Bread and Circuses

I am watching the videogame industry. As a child of the 80's, this is second nature to me. I consider entertainment industries such as this one to be canaries in our collective coal mine. I have been watching as the video game industry has transformed itself from a group of salesman selling a product, into a group of drug dealers selling an addiction by withholding most of the products they sell until you are addicted. I've been watching the creeping invasion of privacy perpetrated by both video games and social media. And I've been comparing the two trends. If any of you have played any of the Whit Wolf 'Mage' games, or if you have read any of the literature written by Daniel Quinn, you should have a sense of understanding the idea that our world is a collection of stories. And that the world ends when the stories cease to be coherent, when people cease to believe and tell the story. What a story ceases to be fulfilling, but when it is still providing a certain amount of support for the populace, those studying the culture attached to the story tend to notice arise in distractive entertainment. Sports and media become more involved and more all consuming. I need to distract and divert the general populace becomes a primary concern of those in power. When those in power start to lose the tools by which they can enforce compliance from the general populace, we start to see surveillance as a norm. Whenever there is a breakthrough in the capabilities of the general populace, we can expect a counterpunch, a push back, from those in power. In other words, the spell cast upon the general populace by the current Global Elite is shuddering and faltering. Those currently in power are now at risk of being unseated, by whoever waits in the wings to be the next Elite. And this is a dangerous time for all parties. The bear is wounded. The bear is cornered. The bear is dying. But the bear is not dead and it can kill you as it thrashes about.