Those who have followed me on social media over the years know that I am a proponent and supporter of functional anarchy as the ideal form of social organization. What I mean by functional anarchy is a community where individual freedom is the golden standard, and the only limitation comes from the other person’s rights. You can’t intentionally harm others. You thrive based on collaboration. You can always opt-out. Pretty straightforward and, yet, way easier said than done.
At this point in time, considering the level of uncontained social violence, this ideal of mine and others must be placed in the utopia category, at least until education and common sense develop and take over civilization in a way that will render government nannies unnecessary and obsolete. Now, unfortunately, our best bet means small governments with limited power over the individual’s life. Democracies have tried to embody this idea but failed, in my opinion, to deliver good-enough results. The concept is good, but how we translate it into practice is a never-ending and ever-growing mess.
Everything was fine for hundreds of thousands of years, and then, at some point in history, civilizations took a wrong turn and we have kept on that path since, while imagining we’re heading in the right direction. At some point in history, a small group of men found a way to rule over the majority of society while fooling almost everyone into believing they are protectors, leaders, and shepherds. This social organization crushed individual freedom and only benefits the small group of people whom we now stupidly call “the elite”.
Many scholars, artists, and activists have tried over the last few centuries to open the eyes of fellow humans regarding this enormous mistake, and yet the majority of people refuse to listen or fail to understand the message and its implications.
The warnings took many forms — speeches, articles, books, and most recently, movies. Squid Game (2021-2025) is one such project, whose message is a huge warning to humanity, a guide on how to end the madness, and a glimpse into what it can all transform into if humans finally decided to listen and take decisive action.
I don’t claim to have understood the creator’s original meaning and intention, that is for him and the involved team to share, but the show’s rich collection of symbols and connections allows a wide variety of interpretations. There are many ways to look at Squid Game and even more to decipher it. This article is my view regarding the core messages of the show that can be used by intentional minds to help reshape society for the better.
I will limit the present analysis to these key warnings, but I have also explored other important facets of Squid Game on the website—including the critique of societal structures, the complex appeal of key characters like the Front Man, the moral conflicts shaping humanity’s future, and strategies to avoid dystopian outcomes. You can find the full series of Squid Game articles here for a comprehensive interpretation of this groundbreaking Netflix show.
So, for now, I will list below the main lessons, warnings, and hints about the world we live in that are included in the Squid Game series. These elements, once brought to light and understood by the masses, have the potential to trigger significant societal change. If only we’d listen…
• SPOILERS AHEAD •
About “Squid Game”
Squid Game is a South Korean dystopian thriller series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk. It follows a group of financially desperate individuals who end up participating in a deadly, mysterious competition, created by unknown members of the social elite. The winner takes home the prize money but whether he can live with the moral weight of that win is a personal quest. While some previous winners have joined forces with the creators of the game and continued the tradition of exploitation, the newest top performer, Seong Gi-hun, or Player 456 — a number which represents the total number of contestants in any of the game’s sessions — decides to change the “way of things” and dismantle the practice from the inside by joining the competition once more and maybe convincing the new players to choose life and freedom over money, submission, and almost-certain death. The three seasons of Squid Game follow Seong Gi-hun’s journey from random player to potential saviour. Well… we all know how that ended.
To not let Player 456’s heroic sacrifice go to waste, I think we can all dedicate some time to the hints, warnings, and guidelines hidden in the show’s episodes, especially in the last two seasons, and maybe — just maybe — become more aware of and more invested in the possibility and goal of radically transforming our society from a limitative exploitation-driven environment back into a freedom-honouring civilization.
7 DEAD-SERIOUS SOCIAL WARNINGS HIDDEN IN “SQUID GAME”
Or How Squid Game Exposes the Collapse of Modern Society and Attempts to Trigger Significant Positive Social Change.
1. THE GAME Is An Artificial Creation.
The way our societies function—the rules, the obligations, and the stated set of rights—none of these are naturally occurring. Humans built society, and it reflects their interests, aspirations, limitations, and flaws. The worst part is that the handful of people who decided how to structure our communities did so in a way that doesn’t represent the will or interests of most people. Instead, they prioritized their personal gains over the agreed-upon rights of everyone else. Modern society is fundamentally linked to exploitation, and there have always been—and still are—people who prefer it this way.
2. THE GAME Is Dependent On The Existence Of Classes.
Faux leaders would have no one to rule over if society weren’t stratified based on classes that determine the type of life experience you are likely going to have as a human being. The creators of the game made sure that the main criterion used to establish someone’s class — wealth — is random enough that there will be some fluidity between the categories and yet, that enough of the upper class will always be protected by the sharp difference between the top level and whatever comes second. This also means that it will take an incredible effort from someone in a lower class to move toward higher environments, and that even those who somehow make a class jump will never truly be part of the initially intended elite group. The class you pertain to also defines your main social role.
In Squid Game, there is a representation of three main social classes — The Players (Lower Class), The Pink Guards (Middle Class), and the VIPs (The Elite or High Class) —, two connectors — The Front Man and Player 456 —, and a gatekeeper — The Recruiter.
Each group exists only in relation to the others — remove one, and the entire structure collapses. The Players participate because they are desperate, the Guards obey to maintain a fragile sense of power and security, and the VIPs observe and indulge only because the lower classes enable their spectacle. The game’s rules mimic real-world systems: the elite appear powerful, but only function within a constructed environment that demands the compliance of those beneath them. Without willing Players and complicit Guards, the VIPs would have no entertainment, no control, and no purpose. This mirrors our reality: class systems persist because the vast majority continue to play by their rules, often without questioning the setup. It is not natural law that sustains this hierarchy — it is collective participation. As Squid Game illustrates, if enough individuals refused to play, the game would cease to exist.
3. Voluntary Participation Is A Lie.
Let’s consider the main Squid Game rules, as presented in the show:
The Initial Phase
Voluntary Entry. Players must willingly agree to participate in the games. They are not forced to join and must sign a consent form.
Opportunity to Withdraw. Before the competition officially begins, players are given one chance to withdraw without penalty.
Main Clauses (As Stated in the Consent Form)
A player is not allowed to stop playing. Once the games start, participation is mandatory until completion or termination.
A player who refuses to play will be eliminated. Refusal to participate in any scheduled game results in elimination (i.e., death).
Games may be terminated if the majority agrees. If a majority of players vote to end the games, the entire competition is terminated for all.
Rule Update Timeline
2020 Version: If the games are terminated by majority vote, no prize money is awarded, and players return to their normal lives empty-handed.
2024 Revision: Upon majority termination, the accumulated prize money is divided equally among the remaining players.
Now let’s translate all of this in relation to the way most modern societies function and see what we get:
- The only way to stay safe from the game’s deadly potential is to never enter it at all. That’s the cleanest option and outcome. It matches the class game idea: reject it from the beginning and we can use a different criterion to organize ourselves socially. This is the phase where we can choose merit and temporary hierarchies instead of a never-ending losing game for the majority of people.
- Once you enter this social dynamic, you can’t exit the framework as an individual anymore. You lose your power as a single entity with social potential.
- If you refuse to participate socially as determined by the creators of this environment, you will be shunned by your community. The others will turn against you for simply refusing to obey rules and norms you didn’t even know about before allegedly voluntarily joining the game. No college degree? — Almost no options to make a living. Not married? No kids? — Society learned to turn these life choices against you. And many other such random and often trivial criteria are used against the individual who attempts to move away from so-called social norms. Reality is that unless you harm someone else, you’re truly not affecting the existence of others. Then why isn’t your social group accepting of choices that make sense for the individual, even though they may not be the popular ones?
Back to voluntary participation being ultimately a lie: most of us didn’t get to opt-in ourselves. Others signed us up for this social game. “Thanks” to all previous generations who complied with no regard for the large-scale implications, we’re trapped in this rigged game from the second we’re conceived — Just like Player 222, the new one.
Well, we have one in-game option to stop the injustice and madness: vote our way out as a majority. And boy, isn’t that a trap in itself. See the next point.
4. The Democratic Vote Isn’t The Way.
Democracies are supposed to prioritize the rights and well-being of the individual. One of the main concepts in liberal democracies, presented as a primary tool for achieving this goal, is the democratic vote — where the majority’s choice determines the way forward. It seems fair, right? But is it…?
If we take a closer look at this expected social cure for everything not-democratic, we notice the following issues:
- The vote of a majority doesn’t secure a correct or the best decision; only the most popular one. There’s a reason we don’t all vote on how medical procedures should unfold and where the screws should go on a plane: most of us don’t know enough about these fields to make a safe or even good-enough decision. And while we can collectively see the issue with voting for the best treatment for a certain illness when the majority of people don’t have medical knowledge, for some crazy reason, we think that the majority of individuals is fit to vote on matters that will definitely influence core elements of our everyday lives: safety, justice, warfare, healthcare, education, etc.
- The democratic vote infringes on the individual’s right to exercise his or her freedom by forcing them to obey rules set by the majority. Even if majorities would be mainly comprised of incredibly intelligent, knowledgeable, kind, and skilful people – each and every individual retains a natural right to create for himself or herself, and for himself or herself only, the life they need or want. Even if it’s based on unpopular, poor choices. Again, as long as you don’t harm anyone else by infringing on their natural rights*, you should not be blocked from doing whatever you want, whenever you want it, with absolutely no need to explain yourself or gain supporters for your decisions.
Squid Game shows us how bad the democratic vote is when significant matters are at stake. So many players were forced to continue participating in the deadly competition, even when they wanted out, simply because the majority decided the game should go on. That happens to us every single day. Now pair this with the fact that we’ve never truly opted-in, and therein lies our modern tragedy. And no, “others have it worse” isn’t the argument you want to throw in here. This is not a competition on which social designers were worse than others: they’re all bad. As long as you’re forcing people — abuse taking a variety of forms — to comply with rules that only benefit you and yours, you’re the scum of the earth in my book.
* Note: I did say previously that none of the rights are naturally-occurring, and I stand by that view. Not even the right to live is automatically guaranteed in nature. However, I will still use the term “natural” at times to mean basic, agreed-upon rights, that refer to an individual’s survival and base-level wellbeing, established starting from a natural emotional context: the existence of both empathy and one’s need for self-preservation. I also use “natural” to differentiate basic rights from legal rights that have no roots in the natural existence of humans or that of other beings — for example, the right to severance pay (e.g., receiving a month’s salary after being fired).
5. What Keeps The Game Going Is Lack Of Education, Emotional Manipulation, And Coercion.
If more people were fluent in critical thinking, assertiveness, and empathy, we wouldn’t even have to worry about the existence of this social game:
- People would know their rights and their options. They wouldn’t allow manipulators to fool them into giving them up.
- People would be able to function with no babysitting from their governments or from the so-called rulers and elites.
- Most people would have no desire to control others; their main type of validation would be internal, not external.
- Most people would react promptly and decisively when, inevitably, individuals here and there would attempt to take over by force and impose their rules in a social environment.
- People would be capable of organizing themselves cooperatively, creating fair and flexible systems without relying on rigid hierarchies or imposed authority.
In short, life would be great for most of us and, frankly, who gives a damn that authoritarian-wannabes wouldn’t like it?
There’s a reason why they keep most people so busy with survival so that they can’t dedicate enough time and mental resources to improving their cognition and other skills. And no, so-called state-funded, read taxpayer-funded, free education isn’t the answer. Once again, the social designers decide the framework of one’s education. This is a long analysis in itself. For the purpose of this article, let’s just say there’s no relevant education provided by the states unless you want your kids to learn how to be good sheep. Apologies to the sheep.
6. Those Who Refuse To Better Themselves Trap Everyone Else In The Game.
It’s no secret that those trapped in Player status in Squid Game are the ones whose lives took a significant wrong turn at some point — of course, the reasons behind the radical negative change vary, some are more justified than others, but each series of 456 players relies on the individuals’ inability to find good-enough solutions to their problems. Guess what would solve that? Yeah… education. The real kind.
Education simply being available to everyone isn’t the key, though. Intrinsic motivation to better oneself is. Some people simply refuse or stubbornly resist acknowledging and respecting the value of learning. Not the formal kind; not the kind where you get premium toilet-paper in the shape of a degree. No. The kind that triggers better life results almost instantly. The kind that the individual can build upon to better his or her life, and the kind that generations after generations can use to develop socially as a group.
Those who refuse to better themselves get to vote. And they keep all of us trapped in this ridiculous social game. And this nonsense goes on for generations, and unless we start changing things soon, more and more people will fall prey to this system that feeds on lives, hopes, and other people’s potential.
7. You Don’t Have To Play. We are not horses.
This is probably the most important social warning hidden in Squid Game: No matter how bad things have gotten, we don’t have to continue participating in the destructive chaos. The sooner we realize that not only is there a way out but that we can trigger it whenever we’re ready… the better for each and every one of us and for the future of mankind.
Over to our fellow humans… Which way now? Once again, director Hwang Dong-hyuk captured the complexity of human nature and the open ending that we are now truly facing, in Seong Gi-hun’s last line: “Humans are…”. My interpretation of it, here.
We’ve been at a crossroads for quite some time now. Will we finally right the wrong our ancestors activated thousands of years ago, or will we continue the ritualistic sacrifice generation after generation, on the altar of the elite’s privilege and enjoyment?
For many of us, this is a heartbreaking, painful thing to watch. So many of us see the way out and we can’t step through that door because it’s been designed to only accept us as a group. Remember the Exit doors in the show that needed several keys to open, not just individual ones. Well, maybe… someday… Or we all stay… But you can’t say you haven’t been warned.
—
This article is part of a series.
Click here to check out the other posts related to the “Squid Game” universe.