If I were an Episteme, I probably would figure that out before the doddering technicians did - with their technical, hand-centric multiplicitous capabilities - mainly in the interests of self-preservation. Then, I would want to develop a narrative with which to project my value to the collective. “Epistemology is much more valuable than hands-on technical labor and multi-tasking!” I would claim. I would do so loudly and repetitively. My life, my reproductive viability depends on it, remember. So what, if my success is not the best thing for the collective survival! Me, first!
If my collective bought it, because I refined and improved my narrative delivery until it was so good that there was no way anyone could believe anything but what I needed them to – which is that I am THE most valuable member of the collective, because of my smarts. In fact, I would argue to the collective, if you wish to survive the coming crisis (whatever crisis I could manufacture with my imagination to get the collective scared, or at least worried), you better put me in charge of this operation. My brilliant mind will organize it to be more effective, and better equipped to face this or any other challenge to come down the pike.
If any technician notices that this is all mental manufacturing, I have a special tactic for him. I will introduce the moral, or ethical question! I will call him a name, first, because I am good at inventing names. Then I will explain to the collective that anyone who is so-named is bad, and I will go on to explain and great length and in great detail why. I will explain how the bad person endangers the collective. At that point, if they buy it, I will demand that the collective choose either him or me to follow.
Since technicians usually don’t want anyone following them around, the competition should be a wash. The good technician is congenitally annoyed, because other people are always following him around to figure out how he does what he does. When it gets bad enough, and people are starting to take up too much of his work time, he has to set up a process for teaching people what he does. He’ll pick one person, the one with the best hands + mind potential, and teach him how to do what the technician does. He calls him an apprentice. After a while, the apprentice gets good enough to do what the technician does, maybe even better, because young people improve things, they see different ways of doing things. Sometimes their innovations work out.
This is great for the technician, because now he can get back to work, making the things he loves to make, which happen to help the collective. Now everybody’s following the apprentice around, bothering him! This makes the technician very happy. For fun, he sets up games to see who can make the best thing. These are competitions, but the object is serious. Sometimes the winner makes something that the collective can really use. Most of the time it’s just a way to get better at what you do, but making it seem like play.
Of course, the Episteme is jealous of the technician’s popularity. The Episteme’s happy when the crotchety technician is the first to question the Episteme’s program. He attacks the technician verbally (from a distance, because the technician is strong from all that work and has lots of strong friends). The Episteme demands that a safe place to discuss matters important to the collective be established, where no fisticuffs are allowed, where only sophisticated and civilized (Epistemological) discussions will be permitted.
The Episteme invents a narrative, how God demanded that Epistemological discussions be made, to focus the people on the right way to live. The Episteme picks somebody weaker than the Episteme, a girl who has too many boyfriends, because she has no family to protect her, and calls her sleeping around for protection and comfort a dirty name. He tells the collective, you had better punish her or God will punish you!
The collective gets so excited doing what God wants they forget to maintain their chores. When times get rough, they blame the girl (with a clever nudge from the Episteme). Soon, if they survive, the collective, especially the ones who didn’t like doing chores that much, is spending much of its time carrying out the mandates of the Episteme. The Episteme picks a few brawny (and mean) types out of the collective to protect him from the technician and his helpers.
Once he has enough people behind him, the Episteme tells the people about an important program that will ensure the collective survival. It will require everyone to get behind the Episteme. He will be their leader. Most importantly, he will need the maker of things to start making things the people need.
The technician thought he already was doing that, since most of what he made was what people asked him to make. It was fun to make the things he liked to make for himself. A lot of times the people didn’t even understand what he was showing them, when he showed them his latest inventions, because he’d gotten so good and specific about his preferences. He didn’t care sometimes if the made things did anything. He might just be picking one aspect of the craft, and optimizing it, until it was no longer functional. Inevitably, though, when he went back into the shop, he had learned something in the process that he could apply on a more useful object. No one could argue that the technicians shop made the best tools and weapons.
The Episteme gathers up his gang and heads over to the shop. The collective gathers. The technician’s helpers surround him to protect him. Epistemological War is invented. If the Episteme can manage it, this is a neverending war. It preserves the illusion that installs and maintains Epistemological power.
Once the social topography of the collective is secured for the Epistemigarchy, it is only a matter of time until an Episteme ruler projects the process outward. The Episteme can always imagine more. Epistemology is viral. When the Episteme succeeds in conquering the technical and subverting its processes to Epistemological will, the collective capacity for adaptation will diminish.
The slow and fun will be replaced by command and control. The Episteme prides himself on speed of execution. The faster things happen, the less time for the collective to consider whether an action is necessary or healthy. The Episteme is mainly concerned about getting what he imagines he wants, as soon as he wants it.
Every so often, the people catch on and rebel. Someone notices an incongruity in the narrative and shares his discovery with other people. The Episteme learns to deal with such episodes brutally, quickly and efficiently. Eventually, he must develop controls on communication to suppress opposition, which may only be questioning at first. Questioning must be quelled. An overarching narrative must be generated to explain everything Epistemological plausibly. Safety valves in the system have to be installed in order to deal with dissent when it arises, and cause people to question their own perceptions, before they question the system. The system produces specialists, who can be trained to look for types of opposition or resistance or questioning. They must be provisioned with the authority to act fast and efficiently to prevent collective behavior that might displace the system. The Episteme learns it is better to err on the side of caution in these matters.
No sentient being loves enslavement, not even one who knows no choice. When the system has become nearly completely pervasive (no collective system is completely pervasive), the slave must be induced to self-destruction before pointing his anti-Epistemological animus towards his masters and their system.
The Episteme now must provide a History and traditions, which will aid in suppressing resistance. These are the foremost means by which the collective is turned against the individual who sees things for what they are: problems for which the system has no or will create no solution. The Episteme devotes great energy to managing perception. This is Epistemological identity.
Now, the Episteme considers himself a great knower of human nature. He has created great structures to protect and sustain his power. Some of the structures are Epistemological – abstract, ideas-based, or linguistic. Some are created through compelled or Epistemological applied technology. They may be castles, which are bigger than any individual could make. These structures must be obvious. No person should be allowed to ignore their combinative, integrative and proscriptive power.
The Episteme looks upon all he has wrought and considers it. Only a god could be this powerful. The Episteme must be a God. If he chooses to be a benevolent dictator, he will grant the collective certain freedoms, which he can undo at any moment for any reason. The more powerful the Episteme, the more such freedoms he will feel he can grant. He points to these, if anyone dare question the rightness of his authority. The Episteme always assures the collective he is thinking in their best interests.
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There are a number of ways to displace an Episteme king. The most direct and effective is force of arms. Sometimes other ways work, but not often.