The Industrial Revolution was supposed to set humanity free. It promised progress—mastery over nature, freedom from suffering, and a future shaped by human reason. It gave us the means to solve problems that once seemed like fate, to subject the world to human ingenuity and build a civilisation of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

But something went wrong. Instead of controlling the world, we turned inward, seeking to control ourselves. Today, we no longer dream of engineering great structures—we seek to engineer the human mind. The great optimism of the Enlightenment has given way to a deep post-liberal pessimism, a belief that the real problem isn't the world but us.