The seemingly quintessential human invention, regulation. The idea that there are invisible lines which must not be crossed. That our behaviors must conform to certain standards enforced by nebulous entities, either governmental or corporate, each of which is, of course, illusory. No matter what invisible entity the bringer of justice pays lip service to there is only us humans in this world, there is no such actual thing as a government, and it is always an individual who carries out each step of the punishment. A person called a judge tells other people that this one person must be put inside a prison and he is obeyed because everyone present has agreed that they will do what the judge says. Once inside the prison that person is prevented from leaving by other people who do so because by so doing they are given pieces of paper with which they can secure their necessities because all have agreed that these pieces of paper can be used for such things.
It may sound as if I'm criticizing these institutions. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While I believe it is important to know and understand the true nature of these and all institutions as simple illusions of consensus I still recognize them as being the most necessary of illusions. Ones that I believe we should all agree to pay lip service to for the alternative is far worse. If we hope to all work together for the betterment of all, as we not only should but our biologically predisposed to courtesy of our eusocial evolution, we must agree to set limits on our behavior and to enforce those limits against those who would break them for their own profit by the pain of another, this being something else we are predisposed to thanks to evolution. For evolution has imparted us with dueling instincts. On one side we are made to work together for humanity would not have survived if not for the tribe, yet on the other we are made to seek out our own advantage above all. Hence the regulation. To stop those who would seek to profit by destroying everything. As the body must work to keep cancerous cells in check. And there, in one comparison, the idea of regulation as a human invention breaks down.
Regulation is not a human concept but the natural evolution of any system that attempts to harness individual components working of selfish instincts toward a greater good. Any sufficiently complex organism has created a breed of regulatory cells, the lymphocytes, to seek out and eradicate any cell that seeks to reproduce and thrive in a way that harms the organism. A process we call tumor formation, but which the cell might call getting theirs. Similarly, in a wasp nest there are wasps who patrol the hive in search of rebellious workers who may be attempting to lay their own eggs. These eggs, if left unchecked, would create males with whom the all female workers could mate. Since the queen's power comes from total domination of reproduction, this would be the ultimate blow to her power. So we see that regulation is a natural phenomenon. And, like all naturally evolved phenomena, it is often exploited.
There is one crucial flaw in the idea of regulation. Someone has to be given the power to enforce it. Some component of the system is put above it so as to monitor for behavior that goes against the system. But who monitors the monitors? When the hives are studied, the wasps who root out illicit reproduction are those most likely to be committing the crime. As for organisms, lymphoma is one of the most common cancers. The parallels in human history are legion.