A note from Ridley Park on behaviour, control, and the illusion of peace.
Well, it’s out.
Propensity has officially launched.
This one’s been brewing for a while. If Sustenance asked what happens when we can’t understand each other, Propensity asks what happens when we stop needing to.
No invasion. No superintelligence. No overt dystopia. Just a device—quietly implemented—that modulates human behaviour through neurochemical cues. Less anger. Less risk. Less faith, libido, disobedience. More calm. More compliance. More… nothing.
And nobody notices.
Because the best control doesn’t look like control.
The Premise
Imagine a world where we solve violence—not through laws, treaties, or education—but by dampening the neurological signals that make people aggressive in the first place. You don’t choose peace. Peace is chosen for you, chemically. You just comply.
That’s the Propensity Device: a system designed not to control what you do, but to shift what you’re likely to do. Your odds of revolt drop. Your odds of submission rise. It’s not sedative. It’s statistical.
Free will doesn’t vanish. It just stops being statistically significant.
The Themes
The novel explores what happens when:
- Free will is reframed as background noise
- Consent is irrelevant because no one thinks to object
- Violence becomes programmable—but only directionally
- Peace is achieved without ideology, meaning, or narrative
- Narrative itself becomes residue
There’s horror in here, but it’s not loud. It’s administrative. Institutional. Clean.
The horror of things working exactly as designed.
The Tone
Think Black Mirror but less sensational. Think Ballard after a lobotomy.
A dash of Ligotti. A flicker of DeLillo. A long stare from Atwood.
Propensity is soft dystopia—flattened, not broken.
And yes, there’s a fall. But it’s not a collapse. It’s an asymptote.
A tapering. A loss of signal fidelity. A kind of surrender.
Why Write This?
Because we’re already doing it.
Because behavioural nudge theory isn’t fiction.
Because control doesn’t need to be malicious—just implemented.
Because some of the worst horrors are quiet, polite, and empirically validated.
Because I wanted to ask: what if peace worked too well?
Now Available
You can get Propensity on Amazon and other booksellers.
If you do read it—thank you. If you don’t, that’s alright.
The system will keep humming either way.
—
Ridley Park
Possibly a person. Possibly a place. Possibly both.
Ridley Park 