“You will discover something ironic about advanced human intelligences, particularly those that conscientiously pursue their own development.

They will often be seen to contribute to the catalyzation and emergence of sophisticated enemies in their protégés or in familiar contexts. This process results in competitors who are particularly suited to attack and overpower their catalyst.

This tactic is astonishingly useful for a wide variety of reasons. The active autodidact is aware — often subconsciously — of the dangers of cognitive sophistication. These include such pernicious demons as complacency, pride, certainty, myopia, addiction, reification, identification, common and uncommon perspectival errors, and so on.

By organizing a capable adversary (or a network of them), these people are actually repeating the ontogony and relational paradigm of the brain itself (see: human religions). This has a variety of powerful advantages, which, like a peculiar form of investment, increase dramatically when sustained over time.

In a situation where the flaws in one’s intelligence are made to constantly face advanced threats, one can actively reframe and optimize the learning process, its results, and the new opportunities thus emerging. The martial artist who is always learning-in-being (as opposed to a replicator of forms and methods) represents a physical analog.

In order to remain developmentally vital and dynamic, our intelligence must have not only opposition — but opposition of the strongest kind. In this way, we remain focused, active, aware, and eventually adopt a kind of opportunistic adaptive sense that constantly leads us into uncommon experiences of relational and intellectual effulgence.”

— an anonymous informant