Gaia as Constraint: Bandwidth, Polarisation, and Reasoned Application in Human Systems

Abstract Persistent polarisation across political, social, and institutional domains has proven resistant to fact-based correction and moral appeal. This paper proposes a systems-level framework in which polarisation is understood not as a failure of belief or ethics, but as an adaptive response to cognitive and social bandwidth collapse under constraint. Treating Earth (Gaia) as the non-negotiable life-support boundary condition, the framework models human behaviour as phase responses to stress within finite systems. Emotional, social, and political extremes are shown to function as low-bandwidth stabilisation strategies, while reasoned application requires restored safety, agency, and ambiguity tolerance. By…