Remember when The Matrix felt like science fiction?
I do. Ahhh. Good times…
I mean it all seemed like a cool philosophical speculation instead of getting down and dirty on Tuesday trying to wash off the stink of existentialism.
But here we are… 2025, where everything feels so surreal that taking the red pill seems redundant.
We’re living in a world where AI can write better poetry than most poets, generate photos indistinguishable from reality, and have conversations so human like that people fall in love with chatbots.
Meanwhile, billionaires are launching cars into space for fun while others can’t afford insulin.
The news cycle moves so fast that yesterday’s doom and gloom headline is a forgotten footnote or whatever.
Wars start and end in our peripheral vision while we scroll through videos of people dancing.
Democracy feels like a reality show where the contestants keep forgetting they’re on camera.
Social media has turned everyone into simultaneously the star, director, and audience of their own personal Truman Show.
We curate our lives for algorithms that know us better than we know ourselves, chasing validation from strangers while losing touch with our actual neighbours.
The economy makes no sense. My gold trades got absolutely fucked at around 6am this morning.
Housing costs are beyond parody.
A sandwich costs like $10, but a billion dollar company can lose half its value overnight because one guy tweeted something stupid while having a shit.
Cryptocurrency millionaires live next to people working three jobs who still can’t make rent.
Climate change is reshaping the planet while we debate whether it’s real.
Forests burn, ice melts, storms grow stronger, and somewhere a committee is scheduling a meeting to discuss forming a subcommittee to consider maybe doing something about it.
Everything feels simultaneously hyperreal and completely artificial.
We have access to more information than any generation in human history, yet truth feels more elusive than ever.
Reality and simulation have blurred to the point where the distinction might not matter anymore.
Maybe Morpheus wasn’t offering us a choice between reality and illusion.
Maybe he was showing us that the choice itself is the illusion. Maybe the simulation isn’t something being done to us, maybe it’s something we’re collectively creating, one swipe, one click, one stupid internet interaction at a time.
The biggest issue we’re going to face is whether or not we remember what reality felt like before we built this elaborate digital dungeon and decided to live inside it so chronically.
But hey, at least the graphics are getting better and Zuckerberg fucked the metaverse.
I’m also still waiting for my NFT jpeg bullshits to also pay my rent but that’s not gonna happen any time soon.
Well. You’ll find me in a book or in a puddle of my own drool, I’ve almost given up on humanity of late.
Stephen Walker.