The Social Dilema presents a bleak view of our world, where all social interactions are not only mediated simulacra, but also actively manipulated by powerful AI algorithms. The Century of Self traces the rise of psychoanalysis and advanced, subconscious manipulation over the 20th century. Even by the 1980s Baudrillard expounded the world was hyperreal and we were losing distinction between reality and fantasy.

So, how do we get out of this post-modern crisis? Can we ever return to "reality"? Or is the only way forward into a surreal unknown?