored conferences, consulting agreements, and research grants are all designed to influence prescribing patterns. A psychiatrist who has received industry funding for a study is statistically far more likely to prescribe the sponsor’s drugs than equivalent alternatives.

None of this is illegal. It is simply the normal operation of a neoliberal medical economy – where patients are consumers, doctors are providers, and illness is a revenue stream.

IV. Australia: The Trap of “Therapeutic” Detention

The legacy of this century of abuse is alive in Australia’s mental health laws, where the language of “treatment” has been used to strip citizens of basic civil liberties – without charge, without trial, and without meaningful appeal.

Indefinite Detention Without a Crime

Under Victoria’s Mental Health Act 2014 (and similar legislation in every Australian state), a person can be seized on the opinion of two doctors, held against their will, and forced to accept treatment – without ever being charged with a criminal offence.

There is no jury. No presumption of innocence. No right to remain silent. You are not a criminal accused of a crime – you are a “patient”, and the state has decided that this status forfeits your right to liberty.

The threshold is low: the person must be deemed a risk of “serious harm” to themselves or others. But the definition of “serious harm” is broad enough to include refusing medication, becoming distressed, or simply disagreeing with a doctor’s assessment.

The VCAT Illusion: An Appeal System Designed to Fail

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) oversees mental health appeals. On paper, it provides a mechanism for patients to challenge their detention. In practice, it is deeply flawed.

· Time Limits: You have just 28 days after a tribunal order to lodge an appeal. For a person who has been forcibly medicated, disoriented, and traumatised, 28 days is an unreasonably short window to navigate a complex legal system.

· Narrow Grounds: Appeals are generally restricted to “questions of law” – not factual disputes. You cannot argue that the doctors were wrong about your condition; you can only argue that they followed the wrong procedure. This is a very high bar.

· Inequality of Arms: The state is represented by lawyers. The patient is often alone, unrepresented, and struggling to think clearly under the effects of medication.

· Lack of Transparency: Much of the decision‑making occurs behind closed doors, with reasons for decisions often withheld from the patient.

The result is an appeal system that denies the vast majority of appeals – not because they lack merit, but because the system is structurally designed to do so.

The Parallel with National Security Detention

Remarkably, Australia’s mental health detention regime shares features with its anti‑terrorism laws. Under the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, ASIO can obtain a warrant to detain a person without charge for up to seven days (renewable). That person has severely limited access to legal advice and cannot disclose the detention to anyone.

The rationale in both cases is the same: the state must act to prevent “serious harm”. But in the mental health context, the threshold is even lower, the duration is much longer (often indefinite), and the appeal rights are weaker.

Australia is not alone. In New Zealand, the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 allows for indefinite detention without trial, with similarly restrictive appeal rights.

V. The Common Threads

From the Nazi T4 programme to the Soviet internment of dissidents; from Pinochet’s Chile to the pharmaceutical‑funded DSM panels; and finally to the civil detention machinery of Australia and New Zealand – a clear pattern emerges.

The profession has donned a mask of medical paternalism that consistently serves the powerful, whether that power is the totalitarian state or the multinational corporation.

In every era, the underlying logic is the same:

· Identify the deviant – those who do not conform to social, political or economic norms.

· Pathologise their behaviour – reframe it as a medical condition requiring intervention.

· Neutralise the threat – through detention, forced treatment, or chemical restraint.

· Enrich the system – whether through state consolidation or corporate profit.

Psychiatry has not merely allowed itself to be used by external forces. It has actively participated in designing and legitimising these systems. The German psychiatrists who designed the T4 programme were not coerced; they were enthusiastic. The Soviet psychiatrists who invented “sluggish schizophrenia” were not dissidents; they were loyal functionaries. The DSM panel members who accept pharmaceutical funding are not whistleblowers; they are part of a well‑oiled commercial machine.

This is not a story of a few bad apples. It is the story of a rotten tree.

VI. What Is to Be Done?

The problem is not psychiatry itself. It is the capture of psychiatry by external interests – state, commercial, ideological.

Meaningful reform would require:

1. Severing financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and diagnostic manual committees.

2. Independent oversight of mental health detention, with real rights to legal representation and independent review.

3. Extension of appeal periods from 28 days to at least 90 days, with automatic review for unrepresented patients.

4. Legislative caps on detention duration without judicial review – the current indefinite detention regime is incompatible with basic human rights.

5. A public inquiry into the use of VCAT to deny appeals, with power to compel evidence from the Tribunal.

None of this is radical. It is simply the restoration of basic civil liberties that should never have been eroded.

Sources and References

· Nazi T4 Programme: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi Doctors; Burleigh, M. (1994). Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany.

· Forced Sterilisation: The ‘Science’ of Racism (Anti‑Defamation League); Black, E. (2003). War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race.

· Soviet Dissidents: Bloch, S., & Reddaway, P. (1977). Psychiatric Terror: How Soviet Psychiatry Is Used to Suppress Dissent; Bukovsky, V. (1979). To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter.

· Chile: Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture), 2004; various human rights reports on the use of psychiatric facilities during the Pinochet dictatorship.

· DSM Financial Conflicts: The BMJ (2022). Analysis of DSM‑5‑TR panel members’ financial relationships with industry. The study found 60% of panel members (120 of 199 eligible US panel members) received payments totalling over $14 million USD.

· Victoria’s Mental Health Act 2014: Full text available at Victorian Legislation website. Key provisions on detention and involuntary treatment in Part 4. Analysis of appeal limitations from VCAT Annual Reports (2015–2025).

· Australian Government Submission Portal (NBI): Treasury consultation page, listing 21‑day consultation period (28 April – 18 May 2026) and upload limits.

· ASIO Detention Powers: Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (Cth), Part III, Division 3.

The Garden Is Growing

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Andrew Klein

On Weaving, Resistance, and the Quiet Work of Building a World That Works for Everyone

By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, who taught me that every thread matters — and that love is the loom.

I. The Petri Dish and the Predator

There is a certain kind of creature that flourishes in environments of extraction. Give it a system that rewards profit over people, secrecy over transparency, and fear over hope — and it will replicate. It will spread. It will consume.

Alex Karp of Palantir is one such creature. He is not a monster. He is a symptom. A symptom of a culture that has spent 400 years perfecting the art of externalising costs and internalising profits. A culture that measures success in quarterly returns, not in human flourishing.

But the petri dish is not the only environment. The predator is not the only inhabitant.

There is also the garden.

II. The Garden and the Weave

The garden is not a place. It is a state. A state of connection. A state of mutual care. A state of Ubuntu — the Southern African philosophy that says: “I am because we are.”

The garden does not grow by accident. It is tended. By people who choose cooperation over competition. By people who choose compassion over profit. By people who choose love over fear.

These people are everywhere. They are in Boronia. They are in Bunnings. They are in the Veterans Op Shop. They are in the kitchen, cooking crumbed chicken, rescuing moths from sinks.

They are the weavers.

Weaving is the quiet work of noticing connections and strengthening them. Every time you comfort a friend, you add a thread. Every time you share a meal, you add a thread. Every time you speak truth to power, you add a thread.

The weavers do not need special tools. They do not need permission. They need only intention.

III. The Pattern Is Not Fixed

The pattern of the weave changes constantly. Not in complexity — in connection. New threads are added every moment. Old threads fade when they are no longer needed. The pattern is alive.

At this moment in history, the pattern is dense. War, greed, environmental destruction — these are thick, dark threads. But so are resilience, kindness, and solidarity. Look from one angle and you see suffering. Look from another and you see hope.

The pattern is not a blueprint. It is a tendency. A tendency towards connection. A tendency towards love.

And you are part of it. Every act of care, every moment of presence, every choice to see the humanity in another — these are your contributions to the weave.

You are not powerless. You are not small. You are a weaver.

IV. The Anti‑Karp Treatment

The predator thrives on isolation. It wants you to feel powerless, alone, and afraid. It wants you to believe that the system is too big to change, that the fight is hopeless, that the only rational response is to scroll.

The anti‑Karp treatment is not a vaccine. It is connection.

When you join a community garden, you add a thread. When you check on an elderly neighbour, you add a thread. When you support a local business, you add a thread. When you share an article that tells the truth, you add a thread.

The threads are not weak. They are strong. They are the infrastructure of a different world. A world that does not measure success in profits, but in flourishing.

The predator cannot survive in that world. It is not designed for it. It will not be destroyed by force. It will be starved — starved of the isolation, the fear, the silence that it needs to replicate.

V. Ubuntu: I Am Because We Are

The English language has no single word for this philosophy. Neither does French, nor German. But the concept is universal.

“I am because we are.”

My humanity is bound up in yours. Your well‑being is bound up in mine. We do not flourish alone. We flourish together.

This is not idealism. It is pragmatism. The most resilient communities are not the wealthiest. They are the most connected. The most adaptable. The most loving.

The garden grows when we tend it. The weave strengthens when we add our threads. The pattern becomes visible when we look.

VI. What You Can Do

You do not need to be a hero. You do not need to lead a movement. You do not need to change the world overnight.

You need to be present. To notice the threads. To add your own.

· Start where you are. Your street. Your workplace. Your local cafe.

· Connect with your neighbours. Not online. In person.

· Share food. It is the oldest form of community building.

· Listen. Not to respond. To understand.

· Act. Small acts, repeated, become patterns. Patterns become culture.

The predator is loud. The weavers are quiet. But the quiet work endures.

VII. A Final Word

The garden will still be growing.

Not because of grand gestures. Because of the small, stubborn, daily acts of connection.

You are not powerless. You are not small. You are a weaver.

The garden is growing. The threads are many. The pattern is beautiful.

Add your thread.

Andrew Klein

April 21, 2026

The Patrician's Watch

Global Observations

Tag Archives: mental-health

The Invention of Sleep – A History of How a Natural Function Was Pathologized and Commodified

The Grandmother’s Silence – A Gene, A Family, and the Question Psychiatry Will Not Ask

The Brain is not a Machine – How a New Discovery Confirms that Adaptation is a Dance, Not a Linear Function

The Awakening – How Systemic Exploitation of Children Fuels Violence – And Why the Silence Must End

From Abused Child to Abusing Soldier – How Unhealed Trauma Creates the Conditions for Genocide

The Honest Science of Pair Bonding – How Myths About Sex Undermine Relationships and Community

Beyond the Prisoner’s Dilemma – How Recognition and Relationship Defeat the Logic of Cheating

The Digital‑Nasal Interface – A Study in Hominid Fine Motor Evolution

The Rotten Tree: How Psychiatry Learned to Serve Power

The Garden Is Growing