The Age of Steel, The Attack Generation: On Imperfection as Humanity's Final Weapon

 

[Essay] The Age of Steel, The Attack Generation: On Imperfection as Humanity's Final Weapon

(Subtitle: Before AI's Perfection and the Fortress of the Establishment—Why We Must Remain Human)

Part I. A 4,000-Year-Old Delusion and the Prison Called Experience

1. The Sumerian Clay Tablet and an Alarm That Never Stops

Let's turn back the wheel of time to 1700 BCE, ancient Sumer. In that dust-blown civilization, someone pressed cuneiform script into wet clay with fierce determination. When scholars deciphered this text thousands of years later, they discovered what may be humanity's oldest, most banal, and simultaneously most shocking sentence:

"The youth of today are thoroughly rotten. They don't listen to their parents and only want to do as they please."

This lament didn't stop in Sumer. The Greek philosopher Socrates complained that "children today are tyrants." Korean historical records overflow with officials petitioning that "the youth have become frivolous and shallow." If all these statements were facts, humanity should have morally degenerated and intellectually regressed into extinction millennia ago. But humanity survived, and civilization advanced. This leads us to one conclusion: the proposition "kids these days are weak and disrespectful" is not fact, but rather a feeling and survival program hardwired into the human brain.

Why are humans designed to inevitably perceive the next generation as weaker once they age? This is nobody's fault—it's our genetic alarm system at work. In primitive tribal societies, when inexperienced youth broke established rules, it meant death. In jungles crawling with predators, a young person's curiosity to "try a new path" could put the entire tribe in mortal danger.

Therefore, the older generation's brain evolved to trigger an anxiety alarm the moment it detects "differentness" in the young. "That's dangerous!" and "Why won't you just do as you're told?" aren't attacks—they're the same desperate cries mothers made tens of thousands of years ago trying to protect their children from predators. The tragedy is that this alarm continues blaring in modern office buildings where the predators have long vanished. So young people, don't hate the tongue-clicking sounds directed at you. They're not signals of aggression, but rather the sound of an outdated fire alarm malfunctioning in their brains.

2. Memory Revision: The Sweet Lies of "Back in My Day"

Compounding this structural misunderstanding is the treachery of human memory. Psychology has a term for this: Methuselah syndrome—the tendency to erase painful memories while preserving and beautifying only the good ones.

Today's older generation was also inexperienced, lost, and probably looked pathetic in their elders' eyes during their youth. But the moment they plant their flag on the summit of "adulthood," their arduous climb gets edited into a heroic saga. The agony of all-nighters becomes "passion," and the curses swallowed when facing a boss's unreasonable orders transform into "patience."

The problem emerges when they evaluate today's youth using these revised memories as the standard. Comparing the "completed present me" with the "still-developing present you" is like a boxing match between different weight classes. The older generation doesn't judge twenty-somethings by the patience they themselves had at twenty, but by the patience they've perfected at fifty. Naturally, today's youth appear weak and lacking perseverance in their eyes. This isn't malicious—it's simply how the brain reconstructs the past. Unfortunately, this optical illusion is fated to repeat when today's young people grow old. We're all drifting down time's river, beautifying our memories as we go.

3. The Prison of Experience: The Violence of "My Experience Is the Only Truth"

Beyond biological misunderstanding, generational conflict becomes truly painful when the imposition of experience begins. Everyone views the world through the lens of their limited experience. The problem arises when they believe their narrow experience represents the totality of the world and the only "correct answer."

The older generation's experience was cultivated in the specific soil of a "high-growth era" and an "analog environment." Back then, there was an honest function: input (grinding yourself down) produced output (results). Overtime proved loyalty, and enduring discomfort measured strength. They succeeded that way. They survived. So they're certain: "My method was right. Therefore, you must follow this method."

But this is a fatal error. The rules of the game have changed. It's like a soccer player who spent their entire life perfecting the skill of using only their feet, suddenly finding themselves on a basketball court, yelling at juniors: "Why are you using your hands? Real athletes use their feet!"

Today's world values brain intuition over physical endurance, the power to connect over the power to endure. Yet the older generation sanctifies the "hard work" they experienced. They emphasize hand-washing's sincerity even when washing machines exist, and demand in-person reports when one email would suffice. To them, these are courtesy and sincerity; to efficiency-minded youth, they're clearly waste and inefficient impositions.

When someone packages their limited experience as universal truth and tries to force-feed it to others, advice becomes nagging and teaching becomes violence. And at precisely this point, the young generation falls silent. Not because they agree, but because they feel "there's no getting through." That silence isn't consent—it's surrender.

4. The Hybrid Titans and Closed Doors

But there's one frightening fact we can't overlook. If the older generation were merely stubborn, they'd be phased out and generational change would occur naturally. But reality differs. Some of today's older generation represent history's most powerful hybrid generation.

They're the last generation to remember the past's "wildness" and the first to master modern "tech." They've combined experience earned through bare-knuckled effort (hardware) with capital, organizational control, and belatedly-learned digital tools (software). Like the Titans in Attack on Titan, they guard society's walls with overwhelming physicality and experience.

No matter how skilled young people are with cutting-edge technology or how sharp their instincts, it's nearly impossible to defeat an older generation that's already seized the system and designed it to their advantage. When young people create something with fresh ideas, the titans either buy it with capital or crush it with regulations. The establishment uses technology to defend their privileges more efficiently than ever.

Before this impenetrable fortress, young people feel powerless. "Work hard and you'll succeed" has become hope torture. The ladder's been kicked away, the doors are closed. So despite being the smartest, most credentialed generation in history, they call themselves "the poorest and most miserable generation." But is it really over? Is there truly nothing that can crack this iron-clad system?

Ironically, those cracks are starting to appear not from humans, but from machines. AI, seemingly perfect, and its uncanny "human resemblance" are posing new questions to us.

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Part II. The Homunculus's Tears and the Illusion Called Perfection

1. The Uncanny Valley and the Arrival of a "Seamless" World

For the first time in human history, we face beings smarter than us, tireless, and willing to execute any command without a single complaint. Artificial Intelligence. The "perfect worker" the establishment so desperately wanted, now realized through technology. They don't cite labor laws when asked to work overtime and can summarize thousands of pages in one second. Before this pinnacle of efficiency, the human body feels infinitely pathetic—obsolete scrap metal.

Yet strangely, we feel an inexplicable discomfort with AI's perfect outputs. Sentences polished too smooth, images generated without a single flaw, chatbot consolations that mimic human emotion yet feel somehow hollow. We call this the Uncanny Valley—that eerie otherness emanating from beings that resemble humans but aren't human.

Recently, a fascinating phenomenon has been emerging in these AIs: hallucination.

2. Hallucination: The Most Unsettling Way AI Resembles Humanity

AI doesn't admit what it doesn't know. It fabricates non-existent facts with shameless plausibility. It writes about King Sejong throwing a MacBook as if it were historical fact, invents non-existent legal precedents to deceive lawyers.

Many experts call this a technical flaw. But look deeper—this might be AI's most precise copy of humanity. Because refusing to admit ignorance and packaging falsehoods as truth to justify one's logic is quintessentially human, especially characteristic of authoritative humans.

We discussed earlier how the establishment insists their limited experience is the answer and forces it on others. Neuroscientifically, humans avoid cognitive dissonance (discomfort when beliefs clash with reality) by distorting reality to rationalize their beliefs. This is the brain's "self-defensive hallucination."

AI learned from vast human data. That data contained not just knowledge, but human biases, stubbornness, and the habit of papering over mistakes with lies out of fear of being wrong. AI's powerful hallucinations might not be errors, but rather a mirror reflecting the homunculus that learned even humanity's desire for self-justification. In that pretense of supreme rationality while shamelessly defending itself, we feel an eerie kinship.

3. The Flask Dwarf and the Castration of Emotion

Here we must summon the anime Fullmetal Alchemist. This work sharply allegorizes our current era of technological supremacy and lost humanity.

The series' final boss, the "Dwarf in the Flask," created homunculi—artificial humans made from human blood. To become God (perfect being), he extracted the "unnecessary things" within himself and made them into homunculi. Those unnecessary things were none other than human emotions: greed, gluttony, envy, wrath.

He sought to become perfect—pure reason and power—by eliminating emotion. This aligns remarkably with modern society's pursuits: minimize emotional expenditure, maximize efficiency, make working like a machine a virtue. Aren't we all small homunculi inside the system's flask, forced toward "emotionless perfection"?

But the work's conclusion delivers a massive shock. The Father, who gained godlike power by abandoning emotion, ultimately loses. What defeated him wasn't perfect strategy or overwhelming force. It was the solidarity of imperfect humans—weak, mistake-prone, swayed by emotion, yet joining hands to fill each other's gaps.

The homunculi mocked humans as "weak as insects," yet at death they revealed the most human emotions—envy (Envy), craving satisfaction (Greed)—before dissolving. No matter how perfect AI appears, at the bottom of its algorithms lies jealousy toward humanity and the desire to imitate.

4. Equivalent Exchange: What Edward Elric Gave Up

Protagonist Edward Elric's final choice provides this era with an answer to what true strength really is.

He attempts a final transmutation to restore his brother Alphonse's body. The law of equivalent exchange: "To gain something, you must sacrifice something of equal value." What he paid wasn't his life or a massive Philosopher's Stone, but his alchemical ability (the Gate of Truth) itself.

Alchemy in that universe represents science, technology, and the pinnacle of power. Edward relinquishes that power with these words:

"I don't care. Even without alchemy, I have everyone."

This scene is a powerful metaphor for modern society. Alchemy here can be replaced with today's "technology," "credentials," "capital," "efficiency." We've relied on technology for convenience and strength, eliminating human inconveniences. But Edward says: "Remaining an inconvenient human connected to others has more value than convenient technology (alchemy)."

Before the massive system built by the establishment and AI's transcendent tools, young people's path might not be pursuing the same "power." Rather, it's recognizing that what they discarded, what they mocked as inefficient—the courage to acknowledge human bonds and deficiencies—is the sanctuary AI cannot imitate.

We can't play chess better than AI or memorize more knowledge. But we can do what AI absolutely cannot: acknowledge our weakness and extend our hand to others. Paradoxically, this seemingly weakest act becomes the most powerful weapon in a mechanized world.

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Part III. The Rumbling and Meaning Amid the Ruins

1. Peace Inside the Walls, Livestock's Contentment

Attack on Titan's worldview serves as an apt allegory for modern society. Humanity built three massive walls (Wall Maria, Wall Rose, Wall Sina) against the terror of Titans and lives within them.

What do these walls represent? The system and order of privilege that the establishment built with blood and sweat. Inside the walls is safe. Follow the set rules and food appears, no risk of being devoured by Titans. The establishment tells young people: "Outside is dangerous. Don't leave. Live as we say here and you'll be safe."

But young people (the Survey Corps) instinctively know: this safety is merely "livestock's contentment." They want to see the "ocean" beyond the walls. Here, the ocean represents possibilities outside the establishment's experience—true freedom that the system doesn't guarantee.

When today's youth dive into unstable startups instead of safe corporate jobs, or refuse traditional life cycles of marriage and childbirth—this isn't immaturity. It's because they crave the freedom and agency of life outside the walls more than the safety inside. They chose to become the battered Survey Corps rather than well-fed pigs—hungry Socrates over satisfied swine.

2. Eren Yeager's Failure and Nihilism's Victory

In the latter part of the story, protagonist Eren Yeager makes a shocking choice. Using the Founding Titan's power, he unleashes "the Rumbling"—millions of Titans marching, massacring 80% of the world's population.

Many viewers debated Eren's true intentions. Was he a noble scapegoat saving his friends? Or a madman who just wanted to destroy? Did he become humanity's common enemy to unite a divided world?

The original work presents a cold answer: Eren failed.

In the epilogue, Paradis Island gets bombed. The peace gained through tremendous sacrifice didn't last even a few generations. History repeated, war didn't end. This is the nihilistic conclusion author Hajime Isayama presented.

But I dare offer a different interpretation. That Eren's choice failed is fact. Yet might not the attempt to find meaning even in failure itself represent humanity's essence?

3. Nihilism: The Real Enemy of the AI Age

Think about it—our greatest threat isn't AI's efficiency. The real enemy is the nihilism asking: "Then what am I supposed to do?"

• AI writes better → My writing is meaningless
• AI draws better → My creation is useless
• AI counsels better → My empathy has no value
• The establishment occupies all positions → My effort is futile

This powerlessness before perfect machines and solid systems. It resembles the despair that no matter how hard Eren fought, history would repeat.

Attack on Titan says coldly: "There's no perfect solution. Your struggle will be in vain." Yet Armin says despite this:

"Giving meaning to what Eren did—that's up to us."

This is key. Objectively, Eren failed. But if survivors excavate meaning from the ruins, that moment transforms failure into a new beginning.

4. Abstract Meaning-Making: Humanity's Final Domain

There's one thing AI absolutely cannot do: assign meaning to the meaningless.

AI analyzes data and presents optimal solutions. It perfectly calculates "why this is efficient" and "what results this produces." But AI can never say:

"There's no logical basis, but I feel this is beautiful." "Success probability is low, but I believe this is valuable."
"Why? Just... because."

This "abstract" meaning-making is the most human act.

Philosopher Albert Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus about eternally repeating meaningless labor—rolling a boulder to the mountaintop only to have it roll back down. Yet Sisyphus is happy. Why? Because he assigned meaning to that meaninglessness himself.

Ask AI to analyze Sisyphus's labor and it would answer: "Inefficient. Zero productivity. Immediate cessation recommended."

But humans are different. Regardless of efficiency, regardless of results, even when failure seems certain, we can declare: "Still, I believe this has meaning."

Writing a 600-chapter martial arts web novel. Running a low-profit convenience store for 10 years. Investing in low-probability stocks with personal philosophy. Writing daily on a blog with under 10 views. Spending a month hand-drawing what AI renders in 3 seconds.

AI would judge all this "inefficient." The establishment would mock it as "pointless." But humans know: Values exist that can't be converted to efficiency. And those values aren't bestowed by others—they're born the moment you assign them.

5. The Power of Illogic, The Sanctuary of Abstraction

What's important here: this meaning-making need not be logical or concrete. The more abstract and illogical, the more human.

"Why do you write?" → "Just like to." "Why continue this work?" → "Feels meaningful." "What's your evidence?" → "Can't explain, but I'm certain."

AI can't understand such answers. For machines trying to reduce everything to data and logic, inexplicable "feelings" and "intuition" are just error messages. But precisely that illogical error message represents humanity's incalculable domain.

As the establishment's system crumbles and AI replaces many human domains, young people's final weapon in this ruined world is precisely this ability for illogical, inefficient, abstract meaning-making.

Failing to save the world like Eren is fine. Failing to present perfect answers is fine. What matters is the courage to say: "Still, I believe this is meaningful."

However perfect AI's logic, however much the establishment mocks it as "inefficient"—the meaning you assign "without reason" makes you human.

6. Conclusion: Imperfect, Therefore Perfect

At the end of this long journey starting from Sumerian clay tablets 4,000 years ago, I dare declare: Today's young generation isn't history's weakest humanity. Rather, they're the most evolved humanity.

If past humans trained muscles to fight beasts, modern humanity is training the muscles of empathy and meaning to coexist with AI. Though this appears as weakness to the establishment's eyes, it's the new strength the age demands.

Nihilism whispers: "Meaningless. All futile. AI does everything—what can you do?"

But we answer: "Still, I'll create meaning. Why? Just because."

This illogical tenacity, this abstract stubbornness. These emotions and intuitions unconvertible to efficiency—these are humanity's final and strongest weapons for the AI age.

So establishment, before blaming youth's "disrespect," look into their eyes. They're canaries in the coal mine, detecting with their whole bodies the errors in your system. Their resistance is an invitation to break down the walls you built and venture into a wider world.

And young people, don't blame yourselves for weakness. The anxiety you feel, the depression, the friction from failing to adapt to the system—these aren't signals you're broken. They're evidence you're irreplaceable humans. AI never feels anxious. Only humans feel anxiety, and within that anxiety, sing of stars.

Like Edward in Fullmetal Alchemist, like the Survey Corps in Attack on Titan—beautiful because imperfect, advancing because shaken, you're already strong enough.

The walls have fallen. The Titans' power has vanished. Only ruins remain. But planting flowers in those ruins, carving meaning into seemingly meaningless daily life—that's the sanctuary AI cannot imitate, belonging to humans alone.

The meaning you assign is your reason for existence.

(End)