Sometimes I think about what Juneval said about bread and circuses

I feel small. Even when I'm with others, I always feel alone. Alone, intellectually. Few people think about what I think about. Few people worry about what I worry about. Few people care about what I care about. There must be people like me, and that thought sometimes comforts me. There must be people who are aware, or crazy and know-it-alls-who-actually-know-nothing and conspiracy-minded, depending on how you look at it. Even I am not sure if what I think is right or wrong. But I'd rather say something than commit a kind of intellectual suicide and tell myself, "This is not right, I shouldn't be thinking about this," and remain silent forever. The most ironic thing is that I'm probably not free from what I denounce here either. I'm no better than anyone else.

When I try to talk to someone about a serious topic, the conversation often ends up going the same way. They ask me to drop the subject. And they talk to me about the weather, someone else's life, trends and absolute nonsense. And I get it. I myself sometimes start talking about very trivial things. And it's fine. But when there's no balance, when one is incapable of having just a little critical thinking to talk about something a little more complicated, that's when I start to worry. Perhaps a conversation that requires no mental effort is more entertaining. Right. I see. We live in a world of immediacy and fun and colours and reels and confetti so I'm not surprised.

It doesn't bother me that I can't hold some conversation. What bothers me is what this reflects about society. It's as if we were anaesthetised in a system designed to keep us entertained, a reality that isn't very obvious to someone who's content with the fact that at least we have a roof over our heads and food to eat, unlike a few years ago. And that's true; our quality of life is better than it was in the last century, but one thing does not negate the other. The danger here is that there's no awareness. And what can be done to an unconscious and manipulable people is quite terrifying.

But hell, who cares about being aware? Give them an algorithm that shows them dubious content indefinitely. Give them sensationalist headlines to make them feel hatred and fear. Give them generative AI to spare them any cognitive processing. Give them short videos that will ruin their attention span. Give them anything to distract them from the real world. Give them bread and circuses, and they will never revolt.