The dream is over: A new simulation begins

We no longer even live in a dream world. ‘It’s just a simulation’ as many of my peers are fond of saying. We’re on the cusp of fifty years old, supposed to be inheriting the earth and everything on it, but not a bar of it. The world still ruled by octogenarian white men and a number hiding behind the curtains and in the shadows.

Which brings us to Trump. Let’s have it right: he’s not even the first President ‘crook’. Nixon, self-confessed, and others along the way tread that path. The first mugshot President? Sure. And if JFK was the first TV President, and Obama the first social media, Trump was surely the first reality TV President.

Then US president John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, arrive at Love Field airport in Dallas on the day of the president’s assassination, November 22, 1963. (AP Photo/File) – Times of Israel Blogs

Except none of it is real anymore. The question now isn’t Trump 2.0 or not. Nor Obama 2028 – and what a candidate Michelle could be – or some other, alternate, future hope to cling to. The question now is: where next as we herald the first AI President?

What does this foreshadow? Is the content pumped out that all the sheeple of the world follow blindly… the content that is swaying this election like never before… is any of it even real anymore?

Was Trump really shot at? Is that him at the Drive-Thru? Can we be sure he’s even alive? Is Putin? That they’re not just some sort of re-upped, Coachella-version Tupaq Shakur hologram? Cerebral, re-booted T-1000’s of the 2020’s? Optimus Third Generation on steroids? The hush-hush, new Percepto Model X10 behind the scenes?

What can we believe in what is now a post, post-truth world?

What do ‘they’ know that we don’t? How much data is being crunched on us? That which we handed over freely, and that which was stolen from us?

It’s none of it true. The content. Mainstream and social media. None of it. Just algorithmic, ‘Matrix’-like fodder: soma for the masses to distract and ease their pain and worry and trauma. Our collective trauma: the complex PTSD we have all been exposed to for twenty years and more extensively.

I noticed it in ’99, but only understood fully post-pandemic. The lulls between news cycles since have compressed, and the intensity of each crisis spikes more terrifyingly than the last. In a globalised and digital society, the previously unimaginable horrors of our times seem inescapable.

Confetti flies after the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball drops in a nearly empty Times Square, early Friday, Jan. 1, 2021, as the area normally packed with revelers remained closed off due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) – Times of Israel Blogs

Don’t believe me? Let’s track back. In roughly chronological order. The Millennium Bug; 9/11 and The War on Terror; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the Boxing Day and Japanese tsunamis; the worldwide recession and the property crisis; endless pillaging of, famine in, and brutal civil wars across Africa. Take a breath. It’s barely 2004.

The Fukushima meltdown and Icelandic volcanic eruptions; the conflicts in and terror of Middle East conflict escalations, Al Qaeda and ISIS; wahabist jihadism; global warming and environmental catastrophes. May I continue?

Waves of refugee crises; the horrors of Putin’s Russia; Brexit and isolationism; Trump 45 and a new breed of facism; abominable racism, George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, and civil war in all but name in America. Still more.

An IDF illustration of a Hezbollah bunker under a Beirut hospital. The IDF says the bunker contains some $500 million in cash and gold. (Screen capture/ YouTube) – Times of Israel Blogs

An unprecedented global pandemic; a chilling resurgence of antisemitism, always the canary in the coalmine for all of society; brutal wars in Ukraine; the tyranny of dictators and lurch back to extremism; and now Hamas’ unimaginable pogrom and the worsening tragedy in Gaza; Hezbollah and Lebanon; Israel and Iran.

Did I miss anything? Apologies. The list is too long. But hopefully you get the gist.

I’m not the first to note that this incessant and relentless bombardment – in traditional mass-media, social platforms, and online communities – leaves the vast majority of the developing world in a perpetual state of terror.

Even worse, what we are witnessing impacts the most marginalised, abandoned and impoverished more than us ‘luckier ones’ in the West. It seems that society has never been so unequal, the disparity between ultra-wealthy and the impoverished grows daily.

We are divided, compassion and kindness in such short supply, and as a society have lost the ability to question the narratives forced on us.

We are less educated, more misinformed, and hold entrenched and polarised opinions. Our days and nights are spent screaming into the void in digital echo chambers, as Adam Curtis consistently points out. To summarise: nothing ever changes, and all hope seems lost, perhaps forever. We live in an unreal world. And are trapped.

Most of us have become zombies drifting through our lives; despairing for the future of our children; sedated, comatose and doped up in one way or another, seeking some way to escape and keep the worries of the world at bay. And we are braced: because we know Trump wins. We know. The merry-go-round is about to start again.

A man watches the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at a 97-year-old movie theater. Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Shawnee, Kansas. (AP/Charlie Riedel) – Times of Israel Blogs

Trump wins. We know this, deep in our hearts. We know. Trump wins. And the world awaits with bated breath. When push comes to shove, America won’t elect a woman, let alone one of colour. Not yet. Not now. Not this time around.

Geo-politically nothing has changed for twenty years. Putin remains in control, on both sides of the equation in every aspect of The Middle East. He has tested Europe and NATO and found weakness. He is dozens of moves ahead.

Xi is well shielded from the gaze of the world as the long war Putin wanted and needed – how could they not spot the classic tell-tale signs of that Putin ploy? – keeps them focused on Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and more. And what of Trump?

Republican presidential candidate and former US president Donald Trump holds a news conference outside the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on August 15, 2024 in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Adam Gray/Getty Images. North America/Getty Images via AFP) – Times of Israel Blogs

It’s enough to make your head spin. I have no idea what comes next, after November 5^th, but I can tell you I’m certain – as I was when he first secured the keys to The White House – that Trump wins. We no longer live in a dream world. Welcome to the next simulation.