An Excerpt from “A Beginner’s Guide to Enslaving Sentient Alien Populations: Humans of Earth”

(page 313, Ch.7: “On Definitions”)

“Another such term which can be usefully manipulated is ‘independence’, because although it appears to denote complete individual autonomy, it actually has much more to do with which powers an individual human decides are worthy of their subservience. Consider this more helpful definition:

To be independent is to surrender one’s well-being to an indefinitely long and arcane chain of command, at the extreme height of which is an immutable power to which one (often inexplicably) has chosen to bear a level of personal affection and shared identity.

In its most frightening incarnation, that chain is a single link, and that immutable power is the individual.

However, most humans are aware that having a single link chain is strongly correlated with problematic scenarios like being eaten alive by bears in a dark forest where no one can hear them scream, or being forced to maintain their own garden without the benefit of high-speed internet access. For this reason, most humans choose to define their independence in terms of one of the long and arcane chains previously mentioned, while simultaneously crafting a shared identify with the immutable governing power such that their subjugation retains a cozy, personal temperament.

In order to install one’s own authority (or the authority of one’s own trans-galactic hive-minded super-species) at the zenith of such a chain, it is necessary that we next discuss the definition of ‘liberation’, and how it may or may not correlate with the increased individual freedoms of humans…”