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> fear of leftist politics...

What I said, huh?! Maybe before you throw in the Stasi Wikipedia article, you should check out the CCC's. They advocate for a strong state regulations, strong democratic structures and freedom of the individual, including privacy. Transparency for the state, privacy for the individual. Large parts of their member base are anticapitalists and anarchists, minding the collective welfare, so I figured from an American perspective that's quite far left.

You won't find advertisement or any commercial interests on their very large conferences, which are completely organized and managed by volunteers. On every level. There is absolutely no tolerance for right wing ideas, police or military.

That's why I think their political background here is important, they always been activists advocating for everyone's welfare and rights. Something rather unusual for non left wing politics.

Also the CCC and European hacker culture. I think in the US hacker culture is different and less political, because of the FBI suffocating its roots early on, and a general fear of leftist politics. In europe, and Germany in particular, the CCC and close structures have been really important correctives since before the internet. And they are like reeeally left wing anticapitalist idealists and antiauthoritarians, which plays part to their motivation.

I don't think partial control of a complex system requires a system of equal complexity. Even human behavior can be influenced in the brain by something simple as a drug or virus.

Natural selection tends to work on traits that are relevant till the ability to reproduce ends. If the trait can dominate by rapid reproduction, life span does not matter and robustness is not selected for. Generally it is not an inherent trade-off between certain traits, apart from energy consumption.