A formal analysis of coordination mechanisms at civilization scale, examining the structural constraints that limit viable approaches to large-scale human cooperation.

Human civilizations have always faced a fundamental challenge: how to coordinate the actions of millions of people when individual incentives often conflict with collective welfare. This paper approaches that question formally, examining the logical structure of coordination itself rather than proposing incremental governance reforms or comparing existing political systems.

Through mathematical modeling and formal proofs, we demonstrate that coordination systems at civilization scale face an inescapable trilemma: no enforcement-based mechanism can simultaneously achieve:

1. Incorruptibility - Enforcers do not extract resources beyond what the system requires for maintenance
2. Stability - The system maintains coordination across multiple generations
3. Agency - Individual humans retain meaningful capability to make choices

Every coordination system can be modeled as agents, rules, enforcement mechanisms, and motivations. When we trace the logical implications of different coordination architectures at scale, we find that enforcement-based systems—whether enforced by humans or technology—cannot satisfy all three desirable properties simultaneously.

• Human enforcers face the classic "who watches the watchers" problem, leading to either infinite regress or corruption at the terminal enforcement level
• Technological enforcement either freezes values (tyranny of the past over the future), or faces the alignment problem (misaligned AI goals lead to extinction or subjugation)
• No enforcement fails immediately given extraction opportunities

Hierarchical coordination systems exhibit predictable dynamics over time:

1. Corruption Phase: Enforcers gain extraction opportunities; bounded rationality ensures some exploit them; corruption compounds over generations
2. Transition to Control: As AI capabilities advance, rational elites automate enforcement to reduce costs and principal-agent problems
3. Terminal States: The system converges toward either collapse, human extinction, or permanent subjugation

The economic constraints that historically limited totalitarian control are disappearing as AI makes surveillance and enforcement approach zero marginal cost.

There exists a qualitatively different approach: voluntary coordination based on transformed values. In such systems, enforcement is minimal because intrinsic motivation is sufficient—agents adhere to coordination rules because they genuinely want to, not from fear or punishment.

Formal analysis reveals this escapes the trilemma if and only if it aligns with objective human nature—if humans actually have a telos that can be discovered rather than constructed. This entails accepting that reality has purposive structure, a substantive metaphysical commitment incompatible with pure materialism.

The mathematics establishes that long-term human survival requires:

• Objective human purpose exists (not just evolutionary "as if" purpose)
• Reality has purposive, intelligence-like structure
• Something resembling what religious traditions call "ultimate reality" or "the Ground of Being" exists

However, the analysis does not establish which specific theology is correct, nor specific attributes of this intelligence.

Several developments make these theoretical questions practically urgent:

• Control Infrastructure: Biometric identity systems, AI surveillance, algorithmic moderation, financial control systems, and social credit are being deployed globally at increasing pace
• Epistemic Collapse: Human detection of deepfakes is at 55% accuracy (barely above random); conservative extrapolation suggests 3-6 years until expert detection fails for most content types
• Systemic Instability: Wealth concentration, declining institutional trust, youth disengagement, and visible elite coordination all indicate extraction beyond productive capacity

These converging trends create a narrow window during which establishing voluntary coordination remains possible. After verification fails and technological control matures, the default path may become locked in.

Certainties (proven mathematically):

• Enforcement-based systems cannot achieve all three properties simultaneously
• The default trajectory leads to catastrophic outcomes with probability approaching 1
• Voluntary coordination is necessary (though not proven sufficient) for survival
• This requires objective human purpose, incompatible with pure materialism

Uncertainties (empirically or theoretically unknown):

• Whether voluntary coordination can actually work at billion-person scale
• How to handle defectors and psychopaths without enforcement hierarchy
• Whether defense against external military threats is viable without standing armies
• Which specific theological or philosophical framework correctly describes reality

Decision-Theoretic Implication: Even with uncertainty about whether voluntary coordination can work, attempting it is rationally required. The default path leads to certain doom; the alternative might work. When one path guarantees catastrophe and another has uncertain but non-zero success probability, rationality demands attempting the uncertain path.

For most of human history, examining which frameworks align with objective human nature was impossible for most people—source texts were inaccessible, institutional authorities controlled information, and independent verification was impractical.

This has changed. For a brief window, comprehensive examination is possible:

• Direct access to source texts in multiple translations
• Scholarly debates and historical context widely available
• Real-time visibility of institutional actions
• Cross-cultural comparison at zero marginal cost
• Independent fact-checking without gatekeepers

The paper establishes criteria any viable framework must satisfy (universal dignity, rejection of domination, intrinsic motivation, forgiveness mechanisms, meaning provision, accommodation of fallibility) and discusses how to distinguish core principles from human corruption of those principles.

As synthetic media makes verification impossible, this window is closing within years.

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• Direct PDF: https://enlightenment.dev/main.pdf

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# Using Docker (recommended)
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This project uses dual licensing:

• 📄 Academic Paper (LaTeX source, PDF, article content) → CC-BY 4.0

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Citation:

B. Escalera, A. Escalera. "The Coordination Trilemma: A Formal Analysis of
Large-Scale Human Cooperation." 2025. https://enlightenment.dev

This is an academic paper under active development. We welcome:

• Corrections to mathematical proofs or logical errors
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• Clarifications of ambiguous statements
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