[tveita]

In practice, relying on a clearly defined mathematical problem that is thought to be hard to solve has worked out a lot better than the common alternative of throwing a bunch of random shit together and hoping the result is too complex for anyone to understand.

For asymmetric cryptography there is no alternative not based on math. Even snake oil cryptography mostly deals in symmetric crypto like "unbreakable" ciphers and hashes, because you can't make a working asymmetric encryption scheme by mashing together whatever operations your schizophrenia tells you to.