Curated Reality

In the shadowed halls of power, where whispers carried more weight than laws, the illusion of democracy flickered like a dying flame. Politicians, once the voice of the people, had become mere puppets, their strings pulled by unseen hands. The public, lulled into complacency, believed their votes were the lifeblood of the nation, the pulse of a free society. But it was all a façade, a shell game where the rules changed with each roll of the dice, and corruption was the dealer at every table.

Behind the scenes, a new breed of rulers had emerged—big tech overlords who wielded algorithms as weapons and data as currency. They had transcended the need for governments, surpassing them in power and influence. These titans of industry no longer served the people; they had become their masters. Through screens and speakers, they fed the masses a carefully curated version of reality, a narrative that shifted with the tides of their ambition.

Each day, the public was presented with a new truth, spun from the threads of yesterday's lies. The media, once the watchdog of democracy, had been muzzled, its voice now echoing the will of its corporate overlords. News anchors and journalists had become modern-day snake oil salesmen, peddling the latest version of reality with smiles that didn't reach their eyes. The stories they told were not the stories of the people, but the stories the powerful wanted to be told.

And so, the politicians played their part. They stood before the cameras, delivering speeches that rang hollow, promising change that would never come. They knew the game was rigged, that their power was but an illusion, granted to them by the very entities they were supposed to regulate. But they didn't care. They had learned to thrive in the darkness, to profit from the lies they told.

The public, gaslit and disoriented, clung to the belief that they still had a voice, that their votes still mattered. But in reality, they were pawns in a game they didn't even know they were playing. The truth had become a commodity, bought and sold by those who had the most to gain from its manipulation. And in this brave new world, the truth was only what the powerful deemed it to be.