Adam Curtis builds a three-part argument that the machines meant to liberate us instead flattened our politics into something more mechanical and less human. Part one, "Love and Power," follows Ayn Rand's philosophy of self-interest into Silicon Valley and Alan Greenspan's Federal Reserve, where a belief in self-regulating markets and computer networks replaced the messy work of politics with faith in stable, self-correcting systems. Part two traces that same idea into ecology, showing how Arthur Tansley's concept of the ecosystem, borrowed from cybernetics, convinced scientists and then governments that nature and society could both be modeled as balanced, self-organizing machines, no human intervention required. Part three turns to the selfish gene and its journey from biology into explanations for human violence, including the Rwandan genocide. Curtis narrates over a collage of archival news footage, interviews, and stock imagery, cutting between Wall Street trading floors, African villages, and California tech offices to trace one idea spreading across disciplines it was never built for.