Hyper-Realist Takeover

You, my dear readers, are the best; I want to thank all of you for visiting my humble blog and leaving your votes and responses. We don't have to agree on everything, on anything at all in fact, for me to appreciate your responses. Even though I often fail to respond to your comments, rest assured that I read and appreciate all of them. Today I'd like to especially thank @logiczombie, whose response is the direct inspiration for this post.

The video at the bottom of this post was shared by fellow blogger @logiczombie, and I just had to pass it on to all of you, dear readers, it's that good :-) The title and topic, "How Reality Dies", is something I've been interested in for a while now and has to do with hyperreality:

Hyperreality [...] is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins. It allows the co-mingling of physical reality with virtual reality (VR) and human intelligence with artificial intelligence (AI).
_{source: Wikipedia}

We usually just grind through our busy lifes and don't pay much attention to the charade that's being performed before our eyes, but when we stop and think for just a minute, we can see this hyper-real world all around us; how many times have you seen fiction in films and books, and thought to yourself "wait a minute, isn't that what's going on in the real world right now?" I've mentioned on multiple occasions the mega popular series "24" with secret agent Jack Bauer, as well as many Hollywood films and other TV series full of security-cam shots, in which the 24 hour surveillance state is thoroughly normalized in our subconscious minds. The blending of objective reality with "the spectacle" also makes itself known by expressions like "infotainment", indicating that "the news" has become yet another form of entertainment in a society that doesn't appreciate facts anymore, only subjective opinions. This in my mind is a direct consequence of the idolization of the individual that comes along with the capitalist paradigm in which everything revolves around individual achievement, individual failure and individual responsibility, with no room for anything even resembling collectivism. That's the root of the departure from reality, for we ARE social creatures and any progress we've made has been made by groups, never individuals.

This hyper-individualism has taken such drastic forms as to make some truly believe in "alternative facts", claiming they have "facts of their own"... Trump's presidency is the prime example of this fact; never has a public figure been able to speak so many falsehoods and being adored for it. This is true by the way for any spokesperson for the political right to some degree; they have to lie to justify their departure from the reality that we're not merely individuals, on the contrary, we're social beasts and derive our individuality from the sounding board that is society. Anyhow, thanks once again, @logiczombie; I've always loved the Wisecrack videos, but somehow missed this one :-) Please watch it, dear readers, and maybe pay a visit to @logiczombie 's blog on Hive!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, keep safe, keep healthy!