“The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters.” – Genghis Khan

Conquest refers to the act of acquiring control over a country, territory, or people through the use of force. It involves the subjugation and domination of one group by another, often leading to significant changes in political, social, and economic structures. Conquest has been a fundamental part of human history and has shaped the development of civilizations, nations, and empires.

While conquest may look different today than it did thousands of years ago, it’s still prevalent. Global empires and organizations are still exerting their force to take control of countries and territories. Conquest is also taking forms that we’ve never quite seen before. With the advent of the internet, conquest has moved into the digital world.

Digital conquest is a new form of conquest made possible by the digital revolution. The concept of conquest has also historically been used in various philosophical contexts to explore themes of power, morality, human nature, and societal development. In this article, we will start by exploring conquest through a philosophical lens. Then we will discuss the evolution of conquest and what it looks like today. Finally, we will discuss two main components of conquest. The conquerer and the empire.

The Idea of Conquest

The idea of conquest at its core is the act of one entity acquiring control over another entity through the use of force. If you have the ability to control another entity, you have a degree of power over it. In order to obtain the power of control over another entity, you must apply force.

In physics, force is any interaction that, when unopposed, will change the motion of an object. Gravity is a prime example of a force. The sun asserts the force of gravity on the solar system, keeping the planets in orbit. If we were to slightly expand the definition of conquest, we could say that the Sun has conquered the solar system.

Abstracted Forms of Conquest

For the purpose of a more abstract exploration, we will expand the definition of conquest to the act of one entity acquiring control over another entity through the application of force. With this definition, we can explore phenomena all across our perceived reality. The first fantastic example we will explore is conquering your own mind.

Conquest of the Mind

“You must conquer your mind before you can conquer the world.” – Swami Sivananda

“He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.” – Lao Tzu

Conquest of the mind has been a conversation amongst the great philosophers throughout all of human history. Conquest of the mind can be thought of as the act of acquiring control over your own mind through the use of force. This conversation can get very complex but the bottom line is that we all have a degree of conscious control over our minds. We can use this conscious control to conquer our feelings, thoughts, and emotions. We have incredible influence over the structure of our minds. Numerous developments in neuroscience are showing us just how much control we have over our own minds. We can wage war and exterminate useless thoughts and ways of thinking that pop up in our minds. We can invade and conquer neural networks in our brain that support bad habits and repurpose them for something useful. It is our job as the masters of our own minds to conquer as much of them as our consciousness allows. If you don’t conquer your own mind, it will conquer you.

Sexual Conquest

Sexual interactions, in many ways, can be thought of as a conquest. The usual process is a man applies force to a woman in order to obtain control over her. Let’s say a man approaches a woman and tells her that she is beautiful. At a purely physical level, he is applying a force via the sound waves that he is emitting from his mouth. Unless she signals a resistance to this force, the man will likely continue to apply it. This force will escalate into a physical application of force as the man will begin to touch her. Unless the woman resists the physical force or signals a resistance to it, it will continue into a sexual interaction. The sexual interaction is a great application of physical force by the man onto the woman. I’m not talking about a coercive application of force in this example. I’m assuming that the woman has been receptive across the entire process. Once the man has had sex with the woman, he has obtained a great level of control over her. Women are biologically designed to become attached to men that they engage with sexually. These biological mechanisms are very powerful. They’ve evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to ensure the survival and reproductive success of humans. After the sexual interaction is complete, the sexual conquest is over for the man. This example is not to make relationships seem shallow and all about conquest. It is just to point out a common process that can be thought of as a form of conquest. There is much more that goes into relationships such as love. Funny enough, love can also be thought of as a form of conquest, but we’ll save that for another article.

Corporate Conquest

Corporate conquest occurs when one company seeks to acquire control of another company. These acquisitions can happen through the use of force in what is known as a hostile takeover. In a hostile takeover, the target companies management does not consent to the acquisition. The acquirer bypasses the management and directly offers to buy shares from the shareholders. They are using a monetary force to acquire control over the company that they desire. One prominent example was the acquisition of Nabisco by Kraft Foods:

Nabisco’s management initially rejected Kraft’s offer to acquire the company. In response to the rejection, Kraft launched a proxy fight to persuade Nabisco’s shareholders to vote in favor of replacing the company’s board of directors with individuals supportive of the takeover. Facing mounting pressure and the likelihood of being replaced, Nabisco’s management eventually conceded. Kraft successfully acquired a controlling interest in Nabisco by purchasing a majority of its shares.

Conquest in the business and corporate realm is a constant occurrence. Large companies are always looking to exert their influence in order to control their competition. Anti-monopoly laws have been implemented in the United States and other countries around the world to prevent large companies from conquering their entire industry. These anti-monopoly laws aren’t very effective.

The Evolution of Conquest

Now that we have a philosophical understanding of conquest, it’s time to discuss it through an evolutionary lens. If we take a trip back to our hunter gatherer ancestors, we see the first seeds of mass conquest. Since hunter gatherers functioned most efficiently as small self-sustaining groups, there wasn’t much of a need for conquest. It’s believed that hunter gatherer tribes did compete over access to resources like food and territory, but it didn’t quite look like conquest. Hunter gatherers were more preoccupied with conquering nature than other groups. It wasn’t until the agricultural revolution that conquest really started to take form.

Systematic Conquest

The agricultural revolution brought massive changes to the way that humans lived their lives. Thanks to agricultural surpluses, specialized roles and complex social hierarchies were able to take form. Increased abundance of food also allowed populations to grow, leading to competition over resources like land and water. Eventually, states began to form with centralized authorities. This allowed the organization of large armies and systematic conquest. Empires such as the Roman, Persian, and Macedonian Empires expanded through systematic military conquests.

During the middle ages, groups like the Mongols under Genghis Khan conducted extensive and brutal conquests across Asia and Europe. The crusades and other religiously motivated conflicts also took place during this period.

Once the early modern period was reached, European powers began to explore and conquer territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, leading to the establishment of vast colonial empires. Innovations in navigation, weaponry, and shipbuilding facilitated overseas conquests. This period saw the rise of the Spanish, Portuguese, and British Empires.

The Industrial Revolution brought about advancements in military technology, leading to more destructive and widespread conflicts. Germany was able to conquer much of Europe with unprecedented speed thanks to these new military technologies. The two World Wars of the 20th century were characterized by unprecedented scale and devastation, involving multiple countries and continents.

Digital Conquest

Digital conquest is a new form of conquest made possible by the digital revolution. In the modern world, unfathomable amounts of digital information are being transmitted in real-time across the entire globe. The largest companies in the world have carved out a space for themselves in this digital information economy. These companies are some of the most powerful entities in the world and can be thought of as digital empires. We will expound upon this idea after discussing the different types of force that are used in digital conquest:

Digital Warfare

Digital warfare is the various forms of warfare that are made possible by digital technology. These are the forces that digital empires use to acquire control of their enemies. There are many faucets of digital warfare, but we are just going to discuss the most prominent ones.

Cyber Warfare

Cyber warfare involves the use of digital attacks against an adversary’s computer systems, networks, and infrastructure with the intent to disrupt, damage, or control them. Cyber warfare is used by nation-states, terrorist organizations, and even private sector entities to inflict damage on their enemies.

Information Warfare

Another prominent form of digital warfare is information warfare. Information warfare involves the manipulation, distortion, or control of information to influence public perception, disrupt communication, and undermine the enemy’s decision-making processes. This includes propaganda, disinformation, fake news, psychological operations (PSYOP), and media manipulation.

Drone and Autonomous Systems Warfare

There is now a widespread use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and autonomous systems for surveillance, reconnaissance, and direct attack missions. These systems can be remotely controlled or operate autonomously.

Social Media Warfare

Social media platforms can be weaponized to conduct psychological operations, influence public opinion, recruit personnel, and gather intelligence. Social media can be a powerful tool for both propaganda and counter-propaganda efforts.

All of these different types of digital warfare can be utilized in the act of modern conquest.

The Conquerer

“Conquest has made me what I am, only conquest can maintain me.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” – Julius Caesar

The conquerer is the entity applying force in order to obtain control over another entity. Why does this entity apply force in order to obtain control over another entity? In other words, what makes a conquerer? We will explore the drivers and motivations for conquest and then take a look at modern day conquerers.

Desire for Power and Control

“Wherever I found a living thing, there I found the will to power.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

All humans, to varying degrees, seek control over their environment. Humans have created all sorts of technologies that allow us to better do this. Some people are content with just having control over their house and their children. Other individuals have much greater ambitions for what they wish to control. Conquerers are individuals that want to control as much land and people as possible. Historically, after these individuals had already acquired a great empire, they decided to keep pushing the limits by conquering more and more. They wanted more power and more control over everything and everyone that they could get their hands on. Acquiring power and control over new areas allowed them to spread their ideas and their culture.

I believe that the conquerer spirit exists inside of every man. Engrained in every man is the biological imperative to survive and reproduce. Survival and reproduction are both forceful acts that require control over external entities. This basic programming is all that is required to awaken the conquerer spirit. This doesn’t mean that all men will become conquerers. An infinitesimal number of men are ever considered conquerers in perpetuity. Most men aren’t even aware that they possess the conquerer spirit within them. They are taught that conquest is inherently evil. Maybe it is.

Survival and Reproductive Success

From an evolutionary perspective, behaviors that enhance survival and reproductive success are selected for. What better way to ensure reproductive success than to acquire new resources, mates, and territory? Here are some notable examples of conquerers throughout history that had an unfathomable number of children and mates:

Genghis Khan

• Genghis Khan fathered hundreds of children, with genetic studies suggesting that his descendants make up a significant portion of the modern Central Asian population.

Sultan Moulay Ismail of Morocco

• He is reputed to have fathered over 1,000 children, possibly even more, earning him the Guinness World Record for the most children fathered by a single man. Moulay Ismail had a harem that reportedly included hundreds of wives and concubines.

Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire

• Murad III’s harem included over 1,000 women, comprising wives, concubines, and attendants.

These are just a few examples of conquerers throughout history that attained large harem’s of women. Conquest is a high-risk, high-reward behavior. There is a high chance of being killed in battle or assassinated by rivals, but if pulled off, it provides seemingly unlimited reproductive options. The genes of these great conquerers were very happy to say the least.

Modern Day Digital Conquerers

The most powerful individuals in the world today have leveraged the immense power of digital technology. Many of these individuals can be considered modern day conquerers, digital conquerers if you will. They have asserted their force on the world by taking control of mass amounts of data, information, and computing power. These men are constantly pushing for more wealth and power despite all of their previous success. These men can be thought of as modern day conquerers. Elon Musk is a great example:

Elon achieved tremendous riches when he sold the financial technology company PayPal in 2002. Despite his enormous newfound wealth, he decided to create more companies including SpaceX and Tesla. These companies made him even more wealthy, making him the richest man in the world at one point. Despite this enormous level of success, he then decided to acquire Twitter. He is a perfect example of someone that is constantly looking to expand his power and influence in the world. He is certainly a modern day conquerer.

Another example of a digital conquerer is Bill Gates:

Bill Gates founded Microsoft in 1975. Gates employed aggressive business strategies to maintain and expand Microsoft’s market share. Gates eventually stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. Instead of retiring with his enormous wealth, he decided to found the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation focuses on global health, education, and poverty alleviation. It also focuses on influencing global policy and political decisions involving solutions for global health and development. While it is a philanthropic institution, it is certainly an entity that can be used by Bill Gates to exert his influence on the world through the use of monetary force.

Mark Zuckerberg is the final example we will explore:

He founded the technology company Facebook which quickly became the most popular social media company in the world. Since its creation, Facebook has grown into a digital empire, eventually being renamed Meta. Along the way it has acquired countless other technology companies including Instagram. Meta is now a massive conglomerate, driving the path of the digital revolution.

All of these individuals have conquered large portions of the digital world that we live in today. This digital conquest has provided them with massive amounts of power, control, and access to resources.

The Empire

The empire is the entity that the conquerer is in command of. Empires often outlive the men that carved them out in the first place. They have a life of their own. We will explore the behavior of these entities. Then we will talk about what they look like in digital form.

Expansionist Policy

Empires often pursue aggressive expansionist policies to acquire new territories. This can involve military conquest, colonization, or diplomatic treaties.

Centralized Authority

Empires typically have a strong central government that exercises authority over distant provinces and regions.

Military Strength

Empires maintain large, well-equipped armies to defend their borders, suppress rebellions, and conduct further conquests. They often invest in military technology and infrastructure, such as fortifications, roads, and naval fleets.

Economic Control

Empires exploit the natural resources of their territories to support the central state and fund further expansion.

Digital Empires

The massive technology conglomerates of the modern world can be thought of as digital empires. These digital empires are so powerful that they exert their influence on the largest nation-states of the modern world. Social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter have a massive influence on the elections in the United States, the most powerful nation-state in the world. The introduction of advanced artificial intelligence technology will only increase the power of these digital empires. Let’s check to see if these digital empires meet the criteria of an empire:

Expansionist Policy

The largest technology companies are constantly expanding their global market share. As the world becomes more and more digitized, their ability to expand becomes greater and greater.

Centralized Authority

It is common for there to only be a small group of people in charge of these companies. Generally the founder maintains a majority share and a majority say in the direction of the company. A small group of directors also maintain a level of control over the company.

Military Strength

While these technology companies don’t have militaries in the traditional sense, they wield massive amounts of computing power that can be used for digital forms of warfare such as information warfare.

Economic Control

The technology companies certainly have an extreme degree of economic control. Economic control may be their single greatest source of power. With the continued globalization of markets, tech companies can engage in conquest through them.

Criteria Fit

While digital empires take a different form than empires have historically taken, they fit all the criteria and behaviors to be considered empires.

Conclusion

This article was written as an exploration of conquest. Conquest has certainly changed form over time, but the same forces that brought it into existence are still very much in play. Conquest is an idea and a force in the world that cannot be overlooked. Overlooking it will cause you to have an incomplete view of the world. This article can be revisited at any time as a reminder of the powerful force of conquest.