"what if some influential genius had recognized the threat and stood up and yelled Stop?" I guess influential is defined by impact, so no influential genius co

"what if some influential genius had recognized the threat and stood up and yelled Stop?" I guess influential is defined by impact, so no influential genius could do so. But the warnings were there, and are here. And have been here. It's been a long time coming, but Nietzsche wrote a century ago, "The massive influx of impressions is so great; surprising, barbaric, and violent things press so overpoweringly--'balled up into hideous clumps'--in the youthful soul; that it can save itself only by taking recourse in premeditated stupidity." I've long liked that term, 'premeditated stupidity'. It certainly seems to fill the bill for most games. And why not, if one looks for refuge in their games? A moment of solace, of control (however illusory), where everything can once again make sense. Did some digging and found what has been, for me, an influential essay on this topic. In "Harper's" April, 2002, Thomas de Zengotita writes, "To get relief, you have to stumble into the Greyhound bus station in Albany, or some old side0street barbershop that time forgot, into someplace not yet subjected to the renovating ministrations of the International Red Brick and Iron Filigree Restoration Corporation. And 'stumble' is the key concept here. Accidental places are the only real places left." Sounds a bit like the meadow, except it becomes The Meadow, itself succumbing (at least in the minds of others) to the simple category fetishism that seems insurmountable. "It would be irrelevant to object by asking, 'Well, how else are we supposed to do it?' There isn't any other way to do it. That's the point. This isn't a consultant's memo. This is a serious diagnosis of a serious condition. Would we rather not know about it because it happens to be incurable? This goes much deeper than subject matter, or political bias, the usual fodder. It determines the way we frame everything. Like all that is most profound in human custom, this agreement is almost physical, an attunement, more music than semantics. It instills and expresses, moment by moment, the attitude we bring to living in this world of surfaces."