they built a system on a simple plan,
of quantified and conditional man.
with algorithms,
tidy,
neat, and blind,
to manage and to modify the mind.
a scale forever tilted to the stick,
a truth the architects were counseled not to see.
the carrot,
small,
and dangled from a pole,
a mere concession to the human soul.

and from their towers,
they cannot hear the cries,
they see the data points with tranquil eyes.
each protest is a outlier,
not a plea,
a glitch in their mortality.
they are insulated by their own design,
believing logic makes their methods fine.
they speak of "incentives"
in a language dead,
while baking endless sticks,
the daily bread.

but just beyond the fortified gate,
the real world bears the terrifying weight.
the cost of this unending,
cold crusade,
is written in the fury,
unallayed.
it's in the eyes of those who've nothing left,
for whom the carrot is a cruel jest.
the system's waste,
its human fallout, lies
beneath their comfortable,
abstract skies.

and so it stands,
this stark,
unyielding contrast,
the endless stick,
the carrot thin and past.
a world of plenty,
governed by a scheme
that can only fulfill its own nightmare dream.
for you cannot beat a garden into birth,
you cannot trade a threat for human worth.
the only yield this harvest will admit,
a bitter fruit,
grown from unlimited sticks.